Connecting cultures with iconary

iconary is a mobile dictionary made for refugees. Easily learn your first words with icons and voice output and choose between ten categories in five languages. Welcome to Europe!

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easy, free and offline

iconary is specially designed for refugees needs: learn the very basic vocabularies for daily life just by icons and voice output. And the best: you don´t need to be connected and it´s completely free.

  • 5 languages

    No matter where life takes you - with iconary you can learn different languages: German, French, Italian, Spanish and English. What do you want to learn?

  • 10 categories

    Ten different categories like groceries, transport or clothes help you to learn your first words for daily life.

  • Icons only

    Every word is illustrated by just a simple icon - the modern and reduced design helps you to learn quick & easy while swiping through the words.

  • Voice output

    Having problems with the right pronunciation? No Problem, just push the audio button and hear how the word is spoken.

startscreen

Take a look

Our Story

It all began this summer, when a refugee´s camp was built close to my agency´s office and our neighbourhood became a new home for 300 people. The situation was not only present in media these days, but suddenly concerned us closer than ever. After organizing a clothing donation in my company i realized that i need to (and want to) do much more than this. So me and a friend started teaching german for the refugees once a week. Although its tough and exhausting sometimes, it´s a great experience i don´t want to miss - especially when you notice little improvements and when you get back so much appreciation.

Usually i´m not a teacher or social worker. I´m a "digital native" and create concepts and ideas for websites, apps, shops or campaigns in my fulltime job as Creative Conceptioner. Volunteering is a nice compensation, but i wanted to combine my profession with personal interests. And i wanted to do more than only teaching once a week, which feels like a drop in the bucket.

And this is how i came up with the idea of a small and simple app for helping refugees to learn a new language. Without any big planning i started with the concept and design and told my colleagues about it, to get some advice for the technical stuff. I could do a lot on my own, but when it comes to mobile development i needed professional support. I was lucky to meet Kevin, who was also enthusiastic about the idea and so we startet to build the app in just three months besides our jobs and university with no (i mean zero!) budget at all. I had to define 300 words, edit an icon for every single one, needed to translate the words into five languages and finally recorded and cutted 1500 audio files in a studio. Now the app is live and i am proud about my first app, that i hope to extend soon and that hopefully fullfills it´s purpose: to welcome the people that come to us and to hand over a little helper for their turbulent start in a new life.

Laura

Special thanks for your support

  • Kevin Skyba (Android & iOS development)
  • Birgit Lange (speaker DE, ENG & ES)
  • Sophie Thion (translation & speaker FR)
  • Vincenzo Mangano (translation & Speaker IT)
  • Jana Loock (translation ES)
  • Dennis Urban (audio production)

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Get in Touch

Have feedback, suggestion, or any thought about our app? Feel free to contact us anytime!