Although English is compulsory at schools, it does not make the pupils conversant in English. This makes living here in the north very frustrating. No foreigners here. We are now contemplating moving further south so we can start living again.

So Apple has an app that translates pictures! I must check to see if Android has one as it will be very useful. I have been buying "hand cream" but now have 5 bottles of shower gel instead.

Mine is the Samsung but I'll bet Apple have their own version.

All I do is open the translator program, tap the camera function, hold it over the document, let it focus on any one line, then take the pic and it auto translates the whole document for me.

The other problem I encountered in my early days here was when I wanted a very specialised item such as a toilet plunger and I just went online, found a pic of what I wanted, printed it and took it into the shop to show the guy.

Also, in my area at least, if the person I'm speaking to doesn't understand me, they'll very often go off and find an English speaker to help.

gotta say I can sympathise with buying the wrong thing...... I've done the same thing several times but in all honesty, it's my own fault for not bothering to use the translator.

Honestly, I cannot see how you can confuse the two ??
I find that my basic schoolboy french is usefull as there are many words such as numbers which are close to their French alternative.

Well, I have no knowledge of French but here are 2 examples of what I thought are skin creams.

1.Dermo Pro Hydrate------hidratantes naturales de la piel-----pele muito seca.

2.NIVEA. Doccia Crema----Creme de Duche----Gel de Ducha Cremoso.

The first one indicates to me that it is "Skin hydrant".
The next one sounds like the well known Nivea skin cream.

Duche is shower.

Banho is bath

You have bought a cream shower gel.

They would have been in different parts of the toiletries dispays in any supermarket from the hand creams.

But parts of the fun of living in a different country is sometimes getting it wrong .

We wanted cous cous and bought cus cus.
After giving it a good soakk in hot stock as per cous cous we eventualy realised that what we had bought was a type of pasta that would not have cooked that way if we had left it for week.
Tasted fine once we cooked it properly.
We have bought bachalau ( salt cod ) and the girl at the check out was very concerned that we actually knew what we had and how to cook it.
She and a lady in the queue behind us gave us suggestions on their favourite recipes.
We bought a galinha once and roasted it, what started out out as a plump chicken became this dessicated almost skeletal dish.
Our neighbour laughed and informed us that what we had bought was an old bird only good enough for a stew or casserole and needed a long long cook.

Portugal can be a great place if you just go with the flow.

I don't know where we've all gone then - according to SEF's stats there were almost 3,000 of us living in Viana district in 2013. And if you tick the box next to Viana do Castelo on this link you can see a full list of nationalities and numbers. I'm in there somewhere along with some South Africans and some Finns.
SEFSTAT – Portal de Estatística

Thanks Eric. I will hound Viana for Finns and South Africans.

At least 2 of the Finns live in Ponte de Lima running a business involving horses. They've been something of a feature offering pony rides to children alongside the river beside the town of recent years.

When on a camping holiday in France my dad fried bacon in washing up liquid, which he thought was olive oil.

He's never cooked since.

Tasted really bad but at least the pan didn't need washing up afterwards!