COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) - To ease misunderstandings between police and non-English speakers, law enforcement agencies around the country are getting Ohio-produced flashcards that help arrange for interpreters.

The spiral-bound booklets list the phrase, "I speak (this language),'' in 59 tongues.

Two national interpreters' groups teamed with Ohio law enforcement officials to produce the flashcards. Ohio had 10,000 copies printed last month and has sent all of them to agencies in and outside the state, with a waiting list for more.

Emergency and court personnel have had similar cheat sheets on hand for years, but none as extensive as the Ohio booklet, according to several people involved with the project. One of the lengthier versions, a checklist issued by the U.S. Census Bureau after the 2000 census, asks the reader to choose from 38 of the more common languages spoken in the country.

"Obviously, our city has become incredibly diverse over the last few years, more so even than it was,'' said Sherry Mercurio, a police spokeswoman in Columbus, home to a growing Hispanic population and the second-largest Somali community in the country. The police department plans to use the booklets to replace several pages of language phrases in its field manual, she said.

"This card goes above and beyond'' the manual, Mercurio said.

The State Highway Patrol plans to put a booklet in each of its patrol cars, Sgt. Stephanie Norman said. The state also wants the flashcards at driver's exam stations, weigh scale stations and in the hands of commercial vehicle inspectors.

The Ohio Office of Criminal Justice Services, which administers U.S. Department of Justice grants, paid for the $8,900 printing and has ordered another 10,000 booklets, said Erin O'Donnell, a spokeswoman for the state agency.

The Justice Department, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and local law enforcement agencies from around the country have asked for copies of the booklet, O'Donnell said. Other groups that have requested copies include the International Association of Chiefs of Police, the National Criminal Justice Association and the Tennessee Coalition Against Domestic Violence.

"This was a model project and the first one of its kind in which there was collaboration between law enforcement people and language specialists to provide law enforcement officers with what they need,'' said Nancy Festinger, chief interpreter for U.S. District Court in Manhattan.

In a given year, the court encounters 25-30 languages; local courts in New York can encounter twice that many, said Festinger, who was part of the panel that produced the booklet.

Faulty translations can cripple criminal investigations, said Isabel Framer, an interpreter based in Akron, Ohio.

"I have come across cases where the cases have been either dismissed or reversed or resulted in lesser charges because law enforcement didn't have a qualified interpreter during Miranda warnings,'' said Framer, who spearheaded the booklet's development as part of a larger project designed to improve law enforcement dealings with non-English speakers.

Framer, a certified Spanish interpreter, said she once arrived at a scene at officers' request only to discover the person in question spoke another language altogether, one she didn't speak.

Framer and others said safety becomes an issue when officers can't communicate with people they encounter. Police might not be able to perceive a threat against them or against someone else, a frequent trait of domestic violence cases. And having friends or family members interpret is a stopgap at best, she said, because they might give their opinions rather than those of a relative who was a witness or victim.