‘Love & Translation’: Inside TLC’s Most Extreme Dating Show Yet (Exclusive)
There’s no language barrier when it comes to love for three new reality stars. ET’s Denny Directo spoke to Kahlil Haughton, Dylan Hodge and Tripp Bromley, the three guys looking for love on Love & Translation, TLC’s new show in which the American men try to find build a connection with woman from all over the world, none of whom speak English.
“I knew we would be meeting foreign women, but I didn’t know they wouldn’t speak any English. That was a surprise for me,” Dylan tells ET, with Kahlil adding, “I was like, ‘What did I get myself into? What am I about to say that’s gonna help portray myself to these girls? How are you gonna make a connection?'”
Meanwhile, Tripp went right into problem solving mode, with his instincts pushing him to “set a tone.”
“[If I] show I’m a goofy guy then maybe that’ll bring some goofiness out of [the women],” he reasons. “… [It was] uncharted waters for all of us, but I think setting the tone… It was like, ‘OK, let’s relax here and have some fun.”
Once the reality of their situation set in, the guys realized they were competing for affection from the same group of women.
“In the beginning, we were trying to be like, ‘Dang, are we attracted to the same girl? How are we gonna work this out?'” Kahlil admits. “… I think we were all pretty nice about it.”
Not only were the men nice to one other, but they also “absolutely” made it a point to debrief with each other every day during the experience, according to Tripp.
“It’s the only way we could stay sane,” he says. “We were the only people who could talk to each other. I was so grateful to have these gentlemen alongside me… They got us through this, because I would’ve lost my mind if I couldn’t speak at all.”
Dylan agrees, noting, “When you can’t speak English to the people you wanna build a relationship with, you start building relationships with people you can speak English with. We got pretty close… even just kind of laughing about the awkward moments that would happen.”
The language barrier led to “endless amounts of misunderstandings,” Tripp says, but ultimately thinks it was a good thing.
“I learned how to communicate on deeper levels, to the point, like, man, if words were used in this scenario we may not have connected the same way. We may have actually had a bigger misunderstanding by speaking in this moment, than the way that we just shared this time,” he says. “I was surprised by [how] once we got comfortable in the situation we were in how easy it became to connect.”
Dylan likewise became “surprised by how well you can communicate with just body language.”
“I learned a lot about myself and a lot of different cultures too,” Kahlil adds. “… It’s really helped me a lot.”
Now, Kahlil “absolutely” believes that love is stronger than any language barrier.
“A language barrier is, like, nothing,” he says. I feel like now, to us, that’s just another thing to jump over. It’s cool. It’s not as bad as most people think.”
Sangita Patel, who serves as the series’ host, concurs, telling ET, ” The best part for me was actually watching on the side and seeing their connections being made through the experiments… It’s pretty spectacular to watch… Love is really a universal language.”
Love & Translation will premiere Jan. 21 on TLC.
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