## Story 001: Monolingual book club member joins cross-language conversation

**Persona:** Sophie, 52, retired librarian in Lyon. She reads books in English but speaks only French. She joined an online book club that discusses English-language releases. She has never used translation software intentionally.

**Situation:**

Sophie has been reading 'The Midnight Library' with a global book club. The chat happens in real-time on Wednesday evenings. She can read English slowly but cannot type fast enough to keep up. She watches the conversation happen without her and feels excluded.

**Need:**

As Sophie, I want to type in French and see other people's messages translated to French, so that I can participate in the conversation at my own reading pace without feeling lost.

**Acceptance:**
- Sophie can send a message in French and see it delivered
- Sophie receives messages from English-speaking members and they appear to her in French
- The translation is readable (not obviously machine-broken) for casual book discussion
- Messages arrive fast enough that the conversation feels live, not laggy

**Tier:** core

**Confusion-flags:**
- What happens if translation is wrong or culturally weird? Does Sophie know it's translated or does she assume it's native writing?
- Is there a way for Sophie to see the original English if the translation feels off? Or would that break immersion and make her feel the system doesn't trust her?
- How does Sophie know who is speaking what language? Does she need to see 'German speaker' labels, or does the fact that she chose French as her language make that implicit?
