Wow, talk about being out of touch. Please don't waste time with either of those two products while traveling. There are others out there like Hipmunk, Kayak and Wikitravel, but it's best to find and converse with fellow travelers once you're reached your destination. They'll have more up-to-date insight and information than any website, never mind a notoriously outdated guidebook. My sympathies regarding the language barrier, but that is hardly a reason to dismiss a product entirely.
And hasn't Facebook basically abandoned check-ins? I cannot dispute that some people will find a product or a service useful while the majority have rejected it entirely, and I respect their choices, but I draw the line at having those people making recommendations of products whose creators have essentially abandoned.
The main reason that I stopped/suspended using Foursquare is because I see it as a game with no winners. It may help some people in ways that it wasn't intended to, but aside from that it provides me with no tangible means of measuring a successful interaction nor does it push me to achieve it.