The Language Buddy

Free to try!

a simple and efficient way to remember words and phrases for other languages on your iPhone/iPod!

The Language Buddy is free to download. It will let you create 3 Language Sets and create 10 entries per Language Set. You can do an In-App upgrade for $1.99 to unlock unlimited Language Sets and unlimited entries.

Requirements: Compatible with iPhone and iPod touch.
Requires iPhone OS 3.1.3 or later.

Overview of App

The idea behind the Language Buddy is to provide you a simple interface to enter in a word or short phrase in your native language along with a Romanized “sounds like" spelling for another language.

Not everyone has time to learn a whole new language when they travel someplace new, but you may find yourself needing to remember even basic words and phrases you pickup during your travels. Sure, there are plenty of other language apps out there that give you a lot of language content and they even let you enter in your own content, but they are typically full of words and phrases that you would not use on a day-to-day basis while also being cumbersome and difficult to use. The Language Buddy cuts to the chase and lets you keep track of what words and phrases are important to you.

You’ll find this application very helpful and you’ll soon even notice you memorize your new found words much more quickly this way!

Check out this video review provided by The Daily App Show!

Features & Examples

Note: All application content is provided by you, the user.

Implemented Features:

Create multiple language sets like English-to-Spanish, English-to-Korean, Japanese-to-English, etc...

Create categories to organize your entries like food, phrases, people, etc...

Add a picture to represent an entry like foods, objects, people, etc...

Record an audio clip for your entries so you can hear the pronunciation whenever you want

Search all entries in each language set

Edit the Entries/Categories/Language Sets

Change the background color

Set the application to always startup a particular language set so you can jump right in making new entries without jumping around from screen to screen (Primarily for iOS 3.x since the app will always run in the background when using IOS4 unless the app was explicitly exited)

Examples of Use:

You are traveling abroad and want to remember simple everyday words like Hello, Goodbye, Good Afternoon, Thank you, etc...

You are traveling abroad and learn a new word or phrase that you want to note for easy future reference

You eat some new foreign food and you want to remember how to pronounce that food the next time you want it

You meet new people and don't want to forget their name or face, but don't want to add them to your address book.

Screenshots

First Run Wizard

: When you first run the Language Buddy a wizard will guide you through creating your first Language Set and optionally creating categories to organize your entries into.

: A Language Set defines From and To languages that you want to remember words for. For example, your From language will probably be English and your To language could be Korean.

: The To language will contain just a Romanized "sounds-like" spelling that you enter to remember that word later on.

The Main Screen

: Portrait view presents a 2-column layout that shows you all your entries for that Language Set

: In this example the Language Set is English to Korean

: You can option to view all categories (default) or select a specific category

: Entries can be tapped to edit

Main Entries Screen - Rotated

: The Landscape view presents a 4-column layout to let you also see if there are images or audio clips assigned to your entries

: If assigned, pictures can be tapped to view a larger representation

: If assigned, the sound icon can be tapped listen to the recording

Creating an Entry

: Enter the Item Name and Foreign Item Name (English to Korean in this example, or really, whatever you want)

: Assign your entry to a category or create a new category if it doesn't exist already

: Assign a picture to your entry

: Record an audio clip for your entry

: Double-Arrow button to view the image larger

Add Entry Screen - Rotated

Search Screen

: Type in characters to reveal dynamic search results.

: Searches across all Language Sets and reveals which Language Set the item is under and category

: Portait view shows the 2-column search result.

Search Screen - Rotated

: Landscape view shows if a search result has an image or audio clip assigned

Settings Screen

: Create and Edit Language Sets

: Create and Edit Categories

: Select which of your Language Sets you want to open at application startup. (Note that this just works with OS 3.x unless the application was explicitly exited on iOS4)

: Change the background color

FAQ & Issues

FAQ

What happens if I delete a Language Set?

All entries assigned to that Language Set will be deleted.

What happens if I delete a Category?

All entries will only be marked as Uncategorized. They will still remain in the Language Set.

Known Issues

Issue: After creating a new Language Set and you go back to the main entry screen the focus will now be on that newly created Language Set.
Workaround: Just go to the Home screen and select the Language Set you want to use.

I am always open to suggestions and feedback. Thanks!