Rarely helpful
I've used ultralingua Spanish, and thought it quite helpful, but the Italian version has a dictionary that leaves out many words - useful, necessary words. It was better than nothing, but only just.
Pricey, wrong or missing data, but not useless
I've had this app on my iPhone for over a year and after some initial use I’ve never used it. I had other apps or web sites that do a better job at giving me definitions and verb conjugations. I saw the 1.5 update was available in iTunes so I downloaded it and spent some time trying it out again after months of not realizing I even owned this app.
First, I expect a lot from a $20 iOS app. I was initially disappointed when I looked up several words in Italian and saw they were not in this app's dictionary. Falò (meaning bonfire or campfire) is not in the dictionary. Bonifico is, but the definition given (discount) is pretty close to being wrong (it might be used as a tertiary definition) but it does not include the principle meaning (money transfer). It says vado and vo are both first person singular present tense forms of andare. I have never seen vo listed as a form of andare in any book I have in Italian, nor in any online resource. (However, I'm not an expert speaker of Italian, but if it is allowed it's very very very rarely used).
I generally use my iPad in portrait mode but this app behaves differently in portrait and landscape mode. I will point out this is not uncommon, but it’s something I have to get use to.
If you ask for an English definition of fu and hit search you get the entry "Kung fu". But before you hit the Search button you will see a strip that says "Matches: fu essere fucilare Did you mean fui?" Okay so if you know fu is a form of essere you hit essere and then double click the conjugation pane to see all the conjugations at once to see that fu is third person singular remote past form of essere. I guess fucilare shows in the list because it's the word in their dictionary that falls after fu (??) Anyway, assuming you don't know the word (why are you looking it up?) giving a list of possible words that could relate could put you on a long tedious path to the solution you are looking for. WordReference does a much better job of this.
Too many words have one-word definitions that really don't give one the proper meaning (e.g. allacciarsi == interlock). I suppose limiting definitions is why they can load it on your iOS device.
So, it seems so far I don't like this app very much. What's good about it? Well in my opinion the number translator is pretty sweet. Type in 512 and it writes the number in Italian "cinquecentododici", of course it will do it in English as well “five hundred (and) twelve”. And you can punch in huge numbers as well (e.g. 1,987,654,321). This is a good way of learning to speak large numbers.
The other positive, if it matters to you, is that this app is on your iOS device. You can use it fully while your iOS device is in Airplane Mode or otherwise not connected to the Internet.
So after studying this app for a few hours today I think I may pull it up sometimes, but it probably won’t be my go to translation app. It does have some potential and I hope the developer keeps improving it. But knowing what I know about this app I would not buy it.
First, I expect a lot from a $20 iOS app. I was initially disappointed when I looked up several words in Italian and saw they were not in this app's dictionary. Falò (meaning bonfire or campfire) is not in the dictionary. Bonifico is, but the definition given (discount) is pretty close to being wrong (it might be used as a tertiary definition) but it does not include the principle meaning (money transfer). It says vado and vo are both first person singular present tense forms of andare. I have never seen vo listed as a form of andare in any book I have in Italian, nor in any online resource. (However, I'm not an expert speaker of Italian, but if it is allowed it's very very very rarely used).
I generally use my iPad in portrait mode but this app behaves differently in portrait and landscape mode. I will point out this is not uncommon, but it’s something I have to get use to.
If you ask for an English definition of fu and hit search you get the entry "Kung fu". But before you hit the Search button you will see a strip that says "Matches: fu essere fucilare Did you mean fui?" Okay so if you know fu is a form of essere you hit essere and then double click the conjugation pane to see all the conjugations at once to see that fu is third person singular remote past form of essere. I guess fucilare shows in the list because it's the word in their dictionary that falls after fu (??) Anyway, assuming you don't know the word (why are you looking it up?) giving a list of possible words that could relate could put you on a long tedious path to the solution you are looking for. WordReference does a much better job of this.
Too many words have one-word definitions that really don't give one the proper meaning (e.g. allacciarsi == interlock). I suppose limiting definitions is why they can load it on your iOS device.
So, it seems so far I don't like this app very much. What's good about it? Well in my opinion the number translator is pretty sweet. Type in 512 and it writes the number in Italian "cinquecentododici", of course it will do it in English as well “five hundred (and) twelve”. And you can punch in huge numbers as well (e.g. 1,987,654,321). This is a good way of learning to speak large numbers.
The other positive, if it matters to you, is that this app is on your iOS device. You can use it fully while your iOS device is in Airplane Mode or otherwise not connected to the Internet.
So after studying this app for a few hours today I think I may pull it up sometimes, but it probably won’t be my go to translation app. It does have some potential and I hope the developer keeps improving it. But knowing what I know about this app I would not buy it.
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Crap!
This app is crap and a waste of money. After spending a little time with it I quickly realized how useless it is. It doesn't even include basic things such as the plural form of nouns (this isn't generally an issue, but occasionally you run across non-standard plural forms). Also the search interface seems clunky and not all of the translations direct you to the most appropriate word (sometimes it isn't even listed although other choices are). If it were a two dollar app then it might be okay, but this is ridiculously poor quality for such a high price. Should have listened to the negative reviews...now to try and get my money back.
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So many gaps - don't buy it
This was such an expensive purchase I was really hoping for a lot more. It is missing so many important words. The example that just spurred me to write this review: It does not give a translation for "early" but it has one for "early riser": mattuntina. That is ridiculous. It can't be that hard to get the basic content of a dictionary up to scratch. They have had many opportunities to provide an update of the word list but haven't bothered. Lazy rip-off merchants I say.
I wrote this in September 2009, and have updated it in October 2010 and March 2011. There have been updates to improve the interface, but nothing to fix the gaps in the dictionary itself. It's basically an expensive low quality word list and gives you no help when it comes to synonyms. The verb tables are pretty useful, but nowhere near enough to justify the rip-off price.
I wrote this in September 2009, and have updated it in October 2010 and March 2011. There have been updates to improve the interface, but nothing to fix the gaps in the dictionary itself. It's basically an expensive low quality word list and gives you no help when it comes to synonyms. The verb tables are pretty useful, but nowhere near enough to justify the rip-off price.
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Some quite ridiculous translations
For the record, there is no such thing as a "goer" in English, and "becoming" is not a noun. I should have sprung for a real dictionary.
So many gaps - don't buy it
This was such an expensive purchase I was really hoping for a lot more. It is missing so many important words. The example that just spurred me to write this review: It does not give a translation for "early" but it has one for "early riser": mattuntina. That is ridiculous. It can't be that hard to get the basic content of a dictionary up to scratch. They have had many opportunities to provide an update of the word list but haven't bothered. Lazy rip-off merchants I say.
I wrote this in September 2009, and am updating it in October 2010. There have been updates to improve the interface, but nothing to fix the gaps in the dictionary itself. It's basically an expensive low quality word list and gives you no help when it comes to synonyms. The verb tables are pretty useful, but nowhere near enough to justify the rip-off price.
I wrote this in September 2009, and am updating it in October 2010. There have been updates to improve the interface, but nothing to fix the gaps in the dictionary itself. It's basically an expensive low quality word list and gives you no help when it comes to synonyms. The verb tables are pretty useful, but nowhere near enough to justify the rip-off price.
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Delusa! Expected better.
I have Ultralingua's French ap, and I use it frequently. So I expected the Italian ap to be similar. There are many gaps in the word bank in this ap. For example, key words related to current technologies are not to be found, including 'email' and 'software.' Even if the Italian equivalents are cognates, they should be included. These are just two examples of many that I have found to be missing. Disappointed!
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Good App, Great customer Service
I have several foreign language apps and this is one of the best. It's iPad version is excellent. The verb conjugation is especially helpful with it's full-screen. I had several questions and the staff was receptive, prompt and helpful. I would definitely recommend this app to anyone studying a foreign language.
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iPad interface is awesome!
The new version wonderfully uses ipads screen and after the bug fix works well. The app is highly useful, especially the verb conjugations.
The dictionary itself is large, but missing a lot of words and expressions. I hope there will be updates to fill in the gaps.
The dictionary itself is large, but missing a lot of words and expressions. I hope there will be updates to fill in the gaps.
iPad!
It's now also optimised for iPad.
Thank you for that!
Thank you for that!
