Don't speak English, French or ...

[killarney_sailor]

Found an interesting app for iPhone and iPad that I wish that I had when we were in Indonesia. You speak a phrase into your machine and it translates it into the other language. It is not perfect, but pretty good. We tried French, German, and Chinese. The translation is spoken and printed on the screen. It will also back translate to English to make sure it worked.

You can go from English to 19 other languages. The app is free for use if you are connected to the Internet. If you want it to work offline, which you would, it is $5 for each language.

Oops, almost forgot the name. It is called Jibbigo. Might be worth checking to see if there is an Android version.

[boatpoker]

I read somewhere that Moscow Uiversity was experimenting with computer translations 30 years ago. To check the accuracy they would enter an english phrase, translate to Russian and then back to English to see if it matched.

They entered "Out of sight, out of mind". it came back as "invisible idiot".

[miatapaul]

Google has one for the android, but I think it only works with a wifi/cell connection. It is free and I have not used it for more than translating obscenities and insults so I cannot realy say how it works! It does do that fairly well.

[rbrasi]

I use talking translator by greenlight apps for amdroid. It has come in handy for my Brasil trips.