Libera TranScribe

Libera TranScribe is a revolutionary new application that transforms any unvocalized Arabic text by adding vowels to it, providing a powerful environment for learners by placing the unvocalized Arabic text alongside vocalized, romanized, and translated versions of the same text in a single, convenient view.

Unvocalized Arabic is notorious for its ambiguity. Its lack of vowel diacritics means that words can be pronounced in a multitude of possible ways. For example, the unvocalized word كاتب, can be pronounced in seven different ways, including كَاتِب kātib, كَاتَبَ kātaba and كَاتِبَ kātiba. This "Vowel Barrier" is no doubt one of the greatest obstacles for learners of Arabic, which is already one of the world’s most challenging languages.

Libera TranScribe allows you to paste in Arabic text from any source, such as email or articles on news sites like BBC Arabic, or to type in your own Arabic using the built-in Arabic keyboard. 

Libera TranScribe provides a high-quality text-to-speech audio feature that allows learners to reinforce their pronunciation while beginning learners can use the audio and romanization to learn to read vocalized Arabic script. For ease of use, corresponding sentences in the various panels are clearly indicated, and the three Arabic texts (unvocalized Arabic, vocalized Arabic and romanized Arabic using our unique CARS system), and the corresponding audio are precisely linked at the word level. This means that tapping on a word in one text simultaneously highlights the linked word in each of the other texts and optionally plays the audio for that word.

Together, these five elements -- vocalized and unvocalized Arabic, CARS romanization, translation and audio -- arm the Arabic learner with a powerful tool for acquiring the language rapidly and with ease. 

KEY FEATURES
-- Works with any Arabic text of the user's choice 
-- Adds vowel diacritics to any unvocalized Arabic text
-- Provides user-friendly romanization to any unvocalized Arabic text
-- Translates any Arabic text into English or dozens of other languages 
-- Provides word-level mapping between Arabic and English texts
-- Saves imported texts for future use
-- Displays up to four different texts side-by-side using a flexible panel system
-- Produces high-quality audio playback for each sentence of the original Arabic text (available as a separate in-app purchase)
-- Facilitates easy reading by displaying sentence-by-sentence alignment
-- Provides touch-triggered audio pronunciations for each individual word or phrase

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This application is powered by the advanced vocalization API "Farasa" provided by the Hamad Bin Khalifa University (HBKU) in Doha, Qatar, and the Google Translate API from Google.

ABOUT CJKI

The CJK Dictionary Institute (http://www.cjk.org) is directed by Jack Halpern, and specializes in the compilation of large-scale Chinese, Japanese, and Arabic lexical resources, and in addition, have released over 60 dictionary and language-learning applications for iOS and other platforms.

Be sure to check out our other iOS apps for learners of Arabic, including our CAVE Arabic Verb Conjugator, and Libera, our revolutionary new platform for reading bilingual texts in parallel, by searching for "CJKI Arabic" in the App Store.