Product Review - Byki Swedish (Free Language Software)

I initially downloaded Byki last March (ish) when I was wanting to learn some Croatian for the expedition there in July, my Spanish teacher recommended it to me so I downloaded the free version and started using it alongside my phrasebook.

Fast forward a year, and I'm now using the Swedish version to learn, yep you guessed it, Swedish. What I like about Byki is that it offers you basic vocabulary with the chance to repeat the learning process over and over in different ways. It covers the different ways that, if taking an exam in, for example, Spanish, you would get examined: listening, writing and reading. There's also the chance for you say the Swedish out loud as well, which would count as the speaking side of learning a language I guess.

When you download the software, you get 'lists', you can select one, for example '01 - Quick Start!' and you are given three steps:
- Step 1 ''Preview it'' where you are shown flashcards with the Swedish and English translation

- Step 2 "Recognize it" where you get given the Swedish side of the flashcard and have to think of, then later on type the English translation

- Step 3 "Produce it" where you get given the English and have to think of, then later on type the Swedish translation

You can alter the speed of the voiceover saying each word/phrase for you, so there is also pronunciation help as it allows you to slow the words right down until it's easier to pronounce them properly. You can check your 'My Learned Items' statistics and it gives you the chance to view both your already learned items and your stale items. Stale items are words that you have previously learnt but not recently practiced - this is a helpful feature as it allows you to look back on what you have already studied and go over words that you may not remember properly or just refresh your memory. In addition, you can download extra Byki user created lists from List Central to add to your existing lists.

If anything, I'd prefer it if the software had a feature that allows you to very easily access foreign letters (i.e. letters with accents) for the sections where you have to type in the language you are learning. Luckily, there are websites that give you these characters, or like me, you could just copy and paste them from word processing programs etc. 

The thing I think I like most about Byki is how accessible it truly is. I'm going to list all of the languages you can learn with Byki, I guarantee you'll be surprised...

Afrikaans, Albanian, Altai, Arabic, Armenian, Azerbaijani, Bashkir, Belorussian, Bengali, Bosnian, Bulgarian, Buriat, Chechen, Chinese, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dari, Dutch, Estonian, Farsi, Finnish, French, Georgian, German, Greek, Haitian Creole, Hausa, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Icelandic, Indonesian, Irish, Italian, Japanese, Kazakh, Korean, Latin, Latvian, Lithuanian, Luxembourgish, Macedonian, Malay, Mirandese, Mongolian, Norwegian, Pashto, Polish, Portuguese (Brazil), Portuguese (European), Romanian, Russian, Scottish, Serbian, Slovak, Spanish, Swahili, Swedish, Tagalog (Filipino), Tajiki, Thai, Turkish, Turkmen, Tuvan, Ukrainian, Urdu, Uzbek, Vietnamese, Zulu

I only know of one other software company that offers anywhere near this many languages, and it costs £5.99 per app from the iTunes App Store, so I've never gone anywhere near it. Speaking of apps, Byki also has apps on the App Store that feature basics like the PC/Laptop software. Like I said, Byki is incredibly accessible. The online download is free, but you can upgrade to Byki Deluxe which costs rougly $50 (though I get plenty of emails offering software at reduced prices, so it seems that there's always some sort of sale or offer going on) - I'm thinking of asking for the deluxe version for my birthday, when I'll actually be able to afford it, so I'll have to let you know how they differ if I do. 

Overall, I love Byki as a language learning app, I think it's a very clever and simple concept that's both incredibly user-friendly and accessible. I've used it mainly for Swedish, but the basic vocabulary is very easy to grasp with any of the other languages I've tried (Croatian, French, Russian and Azerbaijani).

If you've tried Byki for any language, leave us all a comment to let us know how you found it.