I formerly used a pocket-sized
Spanish-English dictionary. Call me old-fashioned, but to me it was rather easy to look up words, and since you never know how to spell them, a dictionary can allow you to at least get close. I always figured that one of these electronic things wouldn’t be all that helpful, because unless you know exactly how to spell something, you’ll never be able to figure out what the original word was. That, and I haven’t yet seen a piece of paper run out of batteries.
This Franklin translator (DBE-1490), however, is much better than I anticipated. If you misspell a word, the translator gives you several options. In addition, it has a qwerty keyboard, which although it is rather small, is still relatively fast for my thumbs to use. The unit is highly portable as well – I can fit it into a pocket. All of these characteristics combine to allow me to give this product five stars, and to begin to trust it enough to use it instead of the pocket dictionary.
Let me first discuss that which this device is: it is a Spanish-English translator. There are other translators out there that can translate 20 different languages at the same time – this one only does Spanish to English. There are also other translators that apparently speak to you, or have voice recognition technology. This one does not – it is a black and white, text-oriented translator with a small qwerty keyboard.
But it translates well. The box says that it knows 5,000,000 translations. I don’t think there are 5,000,000 words in either language, so perhaps they include phrases and verb conjugations. Perhaps it means that it can recognize five million words, or that it can recognize, for instance, the feminine spelling of an adjective, or the past predicative tense of a verb. Among its 5,000,000 translations, however, are not any curse words. In the event you are looking to translate slang or curses, you won’t be able to with this machine. I don’t tend to need translations for the curse words, and I don’t recall putting a word in there without the computer spitting something back.
Once you stick in a word, the computer will either spit back several definitions, or, if you have spelled a word it doesn’t know, will spit back several choices that are close. This particular machine has eight display lines, and many words require longer definitions then this. In the event your word requires more definitions, there is a button on the right that makes it easy to scroll down.
Going from Spanish to English and then back again is rather easy. There is a row of five buttons at the top of the machine that allow you to transfer between its different operations. To change from English to Spanish you simply hit one of those buttons and enter your word.
The other operations of the five buttons are: learn, exercises, games, and setup. The learn button has a few Spanish lessons within it; I cannot say this is all that useful of a function because the 8 lines of text are severely restricting for lesson purposes. The exercises section is mostly a vocabulary review; there are several different ways that the computer will flash random words at you for you to try to remember what they mean.
The machine also comes equipped with “games”. It is hard to really call them games considering the advanced state of devices such as Play Station Portable, and even cell phones. This machine has seven text-based games, such as hangman and a game they call “word blaster”, which are essentially games in which you must guess the word the computer is writing for you. Be warned that the games are quite slow, and while interesting enough for somebody trying to improve their language skills, they are certainly not something your child, or even your inner child, are going to enjoy.
The physical size of the machine is one of its good points. It is approximately 3 inches by 4 ¼ inches by 1/2 inches, which is small enough to fit in your pocket. It is also only about 4 ounces, which makes it easy to carry as well. The size, however, has its disadvantages. Of course the keyboard must fit in there, so perhaps some people may be bothered by a small keyboard – I was not. In addition, the unit is not thick enough to have regular AAA batteries, instead it uses a button battery held in place by a small Phillips screw. I am not looking forward to changing the battery.
As of yet I have not had to change the battery – I would say I have about 6 hours of use on the machine over 3 weeks, so at least you won’t have to replace the battery all that frequently. The machine has an automatic shut-off function (which you can change in the set-up section) to save battery life for those of you who forget to turn it off.
As for the size, it does limit the spread of the keyboard. Even with the small size, I find I can type on the keyboard faster than I can flip through a minidictionary. Also, all the buttons are raised-type buttons, which to me are much easier to use then those flush buttons that you never know which one you are on.
Another weakness I would say the machine has is that it does not translate phrases. If you put two words in there, particularly slang words that generally go together, the computer will not know what to do. If you put in one word, many times the computer will spit back both a definition and a phrase that the word might be used in. For instance the word "aisle" comes back with the Spanish
pasillo, but it also comes back with the phrase
Quisiera un asiento de pasillo, meaning "I would like an aisle seat."
Which brings me to the last strength I have for the device: it also has a phrasebook. This is a Berlitz type thing that will lead you through all the different phrases you may need in any given situation. While it is somewhat slow to navigate through all of these phrases will only eight lines of text, they are still there, and many times when you try to translate one word in the phrase, the phrase will pop up. This is a useful translation device which will help you to learn the language and the way it is constructed.
Lastly the machine comes with a computer of sorts – you press the "org" button on the bottom, and you get a clock, an address book, a calculator, a currency converter, and a unit converter (for things such as the dreaded Celsius to Fahrenheit conversions). I wouldn’t call these devices extremely useful in a language translator, but at least one knows they are there.
In all I was very pleased with the computer. It is lightweight and portable, it is easy to use, and you don’t have to spell the word exactly right for the machine to be able to recognize it. Its primary weakness is a battery that is hard to change, but given the size of the machine, I would not count that against it. I give the device five stars for being easy to use, complete, and very portable.
