Free tool
A phrasebook has a thousand phrases and you will use twelve. Pick your language for the ones that actually come up, from your first hello to asking for help. Every set is chosen from inside its own language rather than translated from English, each page opens with the ten to learn first, and every phrase carries a simple pronunciation guide plus a play button that reads it aloud.
The essential travel phrases are greetings, please and thank you, asking directions, ordering food, paying, and calling for help. Learn five or six per situation and you can be polite and handle a problem in most countries. This free tool lists them in 49 languages, starting with the ten easiest, each phrase written with a simple pronunciation guide and, in 47 languages, spoken aloud when you tap it. Every list is picked for what that language really says, and each one ends with the phrases locals trade all day that an English phrasebook has no slot for.
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Learn by situation, not by list. Greetings and politeness come first because you use them in every interaction. Then add the phrases that solve a real problem: asking directions, ordering, paying, and getting help. Practice each block right before you need it, and the emergency phrases once so they are there if something goes wrong.
Each pronunciation is written the way an English speaker would read it aloud, with the stressed syllable in capitals. It is a starting point, not a substitute for the real sound, so press play, listen, and say the phrase back. And when you are ready to move past survival phrases, the fastest route to fluency is reading, which is what reading in Lingo7 is built for.
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Six situations cover almost every interaction: greetings, politeness, directions, eating out, shopping, and emergencies. Learn a few phrases in each and you can be polite and handle a problem anywhere. Which phrases those are is not the same in every language, so each page here is built from what people in that language actually say, and ends with a block of phrases that have no English equivalent at all: the toast, the reply everyone expects, the thing you say to someone who is working.
Yes. On a language page every phrase has a play button, and tapping it reads the phrase aloud in a native voice, so you can copy the sound instead of guessing it from the spelling. The written pronunciation stays under each phrase as a reminder once you have heard it. Two of the languages here (Belarusian and Kyrgyz) have no voice yet, so their pages show the written guide alone.
About a dozen carries most short trips. You are not aiming for conversation, just to greet people, be polite, ask directions, order, pay, and get help if something goes wrong. A traveler who can say hello, please, thank you, and where is the toilet in the local language is already ahead of most visitors.
For a short trip, phrases are enough, and locals appreciate the effort even if you switch to English after. But memorized phrases fall apart the moment someone answers back. If you want to actually understand the reply, you need real exposure to the language, and reading is the most efficient way to get it.
Reading. Once you know a handful of phrases, the fastest way forward is meeting the same words again and again in real context, which is exactly what reading gives you. Lingo7 pairs every sentence with a tap-to-translate and native audio, so you can read a book slightly above your level and pick up the language as you go.