This holiday season, the challenge is always trying to find the perfect gift for all the people on your holiday gift list. Most often, you have that one person who seems to have everything and now all they do is travel. What do you get someone like that? They already own all the Lonely Planet guidebooks, translation books and all the little things that make the plane ride to their destination more comfortable bought already.

The Sharper Image has the Franklin 12-Language Translator. This portable, pocket sized talking interpreter translates, displays and correctly pronounces over 400,000 words and 12,000 typical phrases in 12 languages and speaks 115,000 words in an actual recorded human voice. It translates between and among Chinese (Mandarin), Dutch, English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish.

For languages with unique characters (e.g., Chinese, Japanese, Russian and Korean) translations are clearly displayed in their native script on the seven-line screen in addition to being transliterated in our Roman alphabet. Perfect for when you want to skip attempting to correctly pronounce “where’s the bathroom” in Russian and just point.

This handy little gadget also features a voice recorder, MP3 player, currency and metric converter, organizer, calculator and world-time clock. Comes with earbuds. Runs on one built-in rechargeable lithium-ion battery (charging adapter included). Measures 4.3″ x .74″ x 2.8″; and weighs 5.6 oz. Takes up much less space than a book and you can leave a number of separate gadgets at home.

Pick one up for $199.95. Not cheap…but it’s definitely something that they probably won’t have.   Perfect!

[The Sharper Image]