New iPhone App: Byki Inglês Americano - English for Brazilian Portuguese speakers

Know anyone who speaks Brazilian Portuguese that would like a fun and simple way to learn English on-the-go quickly (aprenda inglês americano rápido)? Here’s something that just launched November 4, 2009 that you can recommend to them:

Byki Inglês Americano - an iPhone and iPod touch app that teaches English to Brazilian Portuguese speakers.

This new app is first in a new series of ESL iPhone applications from Transparent Language that will be launching in the near future.

Take your language learning with you - on the bus, at the airport, anywhere you have to “wait” -  and maximize downtime with Byki for iPhone and iPod Touch.

Other iPhone and iPod touch apps are already available:

Get it at the Apple app store!

Byki for iPhone just got a really cool new feature - integrated word use examples via Twitter!  Just tap the Twitter icon at the bottom right of the Byki screen any time you’d like to see some examples of the term you’re studying in action.  You’ll be taken to a list of Twitter search results for that word or phrase.  This feature is available for our Brazilian Portuguese, Danish, Dutch, French, German, Irish, Italian, Russian, Swedish, Norwegian, Polish and Spanish apps, and it’s a great way to see a foreign language term used the way real people are using it, right this very minute!

Take your language learning with you - on the bus, at the airport, anywhere you have to “wait” -  and maximize downtime with Byki for iPhone and iPod Touch.

Get it at the Apple app store!

The latest update to the Byki iPhone App has given the power to the people in a true sense. This new version includes the original Byki App’s pre-loaded content of approximately 1,000 words and phrases in each language. But, it adds a whole new dimension by linking to List Central on Byki.com.

You can now have the power to access and download your favorite vocabulary lists from the List Central community, including hundreds of textbook lists and lists created by other users. The best part is that users who own Byki Deluxe can now use their Byki iPhone App to study lists that they create themselves!

With the new version of Byki for iPhone, your learning can now be customized to your interests when you use it in conjunction with Byki.com. Whether you choose lists from the community or lists that you have created yourself with Byki Deluxe, you can now learn them on the go, wherever and whenever you have five minutes to fit in some language learning!

Try it out, and if you like it, leave a comment on the iTunes store and let the rest of the world know how Byki helps you with your language learning.

Visit Transparent Language (our parent company) on the Apple App Store

When I was in high school, I snitched an adult novel from my mother’s stack of books. The romance/adventure was set on a South Pacific Island and I wanted to go there. I read James Michener’s Hawaii, and I wanted to go there. I saw a movie set in Ireland and I wanted to go there.

Vera Marie Badertscher has begun to amass a library of books and movies that pluck the heartstrings of the passionate traveler. Lucky for us, she writes about her discoveries both on the written page and around the world on her blog.

…I looked for books and movies that would be my guide to a different landscape, a different people, a different culture. I have accumulated shelves of books of this kind. You might call them metaphorical guidebooks because they are not literal guidebooks. My travel library contains both fiction and non-fiction, biographies, histories and novels. Mystery novels are the best because the authors must create a strong sense of place. This is what I want to share with you here. Books that inspire and inform your travel. And a few movies that do the same.

Of particular interest to all of us today, Vera has compiled an Earth Day reading list including books by Ann Zwinger, Wesley Powell, and Stephen E. Ambrose, all highlighting the beauty and power of the natural world—specifically the American West. Check it out!

Photo by Dawn Endico

• Brazilian Portuguese
• Dutch
• Esperanto
• French
• German
• Hindi
• Irish
• Italian
• Japanese
• Korean
• Latin
• Mandarin Chinese
• Modern Standard Arabic
• Norwegian
• Polish
• Russian
• Spanish
• Swedish

You can even follow Byki on Twitter if you’re interested in keeping up with us in general.

Enjoy!

Or, if you find yourself wandering about today and want to be able to say “Kiss me, I’m Irish!” or “Is she single?” in Irish Gaelic, you can listen to St. Paddy’s Day survival phrases in the native language @ www.byki.com/irishluck

Check out all things Irish & pass along some green good will:

-Send an animated St. Patrick’s Day eCard in Irish
-Read our new Irish blog
-Watch the “Office Leprechaun” video

Get it all at: www.byki.com/irishluck

Keep your Irish Eyes Smiling on St. Patrick’s Day!

Byki Chinese for iPhone and iPod Touch

Our Spanish, German, French and Italian Byki iPhone apps have built up quite a following since January 2009. Thousands of people have downloaded our language learning software onto their iPhone or iPod touch.  Now, we’ve got 4 more new addictive apps: Byki Mandarin Chinese, Byki Japanese, Byki Brazilian Portuguese, and Byki Russian.

So, now you can spend 10 minutes increasing your Japanese, Chinese, Portuguese or Russian vocabulary. Byki for iPhone includes approximately 1,000 words and phrases in each language - so you can learn wherever and whenever you want! Just like its computer-based counterparts, Byki for iPhone uses research-backed memory-locking techniques designed for adults learning second languages. All three modes, Preview It, Recognize It, and Produce It are active, plus there’s an excellent new quiz mode for those of us who have a penchant for testing ourselves!

Some of the things that make Byki a killer iPhone application:

• It’s just $7.99, (introductory price) and you get access to over 75 premium Byki lists in your language
• 3 learning modes plus the new quiz mode
• SlowSound technology to slow down audio playback of words and phrases
• Search your wordbank using the iPhone keyboard, turning iByki into a portable phrasebook
• Fast to use—jump into learning within seconds
• It’s very pretty, and we’ve added all the trademark iPhone finger-slidin’ functionality you’d expect from a slick new app!

Try it out, and if you like it, leave a comment on the iTunes store and let the rest of the world know there’s a premium language-learning application out there. Plus, keep your eye out for more languages!

Visit Transparent Language (that’s the name of our parent company) on the Apple App Store

Closer to home, companies and individuals within our country have tackled the mission of recording and reviving indigenous languages using current technology. In this excerpt from a February 14, 2009 press release: Using Computers to Learn and Preserve Indigenous Languages, Byki’s parent company, Transparent Language, explains how it provided its software tools and training free of charge to the nonprofit organization Grassroots Educational Multimedia (GEM), founded by Mary Hermes and her husband Kevin. The organization’s mission lies in developing curriculum materials especially designed to teach Ojibwe and other First Nation languages. Ojibwe is currently the third most widely taught indigenous language in North America after Navajo and Cherokee.

Transparent Language, which contracts with hundreds of linguists and native speakers around the world, has always been committed to adding languages to the Byki roster, regardless of how remote or active the language may be. Our CEO Michael Quinlan puts it this way: “We live in an age of global interaction. No language is so small that no one needs to learn it. If we could, we would provide software for all 4,000 languages in the world.”

Byki has added remote languages such as Altai, Tuvan, Buriat and Tajiki to our offerings as a testament to our love of language learning. For example, according to Wikipedia, Altai, which is the official language of Altai Republic in Russia, had 67,900 people speakers in 2002. These 4 languages, and 67 others are available in Byki Express 4.0 as a free language software download.

Also, learn how to say “I love you” in 16 different languages by watching the new I love you video starring a very musical Transparent Language employee! Hint: forward this video to your sweetheart for extra points!

Happy Valentine’s Day!

If you don’t have our iPhone App, these videos are the best way to digest Byki vocabulary on any mobile device with access to YouTube. Just like Preview It mode in Byki 4, you can view, listen, and repeat along with the video. Even better, we serenade you with pretty music while you watch!

Check it out:

Korean Colors
Click here to view the embedded video.

And speaking of Korean, we have some more handy videos Adam put together to demonstrate how easy it is to type Korean, Japanese, and Chinese characters when using Byki 4. You’ll find them at our Tech Support site on Transparent.com:

• How to type in Korean
• How to type in Japanese
• How to type in Chinese

Happy watching, and remember to visit our YouTube channel!