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This article brings together a pile of Free Software (GNU GPL'd as Public Domain), freeware and shareware for language learning and reference for Mac OS X. Software descriptions are taken from Apple Downloads.

Part 2 and Part 3 of this series will be published by the end of the year.

GNU/GPL (Free) Mac Language Software

OpenThesaurus German Dictionary Plugin
This plugin extends Apple's Dictionary application (Dictionary.app) with a German thesaurus.

- You can search for every synonym not just the primary word.
- You can search for parts of a hyphen delimited term or a word which is not located at the beginning of a term (as Dictionary normally does).
- This is a offline dictionary, so you don’t need an internet connection.

The dictionary content is based on the online dictionary www.openthesaurus.de by Daniel Naber.
Licensed under GNU General Public License v3

BeoLingus German-English Dictionary Plugin
This plugins extends Apple‘s Dictionary application (Dictionary.app) with a German-English dictionary.

- The search works in both directions, you can search for German or English terms.
- This is a offline dictionary, so you don’t need an internet connection.

The dictionary content is based on the online dictionary www.beolingus.de by TU Chemnitz.
Licensed under GNU General Public License v3

Mac OSX Language Freeware

BYKI
Byki is a powerful and personalized language-learning system. It locks foreign language words and phrases into your memory so that you can recall them perfectly and remember them forever. Put simply: Byki works, it's smart, and people tell us they can't stop using it.

ArtenSPEAK
A simple application that speaks text. You may drag or paste text into the ArtenSPEAK text area and when you depress the loudspeaker button the text will be read to you. Ideal for use with webpages, email, or any text document.

Transliteration
The transliteration tool. It uses simple rules to replace characters of one alphabet with characters of another. Russian-Latin and Julius Caesar rules are included. PLIST-files with simple syntax allow defining your own rules. Just e-mail us your PLISTs, and we’ll include them in future versions of Transliteration.

Vocab
Helps you learn words in any European language - and Latin and Greek - quickly and successfully. It gives you instant access to all your vocab lists, and any other words you want to learn, making it easy to revise, easy to test yourself, and easy to become word-perfect in next to no time.

The application also includes a useful widget that flashes up a different random word every time you open Dashboard, enabling you to give yourself a quick test at anytime.

With Vocab, you can also customise your tests, choosing part of speech and whether you see the word or its translation. It highlights any words you get wrong, and your results are added automatically to a log, so you can track your progress and see how well you’re doing on a graph.

It’s the ideal way to get the best results and improve your language skills!

Bulgarian Language Pack for Dictionary
This will install two more Dictionary to your Dictionary.App
- Bulgarian - English
- English - Bulgarian

LatinEdit
The program’s main window allows you to transcribe from a graphics file, and provides twin text editing fields for side by side translations. There is an incorporated Latin-English / English-Latin dictionary and facility for footnotes, vocabulary, revision and declining and conjugating words.

aTypeTrainer4Mac
A multilingual typing tutor for Mac OS X. It is an advanced version of TypeTrainer4Mac. All of the system keyboard layouts (but not input methods!) as well as a wide variety of non-system keyboard layouts (i.e. Dvorak, Colemak or custom layouts being built using Ukelele) are completely or partially supported.

You have to type a mixed-string of random characters. You can customize a character set at each of the 30 levels, and thus, you can control the learning process. You can also import texts from TextEdit, from Mail or from your web browser. Each session provides two run logs, one in RTFD format and one in HTML format. The RTFD log is generated at the end of each session and suitable for printing as well as close inspection. The HTML log is generated at the start of each session and actualized every second. Therefore, it is suitable for following the typing process. Thus, teachers get an actual oversight of the typing protocol of all pupils/students of their class at any given moment of time. In the Preferences, you can adjust a host of settings in order to make your typing exercises to your liking.

WORDS Latin Dictionary
This Mac OS X Dictionary.app plugin is based on William Whitaker’s Latin translation dictionary WORDS.

CEDICT for Apple Dictionary
The CEDICT project was started by Paul Denisowski in 1997 with the aim to provide a complete Chinese to English dictionary with pronunciation in pinyin for the Chinese characters.

MDBG CC-CEDICT ( http://www.mdbg.net/ ) is a continuation of the CEDICT project.

CEDICT for Apple Dictionary based on CC-CEDICT project. Adapted to Apple Dictionary by Yuri Yuriev.

To install just unzip the file to /Library/Dictionaries.

ProVoc
A free and easy-to-use vocabulary trainer. Behind its simple and user-friendly interface, ProVoc offers a rich variety of unique features that will greatly help you improve your knowledge of any foreign language or technical terminology.

- Repeat and browse your vocabulary on your iPod
- Print two-sided flash cards
- Unicode support (e.g. for Asiatic, Hebraic, Arabic or any other alphabet)
- Several intelligent test modes of variable difficulty

- Multiple choice questions
- Share vocabulary documents
- Freely organize your vocabulary in lessons and chapters
- Animated backgrounds
- Dashboard widget
- And much more

Shareware and Demo Mac Language Software

Kanji Go

A Mac OS X application designed to make it easy to lookup and review Japanese and Chinese. Look up words from and to Japanese and Chinese, English, Russian, German, and French.

- Find Kanji by Radical, Reading, Meaning, Stroke Count, or SKIP index
- Create, print, import/export, and publish custom vocabulary lists
- Study via customizable digital flash cards
- Quiz Mode with adjustable difficulty and styles
- View conjugations for all Japanese verbs and adjectives
- Use Romaji, Kanji, and/or Kana when searching and viewing flash cards

Practiquemos
Using this software: You learn faster, you learn better, you have fun. If you want to communicate in Spanish easily and effectively you have to practice. That’s exactly what you can do by using “Practiquemos” (let’s practice). You learn faster, you learn better and you have fun because it works like a video game. It’s challenging and amusing. Suitable for Spanish learners, from teenagers to adults and from beginners to advanced. Download lots of free exercises to practice verbs conjugation, prepositions, vocabulary, articles and more.

Language Alchemist eXtended
For anyone speaking, reading, or studying languages, the Language Alchemist eXtended with its large up-to-date vocabulary is absolutely essential and perfect for everyday use.

The revised edition of our multilingual dictionary - which includes more than 400 individual dictionaries - provides you with an extensive vocabulary, which can be extended smoothly at any time. Therefore we offer a lot of free downloadable ready to use dictionaries. Or design your own vocabulary extension by using our new and free Lexis Builder, which helps you to create your own dictionary in just a few steps.

Integrated in nearly any Mac application such as Safari, Preview, Keynote or Pages you get the power to investigate unknown words with just One-Click. As the result you can still better and still faster understand various sources of information, e.g. manuals, online help and Web pages. It will be essential for your daily work.

Apps 16-45 will be featured in the upcoming Part 2 and Part 3 respectively. Don't forget to come back or simply follow us on Twitter to stay up-to-date.