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I've never used phrasebooks much; "thank you" and "Excuse me, I don't speak <their language>, do you speak English?" were quite sufficient. "Where is the toilet
by AlbertCory 4y ago
I've never used phrasebooks much; "thank you" and "Excuse me, I don't speak <their language>, do you speak English?" were quite sufficient. "Where is the toilet?" is also essential.
But something that was very useful in Paris was the menu translator book, thin enough to carry in your back pocket. I could stand outside and look at their menu, and almost all the food was listed in the book, which had chapters for meats, vegetables, dessert, etc. Then when I went inside I knew what I wanted.
I don't doubt there are better apps now, but I can imagine a specialized product like this still being handy.
- mattwad 4y agoI was just in Colombia, and now you can use Google Lens on Android to translate posters and menus. It misses a lot but is "good enough" and you can even download languages for use offline.
- fractallyte 4y agoAnd here's the original post that introduced Word Lens to the world: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2014555 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2014555 (Before Google acquired it!)
- duskwuff 4y agoLiterally translating a menu, as Google Lens would do, isn't always helpful, though. Many dishes have names which are metaphorical (like "pasta primavera" or "drunken noodles"), or which allude to the origin of a dish (like "beef Stroganoff" or "Cuban sandwich"). Simply knowing what the words mean doesn't necessarily help you understand what you're going to be eating -- a guide like the one AlbertCory is describing can expand those words to more useful descriptions.
- Kye 4y agoRestaurants near furry conventions like to change up their menus to match the theme. I wonder how well apps handle those.
- owl57 4y agoTurned out to be particularly bad in Israel. One of the first things I learned using a phone translator app was that the restaurant is mostly offering variants of "damned hummus".
- AlbertCory 4y agoI've been there. My impression was that every piece of text was in Hebrew, Arabic, and English.
- owl57 4y agoA lot, but far from every piece of text. Hebrew-only menus are quite common and I'm still a bit scared of them.
- Shorel 4y agoI wonder about translations for tamal, tajadas, pandebono or "principio".
- AlbertCory 4y agoI haven't read (or tried) menu translator books for those things (whatever they are). I doubt anyone publishes those books anymore, but you can probably find them used.
- insane_dreamer 4y agoReminds me of a time years ago, I had just arrived in China, had an unexpected overnight stay in a remot-ish city with my wife/kids, none of us could (yet) speak/read any Chinese, and the restaurant menu had no pictures (and of course no one spoke a word of English). This was pre-phone apps and we didn't have a phrasebook or pocket dictionary on us (can't remember why we didn't at least have that). We randomly pointed to words on the page and awaited the results. A whole group of waiters came over to our table to see, and there was lots of laughter from both sides. I can't actually remember what we ate, but I do recall we left untouched a few things that looked highly dubious in content.
- nobody9999 4y ago>I had just arrived in China, had an unexpected overnight stay in a remot-ish city with my wife/kids, none of us could (yet) speak/read any Chinese, and the restaurant menu had no pictures (and of course no one spoke a word of English). That was always a favorite of mine. Walk into a restaurant in (NYC's) chinatown where there were only Asian folks and no English menus. I'd usually just point at something someone else was eating. It was almost always glorious. :)