Bonjour! From ordering a cafe au lait in Paris to making new friends in the Loire Valley, it helps to speak some of the native tongue. Rick Steves, bestselling author of travel guides to Europe, offers well-tested phrases and key words to cover every situation a traveler is likely to encounter. This handy guide provides key phrases for use in everyday circumstances, complete with phonetic spelling; an English-French and French-English dictionary; the latest information on European currency and rail transportation, and even a tear-out cheat sheet for continued language practice as you wait in line at the Louvre. Informative, concise, and practical, Rick Steves' French Phrase Book and Dictionary is an essential item for any traveler's sac a dos.
English Hard to use I would not recommend this phrase book because I found it very hard to access the phrases. It is organized by situations where you would use the phrases, such as counting, traveling, eating, and sleeping. It requires too much skimming and scanning to find what you want to say.
Useful and fun to read, this French phrasebook is the ideal way for travelers to communicate easily and naturally. The typical French dictionary won't show you how to tell the hotel manager "J'ai dormi comme un enfant" ("I slept like a baby") and certainly not "Je suis couvert de piqures des punaises!" ("I'm covered with bug bites!"). This one does!
tropicalports: ReviewIf you're planning your Continental tour, or just heading Europewards and letting the winds of fate waft you this way and that, you'll want some language assistance, preferably in a form that doesn't require an extra set of luggage. Rick Steves, noted Europe expert and writer of candid, accurate, and entertaining guide books, has a phrase book and dictionary that contains the three major languages you're likely to encounter in ramble around Europe or a trek in the Alps.
For each of the three languages, there are chapters on basic survival phrases, numbers, money, and time, transportation, sleeping, and eating, plus activities such as sightseeing, shopping, and nightlife. There are also sections on phoning and mailing, health and emergencies, and making small talk--including the essential section on animal noises (because what's woof woof to you is ouah ouah to the French, bau bau to Italians, and wuff wuff in German). There are also lists of the animal noises made by humans (also known as profanity) so you can enjoy the linguistic color as the man next to you drops his fragile souvenir, or swear like a Roman when you stub your toe in the Coliseum.
The menu decoders are quite useful, and, despite the book's small size, it covers most contingencies--from bartering over hotel-room prices to rental-car considerations, interpreting train schedules to discussing medicalconditions such as constipation and diarrhea, hemorrhoids and indigestion, body odor and the giggles. The dictionary in the back shows the English, French, Italian, and German for each of 1,200 words, and there's an appendix of useful information, including the European phone numbers for various calling-card operators as well as their international access codes and country codes, a chart of monthly temperatures for each country and a metric conversion table, as well as tongue twisters in French, German, and Italian, to while away the train-travel hours and impress your compartment mates with your willingness to launch into their language and dare to sound like a fool. --Stephanie Gold
English AWESOME! This is one of my best purchases in Amazon, it'samazing how good is this book. It's very practical for any traveler around the world, it has detailed content in subjects like: what to tell to italian men if they are bothering you (and as a woman... this can become very handy!) or everything you need to say in a medical emergency or how to enjoy the food in a restaurant (because you can understand now the menu). I really recommend this book if you are looking for a better experience in your trips or if you are learning a foreign language (like me). Greetings from Mexico. Nayeli
Unlike other phrase books that give the reader dozens of words they'll never use, Steves' well-tested phrases and key words cover every situation you're likely to encounter. Host and writer of his own PBS TV series, Steves spends several months each year in Europe leading tours, updating his guidebooks, filming his travel series and just enjoying traveling.
