Message Translation is a service for Gmail that will translate your email into no less than 41 languages! I didn’t stand a chance, really. And to think I could have avoided all those harrowing German lessons with Mr Johnson, wielding his broken snooker queue as if it were Excalibur, ready to bring it down on the desk of the next boy who wasn’t paying attention. Where were you then, eh Google?

Anyway, I digress. The feature integrates Google Translate technology into Gmail and will appear within Gmail Labs as an experiment called “Message Translation”. It will be available to Gmail users around the world. Anyone who takes part in this experiment will be able to view any emails they receive in any one of the 41 languages at their disposal. Much to my chagrin, I can’t deny it’s a really useful feature, particularly if you have relatives abroad and you’ve let your ancestoral tongue wane. Ahem.

The very fact that 113 million people worldwide use Gmail is reason enough to suggest that this feature will be a success. But I really do hope that it doesn’t mean the end for children learning foreign languages at school. It’d be a real shame to deprive them of the same experiences I went through…