Foreign Language for Travelers is part of the travlang site which provides a wealth of information for anyone interested in traveling overseas. The foreign language page allows a traveler to select from one of 70 languages and obtain lists of useful phrases arranged by topic. For review purposes, I chose German. The useful phrases are grouped by such topics as basic words, numbers, shopping/dining, directions and places. Others are directions and travel. Under basic words for instance, you get the foreign language equivalent of personal pronouns, simple phrases such as hello, good‐bye, and thank you.
A useful feature allows you to click on the word and hear it in the target language. You will need the Real Audio plug‐in to hear the words. Each word file is not large and loads very quickly; but the quality is not particularly high. However, since these files are quite small, you can practice several times to become proficient. As an added bonus, you can take a quiz and select words from a pull down list. It even grades the quiz for you. The other categories are constructed similarly with words relating to the topic at hand.
Additional information contained on the main page is grammar handbooks, online translators, and travel guides relating to the target language. There are also listings of schools that teach the target language. The pages are fairly clean of large graphics and download times were very acceptable. Links are provided to an email address and to a comment form to provide feedback.
The overall site uses minimal graphics so the pages load quickly and with little problem. For those with slower Internet connections, there is a link to a text‐only page. The main travlang page contains more information for the traveler including currency exchange rates, links to hotel reservations, and airline fares. While many of these sites are available elsewhere (e. g. travelocity), they are contained in one easy to view site where you can get all your travel information in one place. If you are planning to visit a foreign country and need some information on the local language, this is a good place to start. Being able to hear the words pronounced is a great aid in learning a foreign language. Auf Wiedersehen!
