Slovoed Dictionaries is an Android app that is packed with dictionaries for over 180 dictionaries, translating back and forth, with common ones like English-to-German, French-to-English, Spanish-to-German and so on. Besides those, there are 35 or so branded dictionaries like English Chambers, Spanish VOX, Arabic Malayin, Irish Focalbeo, Turkish Redhouse, Collins and Enciclop¨dia Catalana. You can access one dictionary free for a month, and then you can purchase access to it outright. Every dictionary is available through this one app, which could be a little confusing to some, but it keeps updates and such nice and uniform. One feature to note is that you download the dictionaries to your device, making them available no matter where you are in the world.
Over the past 20 years or so Slovoed Dictionaries’ creator, Paragon Software has worked successful with big publishing houses like Oxford University Press, Bibliographisches Institute GmbH, Cambridge University Press, PONS GmbH, Langenscheidt GmbH, Larousse Editorial. In fact, another of their apps the Oxford Learner’s Dictionary of Academic English received an award from the British Council.
You can find the Slovoed Dictionaries app in the Google Play Store, where it’s a free download. Once you download it to your device, you can browse the different dictionaries available for download, it’s a simple and efficient UI for this.
I chose to test out the English-to-Japanese dictionary, because I actually a qualification in speaking Japanese, so it was a decent way to test out the accuracy.
As we can see it’s there at the top of the pile, and I can go ahead and download it. It was a 5MB download so easy on the storage space. When in the dictionary, you can search for whatever it is you want to know how to say in Japanese.
So far, so good. Everything matches up with what I learnt during my three years learning Japanese, but then again I wasn’t afraid that the dictionaries weren’t going to be accurate.
Sadly, as this was a dictionary that wasn’t a “Talking Dictionary” as Slovoed calls them, I was unable to actually hear any of these pronunciations, which I imagine would make the dictionary much, much more useful. If you do want that feature however, you have to pay quite a bit extra, which is disappointing.
The interface and overall attitude of the Slovoed dictionaries app is stuck in the past, sadly. The content here is excellent, and it’s a quick search feature, with very accurate offerings, but the app is like something from Android 2.3 three years ago or more. However, Paragon Software is working on a new interface.
This look and feel really brings the app and its content down, as there’s no excuse for it, really. The app is clearly maintained as it was updated on June 1st, but why the app looks like something from three years ago is just confusing.
Slovoed has a lot to offer, but there’s sadly so much competition out there, that it’s hard to see why you would use Slovoed over other free options like, dare I say it, Google Translate. Of course, if you want the utmost accuracy and quality translations, then this is a good way to go. The quality of the content here is very, very good but asking users to pay something like £15 GBP for a talking dictionary with an incredibly dated interface just doesn’t make sense to me. With a new look and feel, this would rival anything else out there, and in fact the content and translation already rival most other options, it’s just a shame that the interface sticks out like a sore thumb and things are a little expensive.
Ratings
- Speed (5/5) – No complaints here, this is one of the fastest dictionaries on the market, and it will get you what you want in a speedy fashion.
- Features (4/5) – Despite the fact that the talking dictionaries are fairly expensive, the text dictionaries have a lot on offer and all the bases are covered here.
- Theme (3/5) – While the UI is efficient, it’s very dated and sticks out like a sore thumb on modern devices, which is a shame really, as it lets the rest of the app down, but they are working on a new UI.
- Overall (4/5) – Slovoed dictionaries is a good app, one that has over 180 different dictionaries available for users, and one that just needs a fresh UI to be a really good app, and price cuts on the dictionaries would definitely help it compete against others.
Pros
- Massive selection of 180+ dictionaries, including many of those which have audio pronunciations for both languages.
- Lots of branded dictionaries like English Chambers, Spanish VOX, Arabic Malayin, Irish Focalbeo, Turkish Redhouse, Collins and Enciclop¨dia Catalana available as well.
- Offline use, which makes this much cheaper than Google Translate when roaming abroad.
- Quick search makes finding things super-easy.
Cons
- UI looks like something from three or four years ago, and lets the whole dictionary down, but a new interface is being worked on.
- Talking sets are fairly pricey, and will put some users off.
Sloved dictionaries is an app that has a wealth of content for everyone and anyone, but it’s hidden behind a poor interface that just doesn’t do what it ought to. It lets the whole application down, and that’s a terrible shame. Still, if what you’re after is a trusted, accurate and speedy dictionary app, then this has any and every language you could care about just waiting to be downloaded for offline use.