Important Skills For the Beer Traveler

I recently came across an entertaining iPhone app that teaches a very important skill — ordering a beer in another language. In case you're wondering, the name of the app, Pivo, is the Czechoslovakian word for beer.

The Pivo - Order a Beer app provides instruction in 59 languages. Each supported language shows the written phrase, along with a phonetic guide to pronunciation. To make sure you get it right, most of the languages also include a video of a native speaker using the phrase. The videos are easily played by rotating the iPhone. Even if you aren't traveling to a distant land, looking through the videos is both interesting and fun. And if you do find yourself in a strange land, Pivo might get you past just grunting and pointing.

Pivo is available for $0.99 from the iPhone App Store.