Has anyone ever bought one of these and tried them on thier travels?? was it useful or a waste of time.

Sorry, can't help.
I have never needed to have my pocket translated.

Ha Ha your so funny, I always forget how many jokers there are around here.

ira - LOL

Sorry, Jibboo, I can't answer your question either - well, I can answer the first one - no.

I've never understood how anyone would actually use these things. I mean, imagine it. You walk into a Parisian restaurant and the maître d' comes to greet you. He says Bonjour and you know enough to say Bonjour back.
Then he says "Table pour deux, Madame-Monsieur? Je suis désolée mais le restaurant est en fermeture exceptionelle ce soir à cause d'une fête d'anniversaire." Assuming you speak no French, what do you do with that translation contraption at that point?
Or you wander into an Italian food store and pull out your gizmo and say to the clerk "Buon giorno. Cerco dell'olio di olivo regionale, per favore." Assuming you can pronounce it well enough to be understood, the clerk comes back with a torrent of information that is completely incomprehensible to you, and then what?
Or do you just keep handing the machine back and forth to the people you're talking to? However they're used, it seems like a monumental waste of time to me - time that might be better spent trying to learn a bit of another language.

St cirq is right. Collossal waste of money. Yep, I tried.

I bought one of these for my Dad to translate written words. He speaks enough conversational french to get by when he travels there, which is often, but for whatever reason he has problems reading the newspapers and mail that we receive from our french cousins!

yeah that's kinda what I thought, just curious

I thought they were just superficial dictionaries, not full-fledged "translators."

The ones that interested me were the multi-lingual dictionaries. I thought it might be practical to have one single lightweight thing that might serve as a dictionary for several languages. It also might be amusing to have translations into some languages that for me are very very foreign, in addition to the languages that I might actually be able to use. However, I tested a few in a store by asking for the Italian, French and Spanish for certain reasonably easy words. I picked a few words that I knew would be completely different in all the Romance languages, e.g., "butterfly," "nightmare." The results were terrible. I assume some of these electronic translators must be better than others. But I think they may all be much more superficial that even a tiny pocket dictionary in paper form.

Anyway, I decided that for ME, these things are not worthwile. Since my trips are always to one country at a time, so I really need to carry only one dictionary. I find the Collins Gem dictionaries light and durable and adequate for superficial lookups when I'm on vacation, and they are possibly even lighter than these gizmos and much much cheaper.

I've bought two French translators, an early one with a small vocabulary and a larger one (I think it's a Franklin--it's thin and maybe 4"x6&quot with more. The first wasn't of much help, but I like the newer one and use it both at home when I'm reading Paris Match and when I'm in France. Obviously, you can't look up words as you're talking to someone, but it's easier to use than a dictionary. I once was in a restaurant and was stumped by a menu phrase. I balanced the translator on my lap (I have to admit I was trying to hide it with a napkin), and was typing in the words when a waiter standing behind me said "so what does it say?" I finished the entry, told him "beef nails," and he responded by saying that that was pretty close and explained what it was. So in that case it did get conversation going.