A Round-Up of 45 Mac OSX Language Software Apps (Part 3/3)

This is the third and final part of our series that 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.

Japanese-English Dictionary
A program for Mac OS X that contains all the necessary for students learning Japanese, it’s a comprehensive and up-to-date Japanese-English dictionary with grammatical notes containing thousand of Japanese words and phrases with English translation helping you to write letters, send emails and make phone calls in good Japanese.

You can copy words from the application and paste them into another document. You can use the program in several ways to help you to study grammar. The English translations include information about whether the word is a noun, an adjective, a verb. You can search for grammatical abbreviations, like “adj-na” for “adjectival nouns or quasi-adjectives” and the dictionary will display dozens of Japanese adjectival nouns or quasi-adjectives entries with their English translations.

Apimac Japanese-English Dictionary is based on “EDICT Dictionary File” of the JMdict/EDICT Project; founded, coordinated and run by Jim Breen. EDICT is a Japanese-English Dictionary file which currently has about 110,000 entries.

iKana Japanese Hiragana, Katakana, Kanji Learning Software

iKana
A Japanese learning aide which helps to teach you the two Japanese phonetic alphabets Hiragana and Katakana. iKana can also be extended to teach other alphabets and Kanji.

iKana has four main learning components - kana flash cards, vocabulary flash cards, speed recognition and a Romanization test.

Flash cards are the starting point for beginners new to kana. Use the flash card viewer to help you memorize the different kana. The flash card viewer can be controlled with an Apple Remote. You can also use the flash cards to learn Japanese vocabulary.

The speed recognition test helps to reinforce your memory and improve your reading speed with an ‘against the clock’ multiple-choice test. The speed recognition test can also be controlled with an Apple Remote.

The word Romanization test helps you practice reading whole words by translating them from kana into Romaji. This test helps you learn some Japanese vocabulary as well as improving your translation and reading skills.

SpeakAlong
A talking storyteller for Macintosh. It’s a book reader right inside your computer. Now available in several editions including Children’s Classics, the King James Bible, and a lower-priced Standalone Edition without the bundled books. This software is proven easy-to-use by anyone 5 and up. Choose from a huge bookshelf of titles, pick a pleasing storytelling voice, then sit back and listen. It’s that simple and before long you and your kids will be playing your favorites again and again.

English Spanish Mac Software for Language

English-Spanish Dictionary
An English/Spanish translation dictionary for Mac that combines a comprehensive and up-to-date dictionary with grammatical notes and an ample phrase book containing thousand of English phrases with translations into Spanish.

You can find all the entries that contain any particular English or Spanish word by typing or pasting the word into the Find box and pressing the Return key. The dictionary collects all the entries that match what you’ve entered, and displays the English and the Spanish side-by-side. You can copy words from the dictionary and paste them into another document.

English-Spanish Dictionary is made in a way that guide you to find just useful information and not tons of unuseful things. This is the reasons because you find on it only useful grammatical notes, useful English phrases with Spanish translation and a Phrase Book with translated love phrases and romantic words of love.

English-Italian Dictionary
English-Italian Dictionary is an English/Italian translation dictionary for Mac that combines all the necessary stuff for students learning Italian: a comprehensive and up-to-date dictionary with grammatical notes; a huge phrase book containing thousands of English phrases with Italian translation, English idioms and proverbs; an exhaustive business dictionary for helping users to compose commercial letters, send emails and make phone calls in good Italian.

You can find all the entries that contain any particular English or Italian word by typing or pasting the word into the Find box and pressing the Return key. The dictionary collects all the entries that match what you’ve entered, and displays the English and the Italian side-by-side. You can copy words from the dictionary and paste them into another document.

English-Italian Dictionary is made in a way that guide you to find just useful information and not tons of unuseful things. This is the reasons because you find on it only useful grammatical notes, useful English phrases with Italian translation, business words and phrases and lot of English Idioms and Proverbs and a Phrase Book with translated love phrases and romantic words of love.

English-German Dictionary
An English/German translation dictionary for Mac that combines a comprehensive and up-to-date dictionary with grammatical notes and an ample phrase book containing thousand of English phrases with translations into German.

You can find all the entries that contain any particular English or German word by typing or pasting the word into the Find box and pressing the Return key. The dictionary collects all the entries that match what you’ve entered, and displays the English and the German side-by-side. You can copy words from the dictionary and paste them into another document. English-German Dictionary is made in a way that guide you to find just useful information and not tons of unuseful things. This is the reasons because you find on it only useful grammatical notes, useful English phrases with Gernman translation and a Phrase Book with translated love phrases and romantic words of love.

TypeTrainer4Mac
A multilingual typing tutor. It can be used with a large variety of system and custom keyboard layouts. External RTF files can be connected to the application as additional exercises. Each session provides its own run log.

Arabic Dictionary Plugin
This is a plugin for Mac OS X 10.5 Dictionary , provide you a translate from English to Arabic , from the Dictionary application or using right click from any where in the system.

LookUpDictionary
Helps you to look up words with “Dictionary” of MacOSX. It automatically looks up the word you selected in front most window or you copied, so it can be helpful when you reading long document or browse website.

GuidaTV Mac Italian Internet TV Guide

GuidaTV
An EPG application that provides exhaustive listing and review of the programs aired on Italian terrestrial and satellite TV, allowing the user to integrate them with other personal productivity applications (PVR’s, calendars, etc.)

Thanks to the Spotlight plugin, you can also find TV programs in your search results.

The app includes a Dashboard Widget.

Personal Lexicon
With Personal Lexicon you’ll be able to create a lexicon specifically geared towards the language you’re learning. From there you’ll add lexical items (words, phrases, or expressions) with corresponding definitions and language specific lexical types (nouns, verbs, etc). You’ll also have the option of adding other important information like synonyms, antonyms, conjugation forms, and much more.

By creating themes you’ll be able to organize your lexical items in ways that make sense to you. Studying related vocabulary together helps improve memory retention, which is why language textbooks present vocabulary in this way. The difference here is that Personal Lexicon lets you define the groups yourself, giving them extra significance, thereby improving your chances of remembering the vocabulary when it counts.

After you’ve entered a few lexical items you’ll be ready to create tests and pop quizzes. Four different test types along a plethora of configuration options gives you literately hundreds of possible test variations. Tests are stored so they can be taken over and over while quizzes are created on the fly for quick assessment. Both tests and quizzes can be created from themes or from a random set of lexical items. You have full control. Many more features.

Goodict Japanese English Dictionaries for Mac OS X

gooDict
A simple dictionary application. It contains Japanese, English-Japanese and Japanese-English dictionaries. It must be useful for people who are studying Japanese. It allows you to look up dictionary through “Service” function from other Cocoa application. And gooDict can automatically look up the selection of other Cocoa application at background. (Not available in Safari) It also can automatically look up the content of pasteboard. So if you find an unknown word, you just select or copy that word and gooDict shows you the meaning of that word. gooDict uses (http://dictionary.goo.ne.jp/) goo as a dictionary.

Master Spell
Administers spelling drills using over 3,600 included words and sentences spoken with a real voice and supplemental guidance using the Mac’s Text-to-Speech.

It includes a test editor with voice recorder to record your own words and sentences, provisions for alternate spellings, an interactive chatty owl, a Hangman game, and lots of options for multiple-users and networks for installation at schools.

JEDict
A multilingual dictionary viewer capable to search EDICT, WadokuJT, XDXF, BEDIC, EIJIRO, and EPWING dictionaries. Originally JEDict was developed as a Japanese-English dictionary, therefore it supports all conceivable methods of Kanji lookup.

JEDict has text editor, multilingual user dictionary, JLPT list viewer, web browser, and dictionary manager. It provides translation service through the services menu and contextual menu plug-in.

Chinese Language FlashCard Software
With our Chinese Study Flash Cards, you will learn, by choosing the subject you want, then going into it, like no other software out there.

When you want a subject in focus, Bai An Flash Card Software is your portal to it. Communication is one of the greatest gifts you could give someone. If you know of someone who is getting started, or is moving into more intermediate Chinese, then Bai An Education software is a Perfect gift for them. It’s easy to use, and is fully customizable.

Click here to read the first part of our series and for part 2 respectively.