Forvo

I have this thing about proving people wrong (though I don't have a problem being wrong). So this morning after my friend and I argued about the correct pronunciation for the mysterious Middle Eastern mixture of meats shawerma / shawarma, naturally I googled "shawerma pronunciation". According to my friend, it was "shwarma", but I thought "shuh-where-muh". Forvo.com to the rescue. The sound feature helps me prove easily that my way is clearly more accurate (not totally accurate but MORE accurate) since my friend can't read phonetic spelling very well either.

The Forvo iPhone app from the Apple iStore is totally inadaquate. Of the first 10 words entered only 2 gave good translations - hello, book. 2 gave partial translations chair -> president (did not give chaise), floor -> étage (did not give sol). 1 - fight - gave 21 phrases, only two of which had anything to do with fight. 5 were not found at all - escape patio bottle table pillow. This is very sad because Forvo.com/pronounce/fr gives excellent results on a computer - I would give it a 4 on a computer for French pronunciations if word is entered in French- it isn't any better for French translations on the computer, so a 1 for Forvo, com translations. Doubly sad because the pronunciations are there, just not the translations.