I’ve been fascinated by the use of handhelds to facilitate both learning and using languages for years. It all started with the first Psion and Palm PDAs, with appropriate English-to-XXX dictionaries, but with the advent of multimedia around the Year 1997, audio samples became possible for the first time. Space was a problem in those early days, of course. And the underlying platforms have evolved significantly. But the idea is still valid and CoolGorilla’s latest implementation on the iPhone is extremely slick. Here’s a brief video walkthrough of how it works:
As you can see, the idea is that rather than have to (horribly) mis-pronounce a phrase from a traditional written (on paper or on your phone/PDA) phrasebook, you simply tap on the speaker icon and the native of whichever country you’re in hears your request perfectly spoken by someone with a lot more flair for the language than you.
Around 500 phrases are included, broken down as you’d expect into 11 categories and dozens more sub-categories, some examples are shown in the video above. Although it’s hard to fault the implementation here, there are a few things you might want to think about:
- 500 phrases isn’t actually that much. When you’re stuck in a foreign country and have an urgent request that’s not represented here, you’re going to feel rather frustrated.
- Having gotten the application to deliver your chosen phrase, perfectly elocuted, the person you’re addressing will no doubt spill forth a stream of French/Spanish/whatever and you’re not going to understand a word of their answer.
- If you’re abroad, then unless it’s an ad-hoc business trip there’s a good chance you’re already prepared for the country and are familiar with it and its language, enough to get by. Talking Phrasebook is perhaps more for last minute jaunts dictated by your work into unfamiliar territory.
- An awful lot of the phrases in Talking Phrasebook are aimed at ‘service’ industries/people. Things you want or need. This being 2009 and the world being a somewhat smaller place though, there’s an excellent chance that anyone working in a major shop or manning a helpdesk or fronting a hotel reception desk or waiting on you in a restaurant will have a good grasp of English. Almost certainly better than your own grasp of their native tongue and miles better than the limited phrase vocabulary in this application.
On the other hand, the range of Talking Phrasebooks are free for UK users (thanks to the LastMinute sponsorship) and only a dollar for everybody else, so there’s no reason whatsoever not to stock your iPhone up for future trips to other non-English-speaking countries.
You can grab your own copy of Talking Phrasebook : French here in iTunes. Or just search for “Talking Phrasebook” if you’re after a different language.
PS. Note that the cosmetics of the application differ slightly, depending on which iTunes store is local to you – there are some sponsorship deals in place – e.g. the Pink theme for LastMinute.com in the UK AppStore.