You’ve ordered your latte flawlessly in the charming Sicilian cafe, but when it comes to asking about parking restrictions you may need linguistic assistance. Electronic translators have several advantages over phrasebooks. They’re often smaller and more comprehensive, with intelligent search functions to track down your chosen phrase in seconds. The latest models, including all six tested here, can speak foreign words and phrases out loud, and some can recognise and translate speech at the touch of a button.

All these translators can interpret French, German, Italian and Spanish and at least one other language. If you’re travelling further afield, the Franklin and Ectaco iTravl can translate Chinese and Russian, among others. For round-the-world travel or if you just want to converse fluently with your plumber, the Lingo also speaks Polish (and most other east European tongues), Turkish, Persian (Farsi) and even Korean – 19 languages in total.

It’s worth checking how many phrases the translator knows. The Franklin, Lingo and Sony Talkman have between 1,000 and 3,000, which is fine for ordering breakfast and finding the hospital. The Ectaco iTravl’s 7,000 expressions should enable you to voice your appreciation of a meal and describe your complaint to the doctor, while the 14,000-20,000 phrases of the Garmin Language Guide and Ectaco Partner may be comprehensive enough to run a kitchen and give a lecture to medical students.

Choosing phrases and entering words to translate can be time consuming, especially on cramped keyboards and tiny touchscreens. The Talkman and both Ectacos have speech recognition, although don’t expect them to turn estuary English into idiomatic French. You’re thinking of Star Trek.

On the Ectacos, you choose a themed scenario and speak a phrase into the microphone. If it is there, the device will translate it into your selected language. In tests, this proved impressive but not reliable, especially on the Partner. The PSP worked better: you simply pick a situation, say what you want and the PSP checks its memory. Even if your exact phrase isn’t there, the Talkman offers an intelligent variety of phrases to select from.

The PSP Talkman and Ectaco iTravl also work as tutors, offering exercises to improve fluency and evaluating pronunciation. Only the Talkman asks whether you want to say a phrase in a forceful or laidback manner, or in a friendly or unfriendly tone – useful when you’ve exhausted your stock of politeness.

Electronic translators can perform other digital functions, such as currency conversion, alarm clock and calculator – found on all models, except that the PSP has no calculator. You’ll also find basic games, voice memos and MP3 players on several.

There are drawbacks. Phrasebooks don’t run out of power, while translators’ battery life is measured in hours rather than weeks. Sporting, beach and rainforest holidays could prove fatal to these translators, none of which is shockproof, dustproof or waterproof. All but two were hard to read in strong sunlight. Only the monochrome screens of the Franklin and Lingo could be easily seen in bright sun, and neither was great indoors.

Another annoyance is that all the models, except the Talkman and Garmin, use American voices and words, so remember to swap your trousers for pants when composing sentences.

Choosing a translator depends on how and where you’re travelling. The Talkman’s PSP lets you play console-quality games, while the Garmin’s sat nav keeps drivers on track. The Lingo should let you order dinner almost anywhere and has great battery life. A good all-round choice is the Ectaco iTravl, thanks to its huge dictionary and good (if temperamental) voice recognition.

JARGON BUSTER

Qwerty keyboard Real keyboard with a traditional typewriter layout

Speech recognition Ability to listen to an English phrase and suggest a translation

Virtual keyboard Digital keyboard icons on a touch-sensitive screen

SPEAKER’S CORNER

Ectaco iTravl NTL-9C – £340 from www.ectaco.co.uk

Best for audio, less good for text

The iTravl excels at listening to, and speaking, phrases, in seven European languages plus Chinese. Select the audio phrasebook function, choose a section and press the side rocker button while saying a phrase. If the iTravl recognises it from a bank of more than 7,000, the phrase is spoken and is audible even in noisy places. The iTravl was more reliable than the Ectaco Partner at recognising phrases. Some menus can be activated by voice, too. Otherwise, and for referring to the vast, 500,000-word dictionary, you have to use a fiddly virtual keyboard on the 3.5in colour touchscreen. Despite its plasticky looks and three-hour battery life, the 7oz iTravl is an effective tool for translations on the fly.

DRIVING AMBITION

Garmin Language Guide – typically £65, or £48 from www.expansys.com, plus Nuvi 770 – typically £280

Easy to use but lacks advanced features

This SD memory card slots into Garmin Nuvi sat navs, from the basic 300T (£150) up to the sophisticated 770, tested. The guide knows 20,000 phrases in each of five European languages and has clear pronunciation but not voice recognition. Its search function for finding phrases is the best on test. The guide also contains 17,000-word bilingual dictionaries for each language covered. The 770 is light (6oz), with good battery life (six hours). A great 4.3in colour touchscreen makes navigating European maps a breeze. However, since it comes only with an in-car charger, a mains charger (£10) is almost essential.

SPEAK EASY

Lingo Voyager 3 – £249 from www.magellans.co.uk

Straightforward and powerful

Looking like an oversized calculator, the Voyager has the best selection of languages on test (19, including most European tongues, Chinese and Arabic), with clearly marked buttons that make it simple and fast to toggle between them. You type a word into the spacious but fiddly qwerty keyboard which then works (often painfully slowly) to narrow your search. The monochrome 3in screen is large and clear to read even in the brightest sunlight, although it’s not so good in dim conditions. Power is not a problem either, as the Voyager uses normal AAA batteries. However, you get only a meagre 20,000-word dictionary and 2,300 phrases per language, so you risk finding yourself stuck for words in uncommon situations. There’s no speech recognition and the Lingo is weighty at 8oz.

GAME ON

Talkman – typically £35, or £30 from www.play.com plus Sony PSP

Slim & Lite – typically £130 Games portable gains extra skills

By far the most entertaining unit on test, Talkman is a software disc and screw-on microphone for Sony’s handheld (7oz) PlayStation Portable Slim & Lite console. A bouncy blue cartoon bird is your friendly tutor to four European languages and Japanese, and ease of use is intuitive. Speech recognition is excellent, with the Talkman suggesting alternative phrases from its store of 3,000 if it doesn’t understand you. The 4.3in screen is large and colourful but battery life is a mere 3.5 hours and loading times (when you switch scenarios) are frustratingly slow. Despite its restricted vocabulary, the Talkman is wittily executed and enjoyable: perfect for a student in need of linguistic motivation.

TALK IS CHEAP

Franklin TGA-490 – typically £150, or £90 from www.m2cshop.com

Accessible but basic translator

The Franklin is the cheapest, smallest and lightest (5.5oz) translator on test, with the best battery life (about six hours). It’s easy to use, too: type in a word on the flimsy keyboard then press one button to hear it in English, another for the foreign version. If you mistype a word, it offers alternative spellings to help. Switching between the 11 languages (a good mix of European and Asian) is straightforward, although it offers only 1,000 phrases in each, the fewest of any here. The speaker faces away from you – handy for your interlocutor but muffled if you want to listen in. The monochrome 3in display was easy to read in bright light, though not in the dark. There’s no speech recognition and build quality feels cheap.

TONGUE TIED

Ectaco Partner EW800 – £320 from www.ectaco.co.uk

Shaped like a small laptop, the Partner had the best qwerty keyboard on test – not backlit but easy to find your phrases. This was much better than tapping away at the cryptic icons on its 4.3in colour touchscreen. There are just five European languages, with a good 14,000 phrases each that are convincing recordings of foreign speakers. Words from its 200,000-entry dictionaries, on the other hand, are spoken in a mechanical voice. Speech recognition works much less reliably than the other Ectaco: its hearing isn’t as sensitive and it only works when you match the wording of its phrases precisely. The EW800 is also the heaviest and largest translator here at 11oz. You can add 15 more languages via a memory card (£110).

Reviews by David Phelan

Prices include Vat but not delivery

Times recommends

• Tech world prepares for cut-price Apple laptops
• Google takes sober look at drunken e-mails
• BlackBerry Storm joins the touchscreen scrum