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WordAce! Talking Translation Dictionary - review

© Sandra Linville

With Transparent Language products, I just may become fluent in the two languages I have studied – French and Spanish. Although I have only recently tried out the company’s “Word Ace!(TM) Talking Translation Dictionary,” I have had so much fun with it; I plan to try out the other programs. Yes, I said fun. I am now hooked on the Synonym Game included on the CD-ROM. Trying it first in Spanish and French because I am most familiar with these, I then moved on to German and Italian. Then I discovered it is also fun using the English-to-English version and a good way to keep my vocabulary skills in my native language fresh.

I don’t know if it was the sound effects of a crashing airplane as I struck out time and time again or if it was the satisfaction of racking up points when I was on a roll. All I know is it was very addictive. The verb conjugator was not as addictive, but I blame it mostly on French conjugation – never my favorite part. However, with the easy-to-read tables and verb help, the learner can find all the right tenses and persons in each language. It features more than 500,000 verb conjugations per language.

I tested the Multi-Language version of WordAce!(TM) that includes translation to and from Spanish, French, German, Italian and English with complete dictionaries for all five languages. This CD-ROM also includes the very nifty and extraordinarily helpful feature of a native speaker pronunciation for 10,000 words in each language except English.

I pulled out my college copy of L’Etranger and with the help of this dictionary was able to begin picking my way through it again, nudging those memory neurons out of hiding. You could do the same with a dictionary in hand, but it won’t talk for you and I really liked hearing the words pronounced. The traditional language dictionary will also not conjugate verbs for you or entertain you with learning games. My only regret was that each word doesn’t have a spoken pronunciation. (See how we become so greedy and push the technology, never happy with what we have.) However, this is not a criticism, just a wish for more. The pronunciations are very clear and you can hear the pronounced word as many times as you want.

WordAce!(TM) is available in 12 foreign languages paired with English. The Spanish, French, German, Italian, Russian and Brazilian Portuguese are available with full native language speaker pronunciation. European Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Danish, Finnish and Norwegian are available without sound.

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