When you arrive in a country where they don’t speak English and you haven’t yet picked up a word of the local tongue, it can be awfully hard to get by. Ordering food, finding a place to crash, picking up women, well all of these things can become painful tasks if you don’t know at least a few helpful phrases.
Of course, lots of guidebooks have handy guides in the back that give you some things to say, but only (as far as I know) the new Lonely Planet Fast Talk Audio series offers both a compact, put-in-your-back-pocket phrasebook AND a nifty little CD inside to hear the phrase you’re trying to speak ($6.99 on Amazon). I got my hands on a couple of these new edition phrase books and I highly recommend you check them out.
As I say, one of the best things about them is how small they are, no bigger than a deck of cards, in fact quite a bit thinner than that.They provide phrases for sightseeing, business, shopping eating, sleeping (how do you say “zzzzzzzzz” in French?) and getting around. There is also a wonderful new “Small Talk” Western Europe guide that has handy phrases in ten languages from Danish to Dutch to Turkish, so as you make your way across the continent, you only have to carry around one book. And again, a wee little book at that.