Communication skills

    Language translators are very much in vogue, but you really need to do some digging for what you want as the permutations of languages and features is staggering. Many are just glorified dictionaries, with the number of languages ranging anywhere from two to fourteen. Remarkably, most of these multi-language choices are confined to European languages, with Japanese occasionally thrown in for good measure. Handy perhaps for your next visit to France or Spain, but not so practical for local use. If you do want to improve your Chinese, your choices are mainly limited to English-Chinese products (both Mandarin and Cantonese varieties are available). But you have to be careful with these too, as the majority are only set up for native Chinese speakers learning English. Unless you're already comfortable working in Chinese as your base language, you may not get very far.

    If you do want to plum for a Chinese translator, you should definitely invest in the speaking models. Spoken Chinese can sound completely alien to what its phonetically-written counterpart would indicate as pronunciation is dependent on not just syllabic sounds but also on four rising and falling tones, applied liberally throughout. A slightly different tone on a single syllable can change the entire meaning of a word. Although you might feel silly holding your contraption up to someone's ear, this feature could come in very useful.

    If you're feeling really bold, you might even opt for a talking translator with a pen pad. V-Tech makes a nice one that allows you to draw - or perhaps attempt to draw - any Chinese characters you don't recognise (out of the more than 50,000 in the language, there will most likely be a few!) and have them converted into English. However attractive this might sound, these models are much more expensive and you'd have to be a pretty dab hand to replicate effectively many of these ornate characters. Starting prices on translators range from HK$1000-2500.

    If faxing is your reason for living, you might want to check out a little gadget called the Handifax 1000 - 'fax anywhere, anytime, even with a cell phone!!'. This portable fax sender with built-in acoustic coupler starts at HK$1000 and exists solely to send faxes - why bother with something as silly as receiving them too? While the compact technology is clever, the application here is pretty one-dimensional to say the least and your money could be better spent elsewhere. Manufacturer Supafax obviously believes in sticking to core competencies and nothing else.


  • Gadget shopping walkabout in Hong Kong
  • Cream of the Crop
  • The weirder, the wackier
  • Night-time shopping and other options
  • Buyer beware