Photo by Selina Yip on Flickr. Licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

With international travel there are a few things that you absolutely need to remember when you faites vos valises (pack your bags). In our electrically charged modern life, making sure you have all the right converters for your appareils électroniques (electronic devices) is one of the most important things to remember.

La puissance électronique et la tension (wattage and voltage) can change from country to country, and even if you have the right puissance électronique, la prise (the outlet) might also be different and need un autre adaptateur (another adapter)!

Tired from all the travel, I went to look for le chargeur (the charger) when mon ordinateur (my computer) displayed the low battery message:

Votre batterie est faible. Branchez votre PC sur secteur.
Your battery is low. Plug in your computer to an outlet.

Then I realized I forgot le chargeur en Floride !

I needed to buy a new one, but a lot of the technical vocabulary for les câbles et les adaptateurs was unkown to me, and I wasn’t even sure if they would have the right chargeur for mon ordinateur!

I looked up the important words and went out (after checking to see which stores were open). Une fois au magasin d’informatique (once I was at the computer store), finding the right chargeur was easy. De plus (what’s more) it worked perfectly with both mon ordinateur et la prise without any issues!

Un vocabulaire électrique :

L’appareil électronique (M) – electronic device
L’adapteur (m) – (electric) converter
Le transformateur – (electric) converter
Le convertisseur – (money/measurements) converter
La puissance électrique – wattage
La tension – voltage
La prise – electrical outlet
L’ordinateur (m) – computer
La batterie – battery (for computers, cell phones, etc)
La pile – battery (AA, AAA, and other non-rechargable batteries)
Le chargeur – charger
Le câble – cable
Le fil (électrique) – wire