Berlitz European Phrase Book (Berlitz Phrase Books) -

Often when one is travelling to Europe, one wants to see as many things as possible, and being relatively close geographically (by North American, Africa or Asian standards, anyway), a savvy traveller can see quite a number of things, and will find that the language differs after travel of just an hour or two. How does one get by if one wants to go to multiple countries? Carry around half a dozen phrase books?

Certainly not! That would be silly, and rather cumbersome. Fortunately, Berlitz (the language people) have a solution in their fourteen-language phrase book. There are sections for fourteen different languages in this small, pocket-sized edition: Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Italian, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Serbo-Croatian, Spanish, Swedish, and a section on British-American comparisons.

Each section includes a basic key to pronunciation, as well as words and phrases arranged topically. These groupings generally include general words (yes, no, please, thank you, etc.), greetings, question forms, things you might want (water, information), directions, hotel and travel information, money and number information, time, and basic shopping information.
There is also information on food, but as a good companion to this volume, I would highly recommend the Berlitz European Menu Reader, as sne of the more vital parts of travelling involves eating, finding things that acceptable and appetising to the taste while abroad. Unless one wants to resort to pointing at things, it is best to learn some of the key words for cuisine (and, unless one wants to be surprised by certain ingredients that are unusual, it is best to know what words mean on the menu).

I've been fortunate enough to travel quite a bit, and I've often had phrase books to help me with some of the rudiments of languages, and have found the combination of this book and the menu reader to be quite handy. The two together cover almost everything I need, and provide an introduction to learning conversational language aspects 'on the road', as it were.

This is a basic phrase book -- it does not deal with issues of grammar, syntax, differing definitions, etc. The languages presented here are in formal, standard form; like all living languages, the fourteen represented here change regionally and locally into dialect and usage forms that differ from the norm, but using these books should make one at least basically understood.

The pages are colour-coded per section, and the books are small enough to fit easily into a coat/jacket pocket or purse.

Berlitz European Phrase Book (Berlitz Phrase Books)

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