The best bidirectional dictionary there is !

Im a student whos learning German for university entrance. Im fortunate enough to own an iPad, and it would be an understatement to say that this dictionary has really started to change things for me.

CONTENT: Nonpareil database of words, phrases, sentences and colloquial expressions. There isnt a single thing I looked up and couldnt find. Better yet, if theres something you dont understand in your results, you can simply tap on the word to see its meaning. As a bonus, if youre typing a word, the spelling of which youre not sure of, Ultralingua will actually give you suggestions to match your search - and it works beautifully ! On top of that, when you discover that you can actually conjugate verbs in hordes of tenses (see third screenshot above), you promptly realize that this dictionary is absolutely indispensable if youre a student learning a foreign language, or a traveller who needs a dictionary at hand all the time - just excellent ! Verbs, adjectives, nouns are marked clearly, as well as articles are easy to note.

INTERFACE: The UI is clean and simple. Unlike the PONS dictionary which my classmate has, the interface is not cluttered and filled with ugly colors. Its very elegant, and every word (or search result) is differentiated nicely. In PONS everything was jumbled together like curry and, like a real dictionary, you need to melt you brain to figure out where your result is - well, not here ! You can proceed to the next page by flicking the bottom corner which is quite convenient, I just wish there was a page-curl effect (like iBooks) or a little curl on the corner to tell you that a next page is available. Otherwise, its been brilliantly designed.

FUNCTIONALITY: And heres where Ultralingua tops. Although the performance of the app in terms of speed and snappiness of searches is way above average, it could improve a little. My most favorite feature is a convenient button to swap languages instantly. You have a history column where you see all the words youve looked up - very, very nice if youre about to write something and you think of a few words in your native language, the translations to which you dont know - you search them one after the other and they all get stored in the history - this way you dont need to keep on looking them up while writing. Theres even a number pad that tells you, in words, the numbers youre typing, which is totally awesome !

All in all, this is a top notch app if youre looking for a dictionary. It works both on iPhone / iPod touch and on iPad so a one-time purchase is enough for you to have dictionaries with you everywhere. I can go far enough to say that this is one purchase youll definitely not regret - hence, very highly recommended !

SC KA about Ultralingua German-English