We were in Spain the last two weeks, and while we were there, we bought the Franklin TES-120 translator for spanish / english pictured above. It cost 39 Euro, and claims to translate 800 000 words (the screenshot shows part of its “boot” sequence, which repeats this claim every time you switch it on).
This is the first time I have been so disappointed after buying something, that I have written about it on my blog. For considerably less than 39 Euro you can buy a decent pocket dictionary, or a good spanish / english dictionary for your PDA. You can even buy the latest Encyclopedia Britannica DVD for only a few Euro more. Both the paper dictionary and the PDA software claim to contain less than 800 000 words, but if you actually look up a word, your chance of finding it is better than with the electronic translator. For example, these words are not in the electronic translator but are in both its competitors:
- sepia (squid)
- parabrisas (windscreen/windshield)
- chorizo (sausage)
- churro (fritter)
- acepción (meaning, sense)
- tirita (sticking plaster)
None of these are particularly unusual words, and they are words which you might need to know if you are a tourist.
We found about 20% of the words we wanted to look up weren’t in its dictionary, which makes it quite useless. (Recommendations for an alternative electronic translator which has a useful vocabulary and doesn’t cost the earth will be gratefully received!)
