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March 2008
Editors' Choice Travel Accessory 12 Language Speaking Global Translator Reviewed by Angie Kibiloski
The 12 Language Speaking Global Translator (Retail $229.95), from Franklin, is a great, helpful gadget for anyone who likes to travel. Palm sized and easy to use, this device is the perfect companion for your next trip abroad. No more flipping endlessly through thick foreign language dictionaries. Just type in the word you're looking for and quickly get the translation, along with a vocal pronunciation. It’s the next best thing to having a native speaker by your side. The Global Translator contains over 450,000 words, 12,000 phrases, and speaks 115,000 of those words in a recorded voice. The languages included are Mandarin Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Russian, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, and English. You can search and translate between any of these languages. You can look up an English word and translate to Polish, a Polish word and translate to French, and a French word back to English. Its fun just to play around with the different languages, and see how each one says the same word or phrase. When typing in a word to search for, don't worry if you misspell it. This device will bring up a list of words close to that spelling, so you can choose the one you meant. Also, if there is more than one translation for the word you type in, and you will be given a list to browse through of all the matches. Phrases can be searched by scrolling through a list, broken into categories like Restaurant, Travel, or Emergency. You can also search as you do for single words, by typing in a key word in the phrase. Here too, you can listen to the entire phrase spoken in a recorded voice. This audio feature is incredibly helpful; to make sure you will not be offending the native speakers with your atrocious pronunciation. This is something for which a written dictionary simply falls short. For Korean and Russian entries, you will find the native letter symbols on the keyboard. For Chinese and Japanese however, you will type roman letters, and only see the Chinese and Japanese symbols once you have chosen the correct word to translate. In addition to the primary function of translating, which can provide hours of fun and education, even when not traveling, there are extra features built in to the unit. The contact list allows you to take your digital address book with you. The calculator can come in handy, as well as the metric converter. One of the most helpful extras is the currency converter. You have to program in the current exchange rate, but after that, converting between dollars and other currencies is fast and easy. There are a few mediocre games, but were obviously not the main priority of the designers. The voice recorder is handy, for any little memos that you need to remember. Finally, the MP3 player feature is a nice bonus. It is really easy to get music onto this device, by simply plugging it into your PC and treating it like a drive. You can even listen to the music while you are translating. No need for an extra MP3 player to load down your suitcase. The 12 Language Speaking Global Translator is a great travel companion. It is compact in size, easy to use, has a sleek design, and is fun to play with. The extra features, especially the MP3 player and currency converter, make this device a piece of technology that you will never want to travel without. It is the bridge between carting around 12 paperback dictionaries and having your own personal native interpreter. Grab one the next time you plan to go globe trotting, and you will have the key to communicating around the world in the palm of your hand. For more information, or to find out how to purchase this device, please click on the image or link below.
Franklin 12-Language Speaking Global Translator (FK104)
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