I'm now in the middle of Paris and using "English to French Translation Phrases Version 1.2" on my iPhone 4 as an assistance, so this is a real life review from someone who speaks very little French: First of all, I'm giving 4 stars to this program, because it does something very special that no other language programs that I know does, which is to speak phrases slowly and clearly in 2 different speeds: Normal and Slow. Sure, "Rosetta Stone 1-5 (a $500-program)" can slow down the phrases in "Answer" window; however, it does it by a digital trick that mimics a crude old tape recorder with a variable speed button. The result is the "rubber effect" that lowers its pitch, making it like a little monster's voice. "English to French Translation Phrases" seems to have an actual separate slow motion recording for every single word and phrase by the native speaker that is clear and comprehensible to even an absolute beginner like me. In fact, I must tell you that I have finally understood how certain French words and phrases were really being pronounced for the first time by using this program.
I can also tell you that I have several other French language programs on my iPhone. "French Phrase Book for iPhone ($19.99)" by LingvoSoft is one of them, and it is a similar phrase book as "English to French Translation Phrases," but its recorded voices are not as good, and there is no slow button. Its organization of the data is much better, but since the recording voices are not good and they speak too fast for me, I don't often use it.
"French Travel Pro by Odyssey Translator ($4.99)" is also a similar phrase book, and its recordings are as good as that of "English to French Translation Phrases." However, this program speaks everything slowly and it lacks a normal speed button, which can become a little tiresome after a while. Further more, this program organizes everything by boxes of words and expressions that you connect them together to create your own expressions. The problem is that the program really does not connect them, instead, it reads them separately. But as we all know, pronouncing adjacent words together, following the rules, is part of the art of French language, and you cannot learn how a real French would actually speak using this program.
But "English to French Translation Phrases" does have its shortcomings, which is why I cannot give 5 starts to this program: For example, there are many words and phrases that should be grouped together are not grouped together in this program. Weekday names such as "Monday" and "Tuesday," for example, are all in the "Days and Month..." category in alphabetical order among moth names and other expressions. So if you like to just learn all the 7 weekday names, you must go up and down the list to find each of them on your own. Then if you decide to put them together in "Favorite," you will find out that there is no way to organize the list the way you may like, because everything in Favorite will become automatically organized in alphabetical order. So the weekday names will become "Friday, Monday, Saturday, Sunday, Thursday, Tuesday, Wednesday." Of course, if you add any other names or phrases, they will be all mixed together also in alphabetical order. One might also say that there are way too many single word entries. So if you look at "Banking and Money" category, you will find "Dollars," "Money," and "Signature" all mixed together within complete sentences like "At what time do they close?," "At what time do they open?," and "Can I cash a personal check?"
But for my purpose, this is a good program for me, so I keep going back to this program, and I'm sure there other people who find it to be useful.
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