When someone speaks to you

Loquela carries both directions. This is the half where somebody else is talking — a doctor, a pharmacist, a neighbour.

One button, three states

In a room that crosses languages, the hub offers Listen.

1. Listen — tap it when the other person starts speaking.
2. What did they say? — tap it when they have finished.
3. Translating… — a moment, and their words appear.

Nothing is sent while they are still talking. The tap is what sends it, and that is the point: it is a decision, not a microphone left running.

The original never disappears

What they said appears in their own language, with the translation underneath. It stays there.

This matters more than it sounds. If a daughter in the room speaks both languages, she can see immediately that something has come out wrong. Loquela never presents a translation as the last word.

If you would rather not tap

In Settings → Listening & speaking there is a switch that translates on its own after a pause in the room, so nobody has to press anything mid-sentence.

It is off until you turn it on, and turning it on is the whole consent: with it off, nothing ever leaves the device without a tap.

If hearing is the difficulty

Two more switches in the same place:

• Read aloud what is said — the device speaks the translation, instead of only showing it.
• I have problems with hearing — Loquela then writes down what is said even at home, in a language everyone in the room already shares, so nothing is missed across a kitchen table.

Without a connection

Listening itself works offline, once the one-time language download for that language has finished.

What needs a connection is the translation. With no signal, their words still appear on screen in their own language with a calm note that the translation is waiting — and it fills itself in as soon as the signal returns. Nothing is lost, and a translation that arrives late is never suddenly spoken aloud.