The south end of the beach at Hua Hin, Thailand.
Where are Kevin and Ruth now? Hua Hin, Thailand.

Where are Kevin and Ruth going next? Maldives on March 23rd.

Friday, May 13, 2016

Good news for international travelers!

It was announced the other day that Google Translate would be available offline for the iPhone platform starting immediately. For those of us who travel to countries where they don't speak English, this is fantastic news!

In fact, I already went to the "app store" and downloaded the necessary files.

All for free!

There are 102 supported languages. Of course Romanian and Russian are two of them, and we'll be needing that help next November. You have to download the language file in advance, and then you can use it on your iPhone without the need to be connected to the internet.

A fun new element of Google Translate is the use of your iPhone's camera. You can actually take a photo of a sign or menu, or any other written item, and it will translate the text for you. Amazing!

Cool, huh??

This technology has been available for a while now, but it's only recently been made available to the iPhone via Google Translate.

I notice this morning that our flight to Romania has gone up to $870 CAD per person, up from the $670  that we paid three days ago. You gotta be quick with flight deals...you have no idea when they'll end.

A beautiful sunny day starting here at the park. Things are drying up from the drenching of rain that we had, and the grass is turning greener already.

Our beach area. All we need is some water!

Things are getting green.

Oh, remember the other day when we told you about that jump start battery pack? I had the opportunity to use it yesterday on our old work truck. The key had been left in the on position, and the battery was totally dead yesterday morning. I hooked up that little battery pack to the old Chevy V8, and it turned over like there was a brand new battery in it. I was totally impressed. That's a lot of power packed into a very small package.

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A big package of quality dish drying towels. 





12 comments:

  1. That's a great app thanks for the tip.

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    1. We will find out how well it works after our trip this fall, then we will know how great it is. :-)

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  2. That is great news! I use google translate when doing advance research. Hubby downloaded an offline spanish app when we were in Spain but I usually figured out what the word was before he got it punched into the phone. It would be great in countries where figuring it out is difficult (like Russian or Romanian or Greek)

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    Replies
    1. Yes, I can see this being very helpful in many ways. Really could have used an app like this when we were in Korea! :-)

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  3. That app will definitely come in handy!

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    Replies
    1. That's what we are thinking too! We will find out how good it is when we go on our trip this fall.

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  4. Your trees are about a week ahead of Ottawa!

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    1. From some of the pictures I have seen, I think we are closer to two weeks ahead of Ottawa.

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  5. Thanks,
    We're in Europe for the next 3 months and this app will be great. We could have used it several times each day in the first two weeks.

    I still follow you everyday, even while traveling.

    Russ Ranger

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    Replies
    1. Sounds like a great adventure being able to spend 3 months in Europe. I hope that the app works well for you. We can see it coming in handy on a number of occasions.

      Wow that sure so shows dedication, thanks for following along with us.

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  6. Now we just have to buy an iPhone :)

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    1. We didn't have one to last year ourselves. We have found it very helpful at times, funny though, we never use it as a phone. :-) Luckily we got gifted our son's old one and the only time it costs us anything is if we buy a SIM card and use it for the internet but most of the time Kevin only uses it when there is free WiFi or any apps that can be use offline like this new Google translation app.

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