Point It

October 14, 2007

Language dictionaries can be both a help and a chore– it seems like for every word or term easily found, several more are inexplicably, as they say, lost in translation (I couldn’t help the pun). So, while some may swear by the dictionaries, I swear by another book. It is wordless, slim and fits easily in your pocket.

Ingeniously, it’s a book of pictures. It’s split into several categories and contains all of the information you’ll ever need. From sleeping arrangements to food to transportation to entertainment to, rather strangely, drugs. Instead of fumbling over your own inability to find what you’re looking for, or your own lazy, Western tongue (As is my downfall time and again), you simply turn to the page and point and what you’re looking for/wanting.

While it is better to actually try to converse with the people you come across in your travels, sometimes it is just too difficult, too tiring or to ineffective to use words, especially when pictures can suffice so much clearer and more effectively.

In the times I’ve used it, it has worked like a charm and has often elicited several curious and excited responses. Quite a few times, people have taken the book out of my hands and flipped through it, laughing and smirking at the sometimes dated pictures.

A ‘point it’ book can be a handy and time saving tool for the common traveler. It crosses culture and language with ease and, especially for extended trips, it saves on having to buy a language to language dictionary for every country on the itinerary. It could very well replace all of those tattered and dog eared dictionaries! You can find Point It at Amazon.com.