It was weeks ago but we didn´t mention here. Greek, Japanese, Ukrainian, Finnish and Hungarian translations of Forvo are completed.
We are working on 10 more languages to release before the end of 2010, including Persian, Catalan, Romanian, Korean, Bulgarian, Turkish or Norwegian. If you feel you can help a bit on that you will be very welcome to the translation family.
Update: User asdfforvo is the winner. Congratulations!
Have you planned your holidays? Well, you already know that you can count on Forvo to improve your pronunciation of those typical travel words but this year we want to help you even more.
Thanks to our friends at Alquiler Costa del Sol we are giving away a full week stay in a nice apartment in Algarrobo Costa, Málaga (Spain). Yes! The heart of the sunny Costa del Sol.
Do you want to participate? Just follow these two steps.
1. Send a “participation tweet” including your Forvo username, i.e. with my username in brackets “[israel] I’m going to the Costa del Sol with @forvo More info: http://tinyurl.com/36utn43“.
Click on this button to make it faster: 
2. Add or pronounce a word in Forvo.
Every single word will count as a participation, so the more you collaborate the more your chances to win are. For example, 3 pronunciations count as 3 participations, it’s easy to understand.
The contest will be held between 07/14/2010 (16:00h*) and 07/21/2010 (16:00h*). The winner will be contacted and announced in this website after all the words and pronunciations are reviewed and validated. Give us a few days to do it. The participation tweet could be sent anytime from now on so we recommend you to join as soon as possible and start gathering words you want to add when the competition starts.
The prize includes:
- Apartment rental for 4 persons.
- Dates: A week of your election between 10/01/2010 to 12/15/2010.
- Features: Shared swimming pool, Shared garden, Fitted kitchen, Television, Air conditioning, Bed linen, Parking, Terrace.
The prize does not include:
- Transportation.
- Any other cost associated to your stay as meals, deposit to cover damage, etc.
The prize is available for any person older than 18.
The prize would not be refunded or changed in any way if the winner can not make use of it.
We hope you have a nice stay and a happy pronouncing!
* Time is UTC+2.
Thanks to our good friends at Lasai for these great t-shirts. We are making plans so you can get one too.
Our first iPhone app is available at the Apple iTunes Store.
The initial release contains “only” pronunciations in English (almost 60,000 at this moment) but we plan to add all the languages you can find in Forvo very soon. The app is free for download and it´s the best posible experience to hear pronunciations on the iPhone. Check out our special site about this app in http://iphone.forvo.com or download the app in iTunes Store.
We are very happy with this app, its design, functionality, it´s just great. We hope you feel it too and tell us your impresions about it.
The first half of 2010 we´ve been very busy consolidating Forvo´s infrastructure. Now we are ready to release a bunch of amazing tools for you. Last week we announced Forvo Translate, now it´s time for more:
- Forvo API: More than 100 developers have signed up for an API account since we opened it. Now, we are happy to announce that is completely operative. We would love to see what great websites you create with Forvo pronunciations. Let´s show the world how to pronounce!
And as the last piece of Forvo you already know what is coming next… soon.
I have to admit that Forvo Translate started as a joke… Could we do a Translation service better than Google´s? The answer was yes. And we did it :)
Using Forvo´s API, we´ve added to Google Translate the only this is wrong with it: Human pronunciations.
Sure, Google have made a great job with their text-to-speech voice synthesis but if you speak other than English the results are just hilarious. Furthermore, Google have pronunciation enabled for just couple of languages. Forvo covers the 57 languages of Google Translate, and about 200 more possible to come.
So we are now introducing Forvo Translate. It´s almost the same that Google Translate but with authentic native pronunciation. Why don´t you give it a try and comment your thoughts on it?
Or maybe you will enjoy more this presentation of Forvo Translate by Ilmostro a Forvo Editor:
Ask yourself this… would you employ C-3PO to teach you Wookiee, if you could have Chewbacca do it?
The answer is NAAAAAAAAAAAAWGH
While we have yet to figure out how to take recordings from irascible aliens, we can already upload thousands of human pronounced words on your mobile… or android. Don’t take chances with artificial voices, go for the real thing!
Nobody worries about upsetting a droid, but you don’t want to upset a Wookiee by saying things wrong, do you?”
Stop Androids. Get Human.
This summer part of the Forvo team will be visiting Los Angeles and San Francisco to establish partnerships with other tech companies, entrepreneurs and geeks ;)
We have also planned the first Forvo users meetup in the area. If you want to know more about these events planned for August and September just leave your comment, we´ll be giving more information soon in this blog and in our Facebook group.
An amazing project developed by Linguamon – Casa de les Lengües.
“In what country are the most languages spoken? How many languages are spoken in Germany? Where is Swahili an official language? How many dialects of Catalan are spoken in Catalonia? To answer all these questions, and many more besides, look no further than Living Maps, a resource that Linguamón – House of Languages has created, using state-of-the-art map processing technology, to help internet users find out all about the planet’s linguistic diversity.”
Three new languages available to browse Forvo, Danish, Hungarian and Hindi. The editors who have made this possible are Olfine, Detheltsort, Frankie, Komal_K, so thanks to them.
Maybe you think that we are only releasing new languages these days. Not at all!! :) We are almost done for the API final release. There are more than 40 developers pre-registered and we can´t wait to see what they have in mind to create with Forvo pronunciations.
And we are also readying a special tool that we hope you are going to love as much as we do. Prepared to be surprised.
1. Kawaii
2. arigato gozaimasu
3. hajimemashite
4. itadakimasu
5. Hiroshima
6. Subaru
7. konnichiwa
8. aishiteru
9. doraemon
10. Nigiri-zushi
