Most people in Europe speak English, why bother :-)
or buy
http://www.amazon.co...r-Graf/dp/3980313026 (no need for words)
Tommy

That picture book is a good idea, but part of a great travel experience for me is to see the looks of horror and amusement on local faces as I mercilessly butcher the beautiful languages of the world.

Travel = culture, language = culture :: travel = language

Personally, I think that printing these pages up might not be quite as favorable as downloading to a device...or the use of e-paper or something. It's just such a inconvience to carry around papers for the sake of communication.

However, using collaboration to keep the data up-to-date and on good terms with local lingo is great! Maybe you could find a way to allow this data to be transfered or synced to a PDA or mobile phone? Oh! And maybe add mp3 sound clips of a native speaker saying the phrase so that if one doesn't want to give the language a go (though I do agree with thecougar...travel is language), he/she can just click their way through conversation or something.

Good Luck!

Every language has around 2000 - 3000 core words one needs to know to understand or convey most conversations/communication that is done in that particular language. Something that can help to memorize words are flash cards, but a list of those 2000 - 3000 words could be handy too.
I guess the flashcards can be integrated into a small format book form. (Pages have 2 sides too like flash cards)

Many more-ore-less marvelous lil thingies exist, for example http://www.ectaco.co.uk/

Speech recognizes, pronounces... you name it.

They seem much more practical to me than a website or printed material, and their designers can build the website or printed matter in a few jiffies.

> The site would rely on users to create the translations

Beware of the jokers (submitting weird translations)

natmaka, do you mean something like this?

Mon, c'est une grande banane que vous avez là

PeeJayEl: yes, indeed :-)

A soldier explains how he learned English: "We occupied country where people English speaking. To learn English, every day I aim gun at a civilian and command him to teach me one word".

Then, while puting his finger on his temple, he concludes: "Two years after I have more 700 words in my ass!"

I guess outside Europe this more in need for Europeans visiting the other side of the Globe...some exchange of insights had been thrown on 2 other ideas well initiated by CharonV... do check the other Idea submitter for possible collaboration. see:

http://www.cambrianh...er/ideas-id/JnnwgkW/
http://www.cambrianh...er/ideas-id/kT56OB8/

Great idea.
the couple of words or phrases you can speak, even if it isjust 'goedemorgen' or 'hallo' will prove you make an effort when visiting a county and mostly this will be highly appreciated by the locals. And speaking thirty of sixty words will help you through taxi's hotels and restaurants. As long as one one of the phrases you master means 'i'm sorry, i don't speak flemish'.
If you are looking for phrases, I know wikipedia has some topics on laguages including basic phrases.
Goedenavond.

Sure, I'd print off a 8.5x11 sheet of useful phrases in any given language before traveling there. I guess the trick is making something everyone can try improve, yet is formatted perfectly for printing out (instead of on-screen viewing... or both)?

Could be a...
- wiki
- google spreadsheet
- tikiwiki spreaksheet module

....jeeze there's probably a zillion different formats but those are all that are coming to mind right now. But it seems like this would be harder to crowdsource to start off with... its a pretty small endeavor to make the first cheat-sheet and host it somewhere. Then when there's an example to expand on, you could naturally attract others looking to add their own contributions.

If I had to do it, I'd create a Google Page, and the spreadsheet (readable by everyone, writeable only by those I invite). Create a first sheet and link to it on the page. Show an email address on the page so anyone who wants to suggest a handy phrase can sent it to you.

The email address automatically forwards to who ever else is on the team. You guys have a protocol of {reply-to-all}ing about any submission you get so you know someone is on it, and one person updates the pertinent spreadsheet to add the suggestion, and thank the submitter.

There's zero cost there other than time. Not as attractive as setting up your own hosting and domain, but the big question is, can you collaborate on a cheat sheet that prints nicely? Just move as simply as you can to address that question, and after that it becomes a game of marketing (which will cost money).

"Show an email address on the page so anyone who wants to suggest a handy phrase can sent it to you."

Yes, Gord but you may end up with phrases like:

"Mon, c'est une grande banane que vous avez là"

It may be a handy phrase, but not in business meetings... well not MOST business meetings.