I think I heard someone say "testing the waters" back when I was maybe 8, when English was still very much a tertiary language to me, and it was self-explanatory enough that it didn't need any explanation.
If you're operating below that level of understanding English, why are you even trying to translate something into it? Just get a guy who properly speaks it, they're not that rare. And get a spellchecker too while you're at it; even bottom-tier browsers will do it for you nowadays so this really is a shameful display.