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shaun:
Chris,

I bought a good pocket translator when I was there the first time.  Don't know if this will help but the only English I can see written on it is Pearson Longman V699.

It works pretty good but can have issues.  I also used google translate on my laptop.

But then again saying "I don't understand" and shrugging your shoulders seems to work at a little simpathy.

RobertBfrom aust:
Chris , I have always used a Besta electronic translator have bought a couple over the years and theyhave always worked well, but it depends on simply how much you want to spend as both of mine came with pens which the girls could write on the screen with and it was smart enough to the English word or sentence and also speak it also both of mine had rechargeable fitted batteries within so when we arrived back from the day one could just plug it in .

 The newer one I could also download photos to on a 32 mb card , regards Sujuan and Robert .

brett:
Hanping CE is an amazing dictionary for smart phones. It won't do translations though, but it's great for looking up words.

Anyone with a smart phone can just get a SIM card here in China and then use Google Translate.

I don't know how QQ works but I've chatted to women who haven't spoken any English, and they've understood me OK.

I can type a lot of pinyin now, and that's the best thing of all as there won't be any strange Google mis-translations thrown in.

Pineau:
Have you noticed that many ladies over 40 suck at pinyin. In many cases their English is better than their pinyin. QQ international translator is good but sometime gets it totally wrong. The problem with English to Chinese translations is that they translate literally the Webster's definitions. English is so full of slang that you can completely fool a translator into giving you the wrong translation. Be careful of these  colloquialisms and idioms that make perfect sense to you and your cousins but are not proper English and will be interpreted by the translator as gibberish. "he was dead as a doornail" comes out as "he was dead". understandable but not as emphatic as you imagined. And some things translate verbatim. Exactly what you said but the trouble is they have a completely different meaning in China. "straight shooter" will translate exactly to straight shooter by the translator, how ever in America It means "One who is honest and forthright", In China it is someone that is good at shooting a gun or playing pool.

I need to go pee has more meaning than I need to "duck out" for a minute.

I am going to blow up your photo may get her a little upset.
 
Surprisingly "dick head" means pretty much the same thing in China. ie= asshole.

If you want to have a less confusing, meaningful conversation with a foreigner then remove all idioms and colloquialisms from your speech. Don't be verbose and poetic or eloquent just say it in the simplest terms you can think of.

Another thing that will help is what is called "Yoda talk".   Where the subject, verb and adjectives are reversed from normal English speech.  "You are a pretty girl" becomes " A pretty girl you are"  It sounds weird to us English speakers but that is the way most of the rest of the word talks.

someone here showed me this translator. I use I the most often cause it gives me an idea of what I am about to say by translating back to English.  http://imtranslator.com/

If you really must use slang then "check this out"  ;) try this http://www.slangdict.com/

Pineau:
I have never had a hand held translator that I liked and thought was worth the price. ( I have owned many).  Google and other online translators will do a much better job and if you got a smart phone with Wi-Fi you got Google in your pocket.

The really best solution is to find a lady that speaks some English. You will be far less frustrated in the beginning and life will be smoother down the road.

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