English with Jo

The free dictionary.com iPhone app has already been rising up the rankings with its high quality features including a database of nearly 1 million words and definitions, audio pronunciations, and popular word of the day.  It also works without internet connection.  Now, the app has released a new update which is brilliant for ESL learners…

Dictionary.com’s new update is a voice to text search feature which lets you look up a word that you have heard but don’t know how to spell.  Imagine that an English learner hears the word ‘phone’ but cannot find it anywhere in the dictionary because they are looking under the letter ‘f’, assuming that the word is spelt as it sounds – ‘fone’. They would not find it of course!  But with this new feature, just hit the new voice tab, tap the screen, and speak a word and the application will attempt to identify the word and give you a definition. 

A small word of warning… it can take a little practice to get the voice-to-text feature working well. You need to try to speak slowly and clearly. The interface is also not as good as it was before the udpate, but nevermind, for English learners it is a small sacrifice to make for a great new feature.