Geeky Traveller

One of my favorite things about traveling is hearing other languages. I was so disappointed when I first arrived in Mexico, all I was hearing was English and French from all the people who had flown out on the same flights from back home. I kept thinking, “Did I really fly four and a half hours to hear the same two languages I hear all day back home in Quebec?” So I asked one of the women from the hotel where the locals shopped. She warned me about the fact that it was very likely no …read more

5 Comments

This won’t help you if you don’t have an iPod Classic or iPod Nano, but if you do you can get yourself a language phrasebook without actually picking up a physical book.
Phrasebooks are a great idea and I remember traveling around with one, but they can be a bit cumbersome, especially if you’re already carrying a camera bag and some souvenirs. However, an iPod is nice and tiny and can fit right in your pocket and you may have it on you anyway. Collins has put together collections of approximately 500 different phrases and you can …read more

3 Comments

Since most people take their cell phones with them when they travel anyway, especially if it’s a business trip, it’s useful to have phone applications that can make life easier for you. Cellictica offers up Trippo, a mobile translation application.

It’s currently only available in English-Spanish, English-Italian, and English-French, but hopefully they’ll be expanding that over time, especially if it gains popularity. When you enter a sentence into the application, it not only spells out the translation, it will also speak it for you so that you can hear how it’s meant to be said – or you can …read more

12 Comments

When I went to Mexico, one of my favorite days was when I left behind all the tourist markets and headed to the market area where locals shopped. I had flown four and a half hours to be in another country and I was tired of hearing English and French – I wanted to go somewhere that would allow me to be completely surrounded by people speaking Spanish. When I was getting the directions from one of the hotel staff, she warned me that it was likely I wouldn’t find a single person who would be able to …read more

2 Comments

If you’re already planning a vacation or a business trip to a location where you’re not comfortable with the native language, this awesome site could prove very helpful. Mango is a very well-done language site that can teach you the basics of several common languages (even Pig Latin, which is not particularly useful, but hilarious nonetheless!) right on your computer – completely free of charge.
Right now you can learn Spanish, Russian, French, Italian, Mandarin Chinese, German, Japanese, Brazilian Portugese, Greek, and English for Spanish or Polish speakers. All 11 languages have at least 100 lessons, starting from the …read more

1 Comment