233 Tech.

Nkyea – The Twi Phrasebook for iPhone

Posted on 12. Jul, 2010 by Kwabena Akuamoah-Boateng in Apple FanBoy

I got my hands on the ‘Nkyea’ app for iPhone and I will summarize my thoughts on it in three words; Very Very Impressive!

Nkyea has 16 Twi categories; Essentials, Greetings, Asking for Help, Health Care, Sightseeing, Lodging, Dine Out, Socializing, Shopping, Communication, Leisure, Transport, Directions, Emergency, Personal Care and Flirting.

The app is beautifully designed. The user interface is simple. The voice of the app is loud and clear enough. I hope in the next update though, they would give us the option of a female voice. I would prefer a female voice for a great app like this.

The app has a ‘Favourite’ section where you can store your favourite phrases.

If you want to share a phrase via Twitter, you can do if from within the app. A phrase can also be copied onto the clipboard for pasting in another app.

Another cool feature is the ‘Record’ feature. When you listen to a phrase, you can record yours and play it along ‘Native Speaker’ and see if you got it right. This feature is really cool and I will find a couple of foreigners to try it soon.

As a bonus, there’s ‘A bit about Ghana’ section in the Information menu which gives info about the history, people and culture of Ghana.

Although the creators of this app did a great job, I think they can make the app better.

The icons in the home screen aren’t ‘Twi’ enough. I think for an app like this, pictures of locals and local terrain should be used for the icon. With the exception of the Transport category which has a Metro Mass Transit bus as the icon and Shopping and Sightseeing, the other icons are just not ‘Twi’ enough.

I showed off the app to my Ghanaian colleagues and interns from Poland and Zambia. They were impressed. I can’t remember any of them not liking it. One intern compared Nkyea to the Lonely Planets French Phrasebook. They loved it. The ‘Flirting’ category for the Ghanaians was the best part and there is one pick-up line from the app that we use in the office everyday. You want to know which line that is? Get the App. The Zambian intern found the voice recording part very interesting and practiced his Twi with it a couple of times.

I would recommend this app for anyone. It is worth the $2.99. Get this cool app in the App Store and learn some Twi phrases.

Nkyea is developed by Nkyea Learning Systems, a team of software developers based in Ghana. You might also want to check out the Nkyea Twi Primer for Mac and PC.

Related posts:

1. Blogging on the Go: BlogPress Lite
2. The Next Generation iPhone – What We Know & What I Expect
3. iPhone 4: This Is It!
4. Google Calendar + SMS = Awesome!!

Tags: apps, dictionaries, electronic content, Ghana, iphone, ipod touch, mobile, phrasebook, smartphones, Twi