POCKETALK

This portable translator speaks loudly and slowly to foreigners on your behalf, but in a way they’ll actually understand

Hallelujah! This could be one of the first language translators that actually works. Tanzania, here we come

Until we get earbuds that seamlessly translate speech, you’ll have to stick with apps on your phone, or use a dedicated translation device, like the Pocketalk here. To start, you choose the two languages you need to translate between, hold a button while talking, and let the device repeat your phrase in the other language.

Universal language

The advantage of having something dedicated to doing this instead of using an app on your phone is that you can leave your phone stored safely in the hotel, or in your bag, rather than waving it around. You also won’t burn through its battery.

The Pocketalk has a small touchscreen you can use to tweak settings such as volume (or to get on a Wi-Fi network, which requires using an awkwardly small keyboard), and to choose which languages it’ll translate between from the 76 available.

The one potential wrinkle is that it requires an internet connection – there’s no offline support at all, unlike its competitor, the Travis Touch Plus. You can get a version of the Pocketalk with a SIM, which comes with global data access for two years (no monthly fee), or there’s a slightly cheaper version with only Wi-Fi, which you could tether to your phone.

The good news is that translating using the internet delivers pretty impressive recognition. It struggles with unusual proper nouns mixed into sentences, not surprisingly, but worked well for us otherwise, provided we had solid signal – otherwise it tends to hang, without a clear error message. Ironically, when we went to a farm in the middle of the French country, we got great fast responses, but had some issues in a UK city when our phone had full 4G (it’s proven pretty good overall, though).

The built-in speakers can go obnoxiously loud, and the voice quality is usually good, though some languages, such as Greek, sounded more robotic and unclear than others. The mic quality is okay, but had trouble hearing us clearly from about a metre away in a room with noisy air-con. You’ll want to hold it close to the person you’re speaking with.

We like that it stores previous phrases and responses, so you could cue up a load of likely phrases before going out, and just tap to play. In terms of battery life, it should last all day, but loses about 20% in a day in standby.