Recent studies have shown that the accuracy of translations using Google Translate has improved tremendously. Although this tool is certainly no substitution for learning a field language, or second (or third) langauge of scholarship, it does present new opportunities for in-the-field and in-text translations.
For instance, many classic scholarly texts will frequently quote non-English texts at length (without offering translations in text or footnotes). In one of the classic texts anthropologists turn to on nationalism, Imagined Communities, the polyglot Anderson does just this -- quoting passages of French and Indonesian at length without translation. Now you can simply snap a picture of the quote and translate it directly through your mobile app to help you work through these examples in making the scholars key arguments.
