Introduction
Have you ever been in a situation when you walk into a small grocery store in a foreign country, you want to buy some local produce, but you can’t say a word the shop owner would understand – because they don’t speak any of the languages you do, and you don’t speak any languages they do?
You have probably ended up pointing to things saying “this” and “that” in English, and showing your fingers indicating quantity, and you got away with some of the things you wanted – but if you’re anything like me, you might’ve retreated without buying half of the thing you’d like (or getting something else entirely) and feeling frustrated with yourself for not being able to communicate.
App Introduction
Pidging is aiming to help travellers with such communication by providing a vocabulary of simple words and phrases you could use in any situation, and a rapid translation to over 90 languages with an ability to store selected translations offline. Sure, you won’t be able to maintain an elaborate conversation, or even build a grammatically correct sentence, but you’d certainly help people understand what you want exactly (and not get champagne instead of coffee in the morning; unless that’s a desirable effect), ask for directions, read signs and so on – and also (at least partially) understand what people are saying back to you
Main Features of the App
Pidging offers users following functionality:
- Curated collection of most useful words and phrases for travelling. The list is built based on the personal travelling experience and uses deliberately simple words to ease the communication.
- Translation to over 90 languages. Translation is supported by Microsoft Azure so the quality is really high.
- For supported languages, there’s also translation transcriptions to help with pronunciation.
- Also for supported languages (the list is larger on Android than on iOS) there’s text-to-speech pronunciation which helps to breach the communication barrier even more.
- Offline usage (with previously downloaded translations) – when the language is selected while the Internet connection is available, all the information is stored on the phone for future offline use.
- Creation of custom word/phrase collections to add new content that users require in their travels.
- Simple and fast interface for both iOS and Android
Cost and Pricing of the App
The app is completely free in both iOS AppStore and Android Play Store. It was built as a personal helper, and it should remain free with existing functionality. There are plans to enhance the functionality and potentially create a pro version, but if that happens the existing app and its functions would still be available for everyone at no cost. Furthermore, the only existing limitation on the content in the app is the number of languages stored in the app at the same time (it’s 10 as of the moment of writing this). This is easily manageable by removing unnecessary languages – the rest of the content has no limitations.
Why should Users download this App?
Pidging provides a helping hand in travel communications, when the Internet connection is slow or unavailable – but also when it’s there, as to translate something you’d still need to type it in and wait for a result. It’s a great reference vocabulary tool for the cases when you need simple but effective communication in a foreign language – could be to make your travelling experience more complete, but could also be to get through the journey in general as many crucial aspects of travel require verbal or written communication between people who don’t speak the same language.
Pidging is simple, easy to use and allows building your own vocabulary for whatever cases you like. Translation in multiple languages, transcription and voice cues are all very helpful features to have available at your fingertips.
How to use the App
Pidging is really easy to use – at the beginning you just need to select the first language you want to start with, and that will translate the original vocabulary to the selected language. Once it’s done, you could add your own phrase/word collections and select other languages you want to translate the collections to. Each new added word is translated to all saved languages automatically, and when a new language is added the existing words and phrases are translated into the new language automatically as well. There’s also a language management tab that allows you to remove stored languages (it’s helpful when you need to clean them up to add new ones as the maximum number of languages stored at the same time is limited).
Concluding Summary
With modern travelling possibilities and flexibility, communication during the journey becomes increasingly important – not only to have a greater immersion into the local culture, but also to do more crucial navigation through voice and text information while traveling.
One thing that is almost always present with us during our journeys is our phone, so it’s only reasonable to assume it could be the only tool one needs during the journey. And while it’s generally true, like true swiss army knives, our phones contain a multitude of tools for different occasions and use cases.
Pidging is merely one of those tools, but the one that could come handy in various stages of travelling – while preparing, while on the go and even later when you are reviewing the memories and want to recall some words and phrases to enrich your memories or impress your friends.
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