For many European nations, phrase books for anglophone visitors have provided a constant stream of cruel fun. The English-speaking tourist would arrive, gripping the phrase book. They would then attempt to pronounce words they had never seen or heard before in a fashion that rendered them comprehensible to the locals.

Now, you can make Johnny Foreigner pay for all those years of humiliation, reproducing phrases from the book in a perfect accent. The new, Seiko version of the phrase book has the usual list of useful commands, but is accompanied by a small electronic device that looks like a portable radio.

Simply press the forward or back button, and the digital display zooms to any one of 300 numbered phrases. Press play, and a real-life foreign chappie's voice utters the sentence into your earphone. All you have to do is repeat it.

The Voice Station Traveller, in French, Spanish, German or Italian and priced £79.95, is available from Seiko stockists throughout the country.