The Big Review


The Franklin Euro Interpreter puts over 400,000 words and phrases for 12 languages, in your pocket.

Does this mean you can now start talking like a local and avoid all those embarrassing situations that the language barrier can cause?

I take the Franklin Euro Interpreter to Nice, south of France to test it out. Find out if it gets the “oui” or “non” from the unsuspecting French locals I try it out on…

What is it?

The Franklin Euro Interpreter is a handheld, battery-powered device allowing you to translate to and from 12 European languages.

The Franklin Euro Interpreter come rather charmingly shaped like a little book, and then when opened, one half has the screen, the other half has a QWERTY keyboard.

What languages can you translate?

English
French
German
Spanish
Dutch
Italian
Portuguese
Russian
Czech
Hungarian
Polish
Turkish

Features

Single word translations — type your word for translation
Phrase database — Search thousands of popular phrases
Databank — stores up to 100 names and contact numbers (with a password protection feature too)
Setting local times — you can set your home time, and then see what time it is in over 45 other cities.
Converter — allows you to easily convert currency and measurements
Calculator — You know what these do.
Games — Test your language skills.

What are the technical specifications?

Battery Type 1 x CR-2032 lithium (included)
Size 4.84 x 6.06 x 0.67 in
Weight 6.4 oz

Basically it is pocket-sized, and a little bit heavier than you’d think by looking at it, but not so much as to make it uncomfortable to carry.

Once opened the screen is easy to read, and the keyboard easy to use (at least for my eyesight and finger size).

Setting it up:

Being male, the moment I received my Franklin Euro Interpreter, I discarded the instructions and went ahead relying on my male intuition.

Within a few seconds I had managed to set the default language to Spanish — whoops!

Luckily, Spanish is the one foreign language that I have some sort of knowledge of and with a little trial and error, I managed to get the default language switched back to English. A language in which I claim to be slightly more proficient.

The big test — using the Franklin Translator in Nice, south of France

I had chance to use the Franklin Translator on my recent trip to Nice, South of France. This is a city I’ve visited many times and now know my way around quite well.

Despite this, and despite learning the language at school, my French is terrible (which is the same word in French as it is in English, as the translator has just told me).

Before now, my efforts at speaking French were generally confined to speaking a bit louder in English, and making more gestures with my arms. If the worst came to the worst, I’d try the word in Spanish.

Not this time however,
Armed with my Franklin 12-Language Translator I was determined to give this French-lark a go…

The Franklin Translator has two main ways you can translate. The first and quickest method is to translate single words by typing the word in English then hitting enter. It will then search its memory for suitable matches. For example, when I typed in “date”, I had to specify if I meant date as in time, or date as in a romantic encounter, or date as in the fruit etc.

Then the translated word would appear. I found this feature very easy to use and very useful in situations like shopping for specific items.

The second translation feature is searching for phrases. The Franklin Translator comes programmed with thousands of common phrases, however they’re all preset. This means that you cannot just type a phrase that comes into your head, instead you must search for a category (e.g. Emergencies, Travel and Directions, Hotel, Shopping etc.), and then search through all the suggested phrases for one that fits what you want to say.

This created two problems for me.

Firstly, it’s not always obvious which category you should begin your search in, so it can take a few minutes of searching. This is obviously a disadvantage if you’re in a hurry, for example getting onto a bus to speak to the driver with a big queue behind you.

Secondly, if you couldn’t find the exact phrase you needed, you had to “mix and match” between phrases. For example, I wanted to ask the question “Is there a pet store near here?”. To do this I had to search through a few of the phrase categories until I eventually stumbled upon “I am looking for…” in the Shopping section. Then I had to switch to translating single words to find “pet” and “store”. Luckily the person I was asking was patient, but it did make it a bit complicated.

This said, once I had used the phrases categories a few times, I started to remember where certain of the more useful phrases were listed, so getting to them was much quicker. Plus, I started to ask the question without the need of the translator at all. Yes reader, I was speaking French!

Two further considerations

Although the Franklin Euro Interpreter will show you what to say, it doesn’t tell you how to say it, so you still may find yourself hard to be understood. For example, I’m very aware that Portuguese is spoken very differently to how it is written.

Also, asking a question in a foreign language is only one half of it. You need to understand the answer too, and unless you switch the languages over and get your new foreign friend to translate their answer back to you, you may still be non the wiser. For example, in Mexico City I needed to find the office of the airline I was flying. Now Mexican Spanish is very rapid fire, certainly too rapid for me. So, I developed a tactic of asking as many people as I encountered and instead of trying to understand, I would just notice what direction they pointed in and walked that way until I found someone else, and did the same. Eventually I pinpointed the office!

Conclusions

Despite some of the drawbacks I’ve mentioned above, I found having the Franklin Euro Interpreter very useful, as without it I would have been even more stuck.

I also found that the locals really did open up to me more when they could see I was trying, and some of them were fascinated by the translator itself.

Although I won’t rely on my Franklin Euro Interpreter to get me speaking like a local, I will certainly take it every time I’m visiting a country with a language it supports.

To learn more about the Franklin Euro Interpreter click here

Name: Michael Furniss (I have no middle names, although when I tell people that they never believe me and just think I’m covering for an embarrassing one! Honest, check my passport)

Time at Mobal: I joined Mobal on March 10^th, 2002. Oh how the time flies!

Position at Mobal: Copywriting and marketing strategy (that’s why you’ll see my name at the bottom of lots of emails)

A quick bio: My childhood was a typical one, I was born as the result of a night of passion between my mother, a missionary’s daughter with a wild, carefree streak, and the tribal leader of a nomadic Berber trade caravan, deep in the Arabian Desert. I could ride a camel before I could walk…

…ok, so that’s not strictly true, but it’s far more exciting than the truth. In reality I was born in the UK in 1977, studied History and Social Science at Manchester University, I then spent a carefree summer drifting around Europe and North Africa (including a stint working as a fish farmer at a Kibbutz in Israel), followed by another carefree year drifting round South America, before returning back to the UK to a boring administration job. I then returned to South America, this time with a bit more ambition and worked as a journalist for the Bolivian Times, based in La Paz for 6 months. I then returned to the UK and joined Mobal, and here I am today.

Interests: As you can see, I am very keen on travel, although I don’t get to do it as much at the moment. I also like to play the guitar, but have long given up any hope of becoming a rock star.

Favourite travel destination: Has to be Brazil. Although it has its problems, and is not always the safest place to be, you cannot beat the place for the sheer sense of vibrancy and atmosphere.

Favourite travel tip: Try to at least learn a few phrases to try out on the locals. You will get a much better reaction by completely messing up their language compared to not trying anything. Also, try an learn the name of some famous football (football as in soccer) player from that country. You will not believe the amount of conversations I’ve had where we’ve communicated purely through the medium of footballers names — it’s the true universal language!

Amazing but true: I’m single at the moment ladies… ha ha!

The following are a list of actual announcements that London Tube train drivers have made to their passengers...

"Ladies and Gentlemen, I do apologise for the delay to your service. I know you're all dying to get home, unless, of course, you happen to be married to my ex-wife, in which case you'll want to cross over to the Westbound and go in the opposite direction".

"Your delay this evening is caused by the line controller suffering from E & B syndrome, not knowing his elbow from his backside. I'll let you know any further information as soon as I'm given any."

"Do you want the good news first or the bad news?The good news is
that last Friday was my birthday and I hit the town and had a great time. The bad news is that there is a points failure somewhere between Stratford and East Ham, which means we probably won't reach our destination."

"Ladies and gentlemen, we apologise for the delay, but there is a
security alert at Victoria station and we are therefore stuck here
for the foreseeable future, so let's take our minds off it and pass some time together. All together now....'Ten green bottles, hanging on a wall.....'".

"We are now travelling through Baker Street, as you can see Baker
Street is closed.It would have been nice if they had actually told
me, so I could tell you earlier, but no, they don't think about things like that".

"Beggars are operating on this train, please do NOT encourage these professional beggars, if you have any spare change, please give it to a registered charity, failing that, give it to me."

During an extremely hot rush hour on the Central Line, the driver
announced in a West Indian drawl: "step right this way for the
sauna, ladies and gentleman... unfortunately towels are not provided".

"Let the passengers off the train FIRST!" (Pause...) "Oh go on then, stuff yourselves in like sardines, see if I care - I'm going
home...."

"Please allow the doors to close.Try not to confuse this with
'Please hold the doors open'.The two are distinct and separate
instructions." "Please note that the beeping noise coming from the doors means that the doors are about to close. It does not mean throw yourself or your bags into the doors."

"To the gentleman wearing the long grey coat trying to get on the
second carriage - what part of 'stand clear of the doors' don't you understand?"

"Please move all baggage away from the doors (Pause..) Please move
ALL belongings away from the doors (Pause...) This is a personal
message to the man in the brown suit wearing glasses at the rear of the train - put the pie down, four-eyes, and move your bloody golf clubs away from the door before I come down here and shove them up your a**e sideways"

"May I remind all passengers that there is strictly no smoking
allowed on any part of the Underground. However, if you are smoking a joint, it's only fair that you pass it round the rest of the carriage".

1. Cancelled or overbooked flight

• On an overbooked flight you will be offered compensation for volunteering to give up your seat. Find out what compensation you’ll receive before you volunteer. There’s no standard, so you could get anything from a ham sandwich to a few hundred dollars in travel vouchers — make sure it’s worth it first.
• For a cancelled flight, have the airport booking line pre-programmed into your cell phone (www.airlinecontact.info). It’s the airline’s responsibility to book you onto the next available flight, but that means they have to organize everyone on the plane. Jump the queue and book it yourself!

2. Lost or damaged luggage

• Always pack valuables safely — if internal goods are damaged, but externally the luggage isn’t, the airline may not cover you. The stronger your luggage, the better the chance that nothing will get damaged (try Luggage Online).
• Take out extra luggage insurance if carrying valuables — you may be covered by up to $2,800 if luggage is damaged by the airline, but not for anything above that value (try Insure My Trip).
• If your luggage gets lost, make sure you find out what compensation you’re owed. Typically this stretches to toiletries and a change of clothes.
• Have a list of items in your luggage pre-written. If it goes missing then you need to file a report, and you don’t want to forget anything!
• Give the airline your itinerary — most luggage gets found, and they should cover the cost of shipping it to you.

3. No record of your reservation

• This is one of the easiest problems to solve — just confirm your reservations a few days in advance of your booking
• If you cannot confirm your reservation, always keep a print out of any confirmation of bookings, make a note of names and email addresses the reservations were booked under, and which bank account you used to pay for it (and then program the bank’s number into your cell phone)
• If your reservation still cannot be found using your contact details, contact your bank for proof of your transaction

4. Losing your passport

• Make a copy of your passport to carry so you can keep your original safe.
• When carrying your passport, carry it in a secure hidden pouch (try Pro Travel Gear)
  
• If you still manage to lose your passport, first you must find you nearest US embassy or consulate (http://usembassy.state.gov/) and go there in person with the photocopy of your passport and any other ID that you have. If you have no form of ID you will need to have your identity proved, which can add days to your new passport application.
• To get a new passport the process takes about 2 weeks. If you’re leaving in less than two weeks then you can get one issued immediately.
• If you are outside of the US then the cost for your new passport will be $97.

5. Getting injured or ill

• As far in advance of your trip as possible, check for any health requirements or warnings for your destination country and arrange for any inoculations you may need (try The World Health Organisation).
• Check any existing health insurance you have and see if you’re covered for international travel. Depending on where you’re going, or what activities you’re planning, you may need to take out extra cover
• Always keep a copy of any insurance policy, including a claim form, with you
• Take into account the cost of medical evacuation to take you home. This can cost $10,000 and often is not covered by many standard policies
• If you have a medical condition, also bring a letter describing your condition and how to treat it. If needed, have this translated into the language of the country you’re visiting
• If you’re bringing medication into a country, check first that they are considered legal
• Make sure you fill out the details of who to contact in case of emergency, in your passport
• If you should have to go to hospital, you can contact the US Embassy to organise someone to help you located the correct treatment, and organise the sending of funds to pay for your treatment (but it’s your money).

6. Getting lost from your group

• Always take a map with you, make a note of major landmarks that you can use as a reference, and mark where you’re staying
• If you have a cell phone (www.mobal.com), pre-program your hotel phone number, the number of a recommended taxi company, the numbers of anyone else you may be traveling with and the number of the local police
• Whether you have cell phones or not, always agree a central meeting point, and a deadline to meet there by. After that deadline, move the meeting point to the hotel where you’re staying
• If it is you who is lost, and you’re unable to find the meeting point or hotel, phone and leave a message with your hotel and with a pre-arranged person back home. If you’re unable to do this, try to contact the local police
• If after the second deadline at the hotel has been reached, and no message has been left, now it is time to contact the local police

7. Getting mugged

• Make photocopies of all your important documents so you can leave the originals in your hotel safe, but still have proof of your identity
• Ask your hotel which areas to avoid and which taxi service they recommend (and make a note of their number in your cell phone)
• If you’re not comfortable, always stay to well lit and populated areas.
• If you think you’re being followed, try to make it obvious you’ve spotted the person — most muggers are opportunists, and may avoid you if they think you’re prepared.
• If you still need to carry large amounts of money, put most of it in secure hidden pouch or pocket (try Pro Travel Gear). Then keep a small amount handy, so if you are mugged, you can handover the smaller amount and your mugger is more likely to believe that’s all you’re carrying, rather than saying you have no money at all
• If you are challenged, then don’t fight back, as the consequences could be far worse. Instead, immediately cancel any bank cards
• Next file a police report. Although it’s unlikely your mugger will be caught, you will need the police report to claim back any insurance for items you may’ve lost

8. Getting in trouble with the law

• Before you travel do some research on local laws or customs, especially if you’re doing any activities like renting a car, or visiting some religious or sensitive sites
• If you do find yourself in trouble, always be polite, whatever the situation
• Then ask that your local embassy be contacted, so you can be visited by a Consular officer who will then be able to advise you on how to proceed with your legal situation

9. Natural or terrorist disaster

• Firstly, you should checkout the latest travel warnings produced by the government for your destination (www.travel.state.gov) to learn of any possible threats or warnings
• Then prepare a detailed itinerary of where and when you will be and leave a copy with friends or family back home
• Try to take a cell phone (www.mobal.com) with you and pre-program it with your friends’ numbers, and the number for the US Embassy or Consulate in the country you will be visiting
• If a natural or terrorist disaster happens, firstly to contact your friends back home. If you cannot contact them, try to leave a message at the Embassy or Consulate confirming you’re safe, and where to contact you

It's this story from one of our customers, Ted Alan Stedman, that has inspired the title of this section (although when you read the story, you'll realise it's not strictly true...)

Here's Ted's story...

I just returned from Mexico, and I wanted to say that the Mobal World Phone was a real, real benefit to our group of 10 climbers and guides.

As we were packing our gear into the trucks for the trip up to the 14,000' base camp of Pico Orizaba (Mexico's highest peak, at 18,600'),we learned that the day before, two American climbers had been ambushed and shot near the camp we were heading to. Our guides called it quits before we even started, and all of a sudden our trip was cut short -- meaning we all had to change our flight departure dates.

Before the 4-hour drive back to Mexico City, I turned on the phone for the first time and it was blessedly simple to use: no intermediaries, just dial the country code 001, followed by the phone number, and that was it.

A couple others bought phone cards, but they went through those quickly and sometimes a Mexican operator who wasn't bilingual got involved, and that was a hassle. So, I passed around the phone and we all made calls to change to our flights. That effort was 100% effective.

It was an incredible convenience to be able to do with the Mobal while in a remote, god forsaken village in rural Mexico"

Got an interesting or funny Mobal World Phone story to share with community members? Email it to me now at michael@mobalphone.com