Ectaco 500AL Oxford Multi-Language Electronic Translator

by Ectaco

Product Details

• Item Weight: 7.5 ounces
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• ASIN: B002ZE553Q
• Item model number: 500AL
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank:
  • #8 in Electronics > Office Electronics > Electronic Dictionaries, Thesauri & Translators > Foreign Language Dictionaries
• Date first available at Amazon.com: December 1, 2009

Product Description

ECTACO Partner 500AL is a unique translating device which allows choosing the language you want by downloading the corresponding dictionary. Designed to let anyone understand and communicate instantly, the 500AL features all the latest programming advances. The 500AL employs sophisticated TTS (Text-To-Speech) voice synthesis to speak any of its entries aloud so you don't have to. Perfect for anyone just beginning to explore the world of international communication, the 500AL is loaded with the linguistic resources and extras that make all the difference when you need a reliable, portable companion to help make sense of the world in another language. An additional 14,000 first-use phrases that can also be spoken aloud make it simple to understand and be understood in almost any commonly encountered situation. SAT 200 and SAT 5000 vocabularies help those preparing for tough standardized college-entry tests by building a winning vocabulary quickly and accurately. Add in popular American idioms, a full English grammar resource with irregular verbs, and enjoyable linguistic games to improve your skills while you play and you have one of the best all-around translators ever designed. Employing the latest TTS speech synthesis to deliver complete pronunciation of all the entries in the 500AL database means that you will always know just how a word should be said. No more trying to sound out a transcription. Just touch a button and let the 500AL do the talking for you. And with unlimited voice output, the device will say anything at all - just enter any word using the comfortable and intuitive keypad and get instant clear and audible pronunciation at the touch of a button.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

28 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Doesn't live up to expectations., January 4, 2011

By 

Timothy Hyles - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Ectaco 500AL Oxford Multi-Language Electronic Translator (Electronics)

This translator comes with about 37 language pairs already installed on a Micro SD card that comes with it. The Ectaco website makes it seem like the translator can access all the languages at will, but that isn't possible. You can only use one language pair at a time (e.g. English to Spanish, English to Tagalog, etc). To switch to another language pair you must use go into the settings and choose "replace language pack". This lets you access the languages on the SD card and then you choose the next language pair you want to use. Then it takes between 5-10 minutes for the translator to load the corresponding languages and dictionary. This is very lame in my opinion. The user manual doesn't make this very clear and neither does the Ectaco website. In fact, I returned the first translator I ordered because I thought I received the wrong model, since you can only see the English to Vietnamese dictionary when you first turn on the translator. I ordered again from another seller and the same thing happened again. It took a little bit of messing around to realize I had to do the "replace language pack" function to change it to the English to Spanish dictionary like I wanted.

I haven't used the translator much yet, but there does seem to be an extensive vocabulary and many common phrases installed for the various languages. I think the translator will suit my needs overall, but I'm just disappointed I can't access all the languages on the fly. I only cared to have Spanish and Tagalog on the translator. Unfortunately, I can only access English-Spanish or English-Tagalog separately. I can't look up the word in Spanish and then in Tagalog. You must load the other language for 10 minutes to access the other language, which is very inconvenient. Ectaco is guilty of false advertising with this product.

33 of 37 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Ectaco 500 al translator, July 20, 2010

By 

BellaS - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Ectaco 500AL Oxford Multi-Language Electronic Translator (Electronics)

Yesterday I got my new translator and started to use it. I already tried english-spanish language pair (included) and russian-spanish pair (which was downloaded from ectaco site for free). It is really excellent! The translator helps to find the word by look up function so you don`t need to write all letters of the word, he offers several options of translation, can speak in all languages. The speach is very clear. The vocabulary also includes a lot of sentences very usefull for tourists.
I am very excited!

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful Translator, December 28, 2010

By 

Landsky - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Ectaco 500AL Oxford Multi-Language Electronic Translator (Electronics)

The Ectaco translator is a good tool for anyone who is interested in speaking a language fluently. One can look up a word in the dictionary and hear the correct pronunciation of it from the translator. Also, there are many phrases to search for in the phrasebook.