Face to face mode at the market, the garage and the pharmacy

Put your phone down between you and the other person, open Face to face, and take turns speaking in short sentences. Piou detects who's talking, shows the translation and reads it out loud. You only need one phone, and it works offline once your languages are downloaded. For prices, totals and medicine doses, always confirm in writing.

The scenes below take place in Thailand, between English and Thai, but the same approach works with any pair of Piou's 20 languages.

What Face to face actually does

You speak English; the phone shows and speaks your sentence in Thai. The other person answers in Thai; the phone shows and reads the answer in English. Piou works out who is speaking, so nobody has to tap a different button for each person.

What matters most:

• One phone is enough. The other person doesn't need to install anything. That's the whole point at a market stall, where nobody is going to download an app to sell you a bag of rambutans.
• It works offline once the languages are downloaded, which helps in covered markets and rural repair shops with weak signal.
• It's part of Piou Premium, like message translation.

Speech recognition depends on what your device supports for each language, so results can vary from one phone to another.

The setup, done once at the hotel

1. Set your language in Settings → Language & translation.
2. Download the languages you'll need, English and Thai here. It's a one-time download, ideally over Wi-Fi.
3. Test it in airplane mode with a simple sentence. Better to find out at the hotel than at the stall.
4. Turn the volume up so the other person can hear the translation.
5. Carry a power bank on long days out.

Scene one: a night market in Chiang Mai

Market conversations are short: an item, a quantity, a price. That's exactly what Face to face handles well.

• You: "How much for one bag of mangoes?"
• The vendor, in Thai: "Fifty baht a bag."
• You: "Two bags, please."

The weak spot is spoken numbers. In Thai, "fifty" (ห้าสิบ) and "fifteen" (สิบห้า) use the same two words in a different order, and speech recognition in a noisy market can mix them up. For any amount that matters, ask to see the number: on a calculator, on a scrap of paper, or typed on your own phone. Many vendors already show prices on a calculator, so it rarely feels awkward.

Keep your tone friendly and literal. Jokes and haggling banter don't translate well, and a playful "That's way too expensive!" may come across as a complaint.

Scene two: a scooter repair shop in Phuket

Describe the problem as plain facts, one sentence at a time:

• "The engine makes a noise when I brake."
• "It started yesterday."
• "How much will it cost? How long will it take?"

Technical words often come out approximately: "brake pads" or "drive belt" may not translate cleanly. Point at the part, or play a short video of the noise you recorded earlier. Before any work starts, ask for the total price in writing and take a photo of it. For a bigger repair, a written quote beats any spoken translation.

Scene three: a pharmacy in Bangkok

Face to face helps you describe a simple symptom ("I've had a sore throat for two days," "My son has a fever") and understand the pharmacist's answer. It doesn't replace checking:

• ask the pharmacist to write the dose on the box;
• show your allergies, written in advance in both languages, ideally by a bilingual person;
• for ongoing treatment, a child or a chronic condition, check with a doctor, with an interpreter if possible.

In an emergency, call the local emergency number. Face to face is for talking with the person in front of you, and Piou doesn't call regular phone numbers.

Noise, accents and other limits

Markets, garages and busy streets are loud. To get better results:

• take turns, and don't talk over each other;
• move the phone closer to whoever is speaking, without pushing it into their face;
• keep sentences short, one idea at a time, and wait for the translation to finish;
• rephrase when an answer doesn't fit the question, instead of repeating yourself louder.

Machine translation also stumbles on place names, brand names, idioms and strong regional accents. If a key word comes back wrong twice, point at it, write it down or try a simpler word.

Patience and courtesy

Not everyone is comfortable talking to a phone. Show the screen, smile, and gesture that the translation will appear. Greet the person before you start and thank them at the end. A couple of Thai words in your own voice, สวัสดี (hello) and ขอบคุณ (thank you), often go further than the best translation.

What it costs

Face to face is part of Piou Premium, which starts with a 7-day free trial: a payment card is required, and nothing is charged for 7 days. After that, the subscription starts automatically unless you cancel before the trial ends. In the United States, Premium costs $5.99 a month or $47.99 a year; in the United Kingdom, £4.99 a month or £39.99 a year; in Thailand, 89 baht a month or 690 baht a year. Prices are adapted to your country and shown in your currency before you subscribe. Messaging itself stays free.

Chat between English and Thai with Piou