The simplest form of communication when travelling in foreign countries may be a picture book.

Summer is travel time, and trips to far-away locales are increasingly frequent. For many Americans, “going abroad” used to mean a trip to Mexico or Europe. Now, trips to China, Thailand or Egypt are becoming part of the travel experience for young and old alike.

A number of tools are on the market to help travellers communicate abroad, including high-tech gizmos such as the “talking translators” that I blogged about a few weeks back. But when dealing with very basic communication tasks when there is a very high language barrier, a simple picture book such as point it or The Universal Phrase Book may prove to be extremely useful.

So how ridiculous would you look pointing to an image of a bandage or a toilet? Probably not much more so than you would sound trying to ask for one in the Mandarin or Arabic you tried to learn from a digital application on the plane over.

“As someone who has travelled to more than 40 countries, both in Europe and the non-Western world, I have found point it to be very useful and easy to carry,” explains the publisher’s description of this popular picture book. “It has taken the suspense out of ordering dinner in remote areas of Burma. Instead of guessing what I’m ordering or trying to act like, say, a chicken, I can just point to a photograph of one.”

So if you’re travelling to a destination with a difficult language and don’t feel like pantomiming poultry, a picture book can be a low-cost and efficient communication tool.

Betty Carlson