Talking Phrase Books from Beiks

Every now and than, a product comes around that causes you to pause and say, "Hey, that's a great idea!" For me, talking language phrase books for the PDA fall into that category. Beiks rose to the occasion, producing a series of language travel dictionaries that not only give you the required phrases, but pronounce them for you as well.

The phrase books sport an attractive and logical interface which is both colorful and functional. The top bar is vintage Beiks with the addition of a speaker icon in the upper right corner. Simply select a category of phrase from the listbox just below the speaker icon. The categories are what you'd expect from any printed travel phrase book.

Next select the phrase you wish to translate in the top window and it translation (Spanish in this case) appears in the lower window in red. Now comes the kicker--tap the speaker icon and listen to the translation being spoken! Very cool and very effective.

The sound library for the English/Spanish edition is about 1880K, and I ran it from my memory stick under PiDirect II to save RAM while preserving the access speed. The sound library may also be stored in the /Palm/Launcher/ directory or whereever you keep your BDicty dictionary files, as long as you tell BDicty where those files are in the Media setup menu.

Here's the best part: The sounds are not computer generated, but actual recorded voices! The Sony Clie version takes advantage of the enhanced polyphonic speaker for superb sound. The Spanish pronunciations are excellent.

The phrase books work under BDicty Dictionary Viewer 4.95 or better. The phrase books set run a very reasonable $10. The Pro viewer itself sells separately for $10, but the phrase books come with a free Public version of the viewer.

Overall, this product is well thought out and well executed. The pronunciations are superb on Sony's enhanced speaker. If you travel abroad, have use for common phrases in another language, or are learning another language, give Beiks' Talking Phrasebooks a try.