Breakdowns Abroad – key phrase translation sheets
Check out this guide to the best motorcycle breakdown recovery by website Biker Rated.
Key phrase / language translations for motorcyclists abroad
If like me your knowledge of other languages is rather poor a motorcycle breakdown whilst traveling abroad is likely to give you problems whilst looking for local help.
BMW to the rescue!
BMW motorcycle breakdown encyclopedia
BMW have put together a list of words and key phrases that you’re likely to need in the event of your motorcycle breaking down on your travels in Europe. There are a number of information sheets available listing these key words and phrases together with translations to/from a number of languages e.g. English/German or German/English (see list below).
I can’t recall how I came across these originally as they only seem to be available on the BMW Motorrad Germany website and I can’t even find a link or any mention of them on the UK BMW Motorrad website!
Hopefully you won’t have a break down, crash or accident whilst motorcycling abroad (or at home!) but be prepared and print the relevant information sheets to take with you on your travels abroad.
Translation sheets available to/from the following languages:
English, German, French, Czech, Danish, Spanish, Finnish, Greek, Hungarian, Croatian, Italian, Norwegian, Netherlands, Portuguese, Polish, Romanian, Swedish, Slovenian, Turkish.
Here’s a few to be going on with, downloads in .pdf format (right click, save target as):
English/Italian English/Spanish
The full list of information sheets can be found here:
http://www.bmw-motorrad.de/de/de/services/breakdown_dictionary/index.html
Of course you can put together your own custom translation ‘crib’ sheet by using one of the many translation services available on the Interweb (e.g. Alta Vista’s Babel Fish Translator). Bare in mind that these have limited use, for example here’s a translation of the German text on the BMW Motorrad web page linked to above:
“Find the right words. With it to you with a breakdown the language nails never up the BMW motorcycle breakdown encyclopedia. We have put together the most important breakdown concepts into numerous languages for you, so that you can come to an agreement any time. And so simply it goes:
Please, select in the accompanying cunning box your mother tongue.
Choose then the foreign language into which the concepts should be translated.
Click on “start”.
Naturally you also simply can print out the results and can take with on the trip.”
See what I mean 😉