Swych allows a user to learn a new language by simply reading one of his or her favorite books.
Apps that teach users a new language are nothing new, but a team of LTI graduate students are reinventing language learning with their new app, Swych.
Developed initially as a project for Carnegie Mellon's Machine Translation course, Swych allows a user to learn a new language by simply reading one of his or her favorite books. The app translates various words and phrases throughout the book into one of five languages — Chinese, English, French, German or Spanish. When a user encounters foreign phrases, they can click on the phrase to hear it pronounced and to see a definition. Users can also highlight a phrase and convert it from their native language into the foreign language they're learning.
While LTI students Guillaume Lample and Sandeep Subramanian originally developed the app as part of a course, they honed and polished it in their spare time so they could offer it to the public. For more on the app, check out the Swych website and follow them on Facebook.