Ok, for anyone interested - its cos the JSON module needed to explicitly use the utf8 functions JSON->new->utf8 , and then also decode(). I've changed it to this, and it works perfectly now <G>

sub Do_Translate {

    my ($from,$to,$string) = @_;
    
    my $url = "https://www.googleapis.com/language/translate/v2?key=$k
+ey&q=$string&source=$from&target=$to";
    
#    print "getting URL: $url \n";
    
    my $ua = LWP::UserAgent->new();
    
    my $body = $ua->get($url);
    my $json        = JSON->new->utf8;
    my $value = $json->decode( $body->decoded_content );
    
    print "GOT: $value->{data}->{translations}[0]->{translatedText} \n
+";

    return utf8($value->{data}->{translations}[0]->{translatedText})->
+latin1; 
    
}
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