While the voice recognition software for the Talkman is a little shaky, it’s a useful phrase book when traveling around Asia. Nintendo’s not a company to miss an oppertunity so they created their own series of portable language tools, the Tabi no Yubisashi Kaiwachou (loosely translated as Conversation Notebook for Travelers) series. Volumes 1-5 are scheduled for a release later this month. The first languages that Nintendo picked up for this are: Thai, Chinese, Korean, American English and German. Each series also has its own animal mascot Thai (elephant), Chinese (panda), Korean (tiger), English (bear) and German (eagle).

http://www.siliconera.com/2006/04/11...o-the-talkman/