Translation Tools for the Modern-Day Traveler

by Lauren Nemec

If you depend solely on a tattered old phrasebook to get by when traveling abroad, you’re way behind the times. These days, international travelers have a wide range of tools and gadgets at their disposal to help them communicate when abroad.

Swearing

Travelers can really blend in with the locals by using profanity, and websites likes cusscards.com and insults.net easily bring multilingual expletives right to their fingertips. So, the next time you’re cut off by an Italian driver in Rome, you can swear at him like the locals do. Please note that these websites may contain offensive material.

Health

On a more serious note, tools also exist to aid travelers with medical issues. Some niche language service providers exist to help travelers with special needs, such as allergytranslation.com. This service provides translations of 175 food allergies and nearly a dozen diets in over 20 languages. The allergies and their translations are printed on a small card, which can be shown to restaurant staff in other countries, ensuring a pleasant and safe dining experience.

High Tech

A cousin of mine and his wife are traveling through Europe for the next few weeks. They're addicted to their Blackberries, so they activated international service for their phones prior to their departure. With internet access in their hands, they'll be able to perform on-the-spot machine translations (in addition to other great things like checking email, reading restaurant reviews, and checking flight delays). Smartphones can be a great tool for international travelers- one I never even dreamed of when I first started traveling 10 years ago.

These days, you can buy various language software packages for your pocket PC that provide phrasebooks, bilingual dictionaries, machine translation, language learning programs and flashcards, voice translation, and picture dictionaries.

Electronic pocket translators have been around for a long time, but can do much more than they used to thanks to increased storage space and improvements in machine translation technology. Most electronic translators on the market also have multiple functions, such as an MP3 player, world clock, travel alarm, currency converter and calculator.

Forget verbal communication- Just point

Those who want to forget spoken language altogether can depend on the most basic of non-verbal communication tactics – pointing. There are many universal wordless phrasebooks in print, usually called ‘picture dictionaries’. Whether it’s toilet paper, gasoline, beer or a doctor, simply point to a photograph in the ‘phrasebook’ to signify what you need.

Discretion

Though not related to translation tools exactly, there is one more sophisticated 'device' to point out.

In an age where travelers (especially from the U.S.A.) need to look as inconspicuous as possible, some products and services are designed to help travelers blend in. Avant-Guide, for example, is a range of travel books that won’t make you stick out like a sore thumb. Their discreet covers make the books look more like a novel than a travel guide.

So throw out that old phrasebook and get with the times ;)