Lost in translation

Thursday 04 June

Shamefully we Brits, rather than attempt to speak the local language when we’re abroad, have a habit of just shouting English loudly at the locals. And let’s face it, if we’re not going to bother learning French, Arabic has no chance. So, in an attempt to boost our reputation on the continent I set off to sunny Tunisia with three electronic translators in my hand luggage.

First up the Lingo Xplorer TTX-14 translates and speaks over 840,000 words and 46,000 phrases in more than 14 different languages. It not only voices the phrase, but spells it out phonetically as well, meaning I had more than a fair chance of getting understood.

Next, the Ectaco Partner EA900, which has voice-to-voice translation, a text scanner and a video player. You can speak into it and then it claims to ‘recognise’ your phrase and translate it from both Arabic to English and vice versa. Pretty potent boasts, then, but can it live up to them?

Finally, the Franklin TGA-495. It’s a 12 language-speaking translator, that has 450,000 words and 12,000 phrases in its memory banks. There’s even an MP3 player built-in, so you can listen to music while you’re waiting for a translation.

But do any of these translation devices really work, or will I end up with Fez on my face? Watch the video to find out…