Bonvenon!
motî is a free multi-lingual iOS dictionary app optimised for language learning, but it’s also for anyone who has an interest in words or just loves dictionaries.
The language data comes from the English Wiktionary project, whose goal is to describe all words of all languages in English. In one single application, multiple languages can be installed, currently there are 32 languages, but with over 4400 languages in the Wiktionary project there is ample opportunity to include others.
Etymologies help to make connections between new and already familiar words in any language installed, and example sentences show words and phrases from everyday usage.
To facilitate faster language learning your search history is available locally and fully searchable. If you use Anki you can export flashcards directly from an entry.
Current feature set
- 32 languages with definitions in English to install for offline use: bahasa Indonesia/Melayu, català, čeština, Cymraeg, dansk, Deutsch, English, español, Esperanto, euskara, فارسی, français, ελληνικά, Ἑλληνική, Gaeilge, עברית, Nederlands, italiano, 한국어, lingua latīna, limba română, lietuvių, magyar, polski, português, русский, svenska, suomi, Türkçe, tiếng Việt, українська
- Built-in offline web reader with quick access to dictionary entries & Wikipedia articles
- Export dictionary entries to Anki flashcards
- Add your own text or photo notes to entries
- Fast search with approximate matching
- Detailed content including example sentences, usage notes, related words and etymologies
- Pronunciation information and audio playback
- Pasteboard integration
- Finally, perhaps unusual for a free dictionary app, absolutely no ads or data collection shenanigans whatsoever.
Background
I love learning new languages, and often travel to immerse myself in them, a great way to learn. You just need a dictionary, and some way to document everything you “pick up” this way: overheard phrases, clippings of a magazine article, a sign found somewhere in the street.
As a mobile developer I was of course looking for an app to support my language learning. I tried out a few different options but was not satisfied with any of them. And for less popular languages the options are even more sparse or don’t exist at all.
Around this time I rediscovered the English Wiktionary project. It was spun off as a collaborative dictionary from Wikipedia and now contains over eight million pages, more than there are in the English Wikipedia.
I became an active contributor and decided to build an application which would make at least a part of this rich data available on a mobile device.
motî (the Walloon word for “dictionary”) is the result of this effort.