If you’re travelling anywhere abroad for a length of time, it can be tricky to get a handle on the culture and language quickly. This is particularly pertinent if you’re from overseas and travelling around Europe. Having some help at your fingertips will be a welcome relief at some point during your epic trip, no matter how confident a traveller you are.
It’s also pretty tricky to remember phrases in multiple European languages if your first language is English. Even if you’re fluent in French, you’re going to find you might get stuck in Italy. Similarly, if you’re travelling around Europe from Japan or China then having easy access to common phrases will definitely stand you in good stead.
Of course there’s an app for that – not much surprise in that, after all there’s an app for pretty much everything these days – but they can come in particularly useful if you’re travelling. For example, if you are coming from the Far East and find yourself needing to get around the UK and surrounding areas, you may run into problems [tp lang=”en” only=”y”]when trying to find flights to Jersey[/tp][tp not_in=”en”]when trying to find flights to Jersey[/tp].
If you get smart with your tablet or smartphone and make sure you have a few choice apps then you won’t need to worry about these kinds of problems while you’re travelling, leaving you free to relax and enjoy the ride.
A good translator app is the first step. Everyone can have a momentary lapse of concentration when trying to remember the right words for beer and food. And it’s always best to at least try and speak the language of whichever country you’re in. With this free translator for iPhone https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/free-translator/id293855167?mt=8 you just need to type in the word and it’ll chuck out the proper translation. Easy. And it translates over 18 languages, which means even if you’re touring all of Europe, you should be covered.
If you need a translator for Android then there are lots on offer, for free or for a low charge, so you should be able to find something that is convenient for your needs.
So much for a translator app – that’s useful enough if you have time to stop and use it. But what if you need something just a little faster? Say you’re at a museum or you don’t understand signs for directions, then you need the Word Lens app http://questvisual.com/us/. Simply take a photo of whatever you’re struggling to understand and it’ll translate it for you. It doesn’t work with quite as many languages but is available for iOS and Android – and it’s free!