Declan Software Blog

Declan Software Newsletter - Summer 2009

admin — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 10:08:38 +0000

Greetings from Declan Software!

We’ve got some exciting news at Declan Software that we wanted to tell you about:

FREE iPhone Version of Audio FlashCards and Version 1.6 Update
FREE Audio Word of the Day Widgets
Updated version of ReadWrite Korean with improved audio
30-day money back guarantee

– FREE FLASHCARDS for iPhone and iTouch –

We now offer a FREE trail version of our iPhone FlashCards software - available on iTunes. These versions include the first six wordfiles for free so you can try out the software before deciding to purchase the full version.

Here are the direct links to the iTunes page for each (FREE) version of FlashCards for iPhone:

Brazilian Portuguese
Chinese
Chinese (Traditional)
French
German
Italian
Japanese
Korean
Russian
Spanish

Also we have just released version 1.6 of our ** FlashCards for iPhone ** software. This version includes better quality audio. Here are the direct links to the iTunes page for each (full) version of FlashCards for iPhone:

Brazilian Portuguese
Chinese
Chinese (Traditional)
French
German
Italian
Japanese
Korean
Russian
Spanish

– FREE Audio Word of the Day Widgets –

Also don’t forget our free Word of the Day widgets - now just one line of code to cut and paste into their website code and get a free Word of the Day with audio every day of the year. This is a great way to have visitors return to your website again and again. The code for widgets can found here (just click the “Get this Widget” button):

http://www.declan-software.com/wordoftheday.htm

– READWRITE KOREAN Version 2.3 –

An updated version of ReadWrite Korean is now available with improved audio. Download the latest update from here:

http://www.declan-software.com/korean/download_korean_readwrite.htm

– 30-DAY MONEY BACK GUARANTEE –

For those who missed it previously we have now introduced an Unconditional 30-Day Money Back Guarantee. So in addition to free downloadable trials for all of our software that let you see if our range of software is exactly right for you, we now offer a money-back guarantee. If you purchase the software and you’re not absolutely thrilled with it, we don’t deserve your money. Contact us and we’ll process your refund as soon as reasonably possible, generally within one business day.

Enjoy your summer and happy language learning.

–
Petar Vujanovic
CEO
Declan Software

ReadWrite Korean Version 2.3

admin — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 20:47:21 +0000

ReadWrite Korean version 2.3 now available — featuring improved audio quality and sundry other improvements. This is a free upgrade for existing customers, as per our longstanding lifetime license . For those yet to try ReadWrite Korean, here is a link to a free trial copy.

Brazilian Portuguese FlashCards for Windows

admin — Tue, 26 May 2009 13:28:29 +0000

The Brazilian Portuguese version of our FlashCards for Windows is now available with audio wordfiles totaling 3,300 words and phrases. Full details including screenshots and a free trial download is available here.

Declan Software on Twitter

Petar — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 08:54:08 +0000

Declan Software news and (micro) updates are available on Twitter here:

http://twitter.com/declan_software

Brazilian Portuguese Word of the Day for iPhone

Petar — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 13:35:47 +0000

Brazilian Portuguese Word of the Day for iPhone application is now available on iTunes.

Here is the direct iTunes link

A new Brazilian Portuguese word every single day. With pronunciation, meaning and… Native speaker AUDIO for each word. No expiry and no subscription - a new Brazilian Portuguese word for each day to eternity!

Features:

Brazilian Portuguese Word of the Day
Native speaker audio;
Word of the Day meaning in English.

How to add foreign language keyboards on an iPhone

admin — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 13:17:48 +0000

The iPhone and iPodTouch come standard with keyboards (and fonts and IMEs) for numerous languages - indeed, full multi-language support. The keyboards only need to be activated by the user - no downloads and no installation required.

The languages include English, English (UK), Czech, Danish, German, Spanish, Estonian, Finnish, French, French (Canadian), Croatian, Hungarian, Icelandic, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Lithuanian, Latvian, Norwegian, Dutch, Polish, Portuguese (Brazil), Portuguese (Portugul), Romanian, Russian, Slovak, Swedish, Turkish, Ukrainian, Chinese (Simplified) an Chinese (Traditional). Furthermore the Japanese and two Chinese keyboards include support for various input methods, including handwriting recognition for kanji and hanzi. Moreover the Korean keyboard has the standard Korean input system.

Activating the keyboards is straight forward. Tap the “Settings” icon

and then select “General”.

Then scroll down and select “Keyboard”

and then “International Keyboards”.

There you will see the long list of languages available — simply flicking the toggle to “ON” will activate the keyboard.

You can activate as many as you like.

Now that more than one language keyboard has been activated you will see a small globe key on all keyboards.

Simply tap the globe key to toggle between all the installed keyboards. Simple, elegant and clever.

Customer Feedback on Korean HakGyo

admin — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 12:53:55 +0000

Freedback on Korean HakGyo:

I absolutely love this program, but I’m having problems with it so I have to reinstall it. Within the first week of using this program I’ve already increased my korean vocabulary and knowledge by so much, being half korean, and I’ve really picked up the system really quick as well. I’ve known how to read and write Korean for pretty much all my life and learned at an early stage, but I’m still increasing my vocabulary and I’m planning on going to Seoul, Korea this year with my family to visit my mothers hometown and I feel this program will really help me blend in and speak with much more fluidity because of the feature where you can use the microphone to make sure you are speaking like the natives! Thanks so much for making such an awesome program!

Nate from the United States

Learn a language - frequent exposure to its sounds

admin — Sun, 15 Feb 2009 11:27:56 +0000

A researcher in New Zealand say that the best way to learn a language is through frequent exposure to its sound patterns — even if you haven’t a clue what it all means.

“Our ability to learn new words is directly related to how often we have been exposed to the particular combinations of the sounds which make up the words.”

http://www.victoria.ac.nz/home/about/newspubs/news/ViewNews.aspx?id=2455&newslabel=hn

Chinese Traditional Version of iPhone FlashCards

admin — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 21:57:40 +0000

The Traditional Chinese Version of iPhone FlashCards is now available on iTunes. Here is the direct link to the iTunes page.

FlashCards for iPhone Released

admin — Sat, 17 Jan 2009 22:17:34 +0000

Declan Software’s Audio FlashCards for iPhone was released for sale on Itunes today. Here are the direct links for each available language version’s iTunes page:

		Chinese				Japanese
		French				Korean
		German				Russian
		Italian				Spanish

Audio FlashCards for iPhone and iTouch is a foreign language vocabulary learning tool by Declan Software available for Chinese, Japanese, Korean, French, German, Italian, Spanish and Russian. Each version includes atleast 3000 words and phrases each with a native speaker audio recording. Words are organized into approximately 100 WordFiles with each WordFile containing up to 100 words.

The Learning List: The words are learned based on a Learning List. The Learning List contains a subset of all the words in the WordFile – 10 words by default (although this can be changed by users). The Learning List allows users to concentrate learning a small group of words at any one time. Once a word is learned (by reviewing the Learning List and completing the Exercises) it is removed from the Learning List and is replaced by another, as yet unlearned word from the WordFile. This continues until the whole WordFile is learned.

Exercises: Words in the learning list should first be Reviewed using the “Review Learning List” option. Then users can move to the Exercises which include the Meaning Exercise, the Word Exercise, the Spelling Exercise and the Listening Exercise. Once all the exercises have been correctly completed, the word is marked as complete, removed from the Learning List and replaced by a new word. However, if the user gets one answer wrong in any of the exercises, then all the exercises must be completed again for that one word. This ensures comprehensive learning and retention.

Managing the Learning List: After a new WordFile is loaded the Learning List size is automatically set to 10. The number of words in the Learning List can be set by adding or removing words to the Learning List in the “Review Words” feature. In the “Task” menu select “All Words in WordFile” and then return to the main page. The select “Review All WordFile Words”. As you progress through the words in the WordFile words can be added to and dropped from the Learning List using the “Add to Learning List” / “Drop from Learning List” button. If you end up changing the number of words in the Learning List, that number will be maintained as words are learning and dropped from the Learning List, and new words are automatically added the Learning List to replace learned words.

Loading new WordFiles: To switch to another wordfile simply press the “Load Another WordFile” button and then select the WordFile you desire from the “Load WordFile” table. The Audio FlashCards comes preloaded with 3 WordFiles – all other WordFiles are downloaded by the application as required using an (WiFi or 3G) internet connection. If a WordFile needs to be downloaded before it can be used it will have a grey icon next to it in the “Load WordFile” table. To start downloading the WordFile simply select that WordFile and then press the “Start Download” button.

Arabic, Greek, Portuguese and Chinese (Traditional) versions coming soon.