** French phrasebook

** Mandarin phrasebook

** Italian phrasebook

** German phrasebook

** Malaysian phrasebook

Please help to spread the word to your friends!

The top international destinations in 2009 are:^[1]

Rank	Country	International tourist arrivals
1	France	74.2 million
2	United States	54.9 million
3	Spain	52.2 million
4	China	50.9 million
5	Italy	43.2 million
6	United Kingdom	28.0 million
7	Turkey	25.5 million
8	Germany	24.2 million
9	Malaysia	23.6 million
10	Mexico	21.5 million

(Source: Wikipedia)

Travel Phrasebook is just that: a PDF phrasebook that will make you sound competent, perhaps even cool. You can learn 100+ professionally translated phrases in all kinds of languages, including Spanish, French, and Chinese, as well as 10 at a time in popular categories. Best of all, you can download the phrases to your laptop, iPhone, or mobile device. The phrasebooks themselves are gorgeous (screen shot below); it provides general stuff (”What time is it?” “Nice to meet you”) with Numbers, Common Questions, and Common Problems (”Why are you laughing?” Ahh…if I only had a dime for every time I had to ask that question.)

Travel Phrasebook also serves a very large and desperate market: bumbling, fanny-pack wearing (American, ahem) tourists who would rather not deeply immerse themselves in a language, but rather get a handle of the key phrases. And let’s be honest: they’re already wearing fanny packs and would look even worse reading from a thick, clumsy analog phrasebook; at least now they can look remotely cool by referring to their mobile device. (But I kid: these phrasebooks are ideal for folks of all ages and proclivities, especially young people just out of college.) And of course, sorting the phrases by category makes things even easier. For example, when you go to a restaurant, all the common phrases are in one place (”The bill please,” “I am vegetarian,” etc. I did not see “Waiter, there’s a fly in my soup,” but why even put it out there, y’know?)

One phrase book is only $2.99. You can get two – and a third for free – for only $5, and all twelve for a mere $10. Not bad! Currently the phrasebooks are heavy on the Southeast Asian regions; languages include Mandarin, Cantonese, Korean, Vietnamese, Thai, Malay, and Indonesian. Europe is represented by Germany, Italy, Spain, and France. What more do you need, really? (Just kidding, Belgium!)

So, from a first-time user perspective, I was instantly drawn in. I really liked the sample phrasebook, plus the iPhone/iPod screenshots. They laid it all out there, yet the layout was simple and no frills-y. And of course, the price is unbeatable. Now if only this stuff was around 10 years ago.

Here are some screenshots of what the phrasebook looks like on an iPod touch:

Our phrasebooks for mobile devices are available in 12 languages, and includes all the categories including Numbers, Business, Shopping, Restaurant, Entertainment and much more!

We updated the layout for our PDF phrasebooks for all 12 languages – French, German, Mandarin, Cantonese, Italian, Spanish, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, Thai, Malay and Indonesian. These are designed for easy printing (A4, booklet) or viewing on your PC, laptop or portable device.

Here are some examples:

Want to print your own booklet? No problem. Just choose the booklet printing option when you print your PDF files.

Here is a list of countries my wife and I visited in the last 10 years:

Albania

Austria

Australia

Belgium

Cambodia

Czech Republic

Fiji

France

Germany

Indonesia

Italy

Japan

Laos

Malaysia

South Korea

Spain

Thailand

Taiwan

UK

USA

I was happy that the waiter understood me when I ordered a beer! During a business meeting I also tested some of the business phrases, and was happy to see that my Japanese counterparts understood me. They appreciate when a foreigner tries to speak their language.

Are you going to Japan? Don’t forget your Japanese phrasebook from www.travelphrasebook.com.