Forvo.com - All the World’s Words Pronounced

If you’ve ever spent time studying a phrase book to try and get a basic understanding of a country’s language before you travel there, you’ll know that often what you’ve learned is not helpful because you don’t know how to pronounce the words you’ve learned. Forvo is a site that allows you to search for words in any language, and then listen to a native’s pronunciation of the word. The site is constantly adding words since it relies on users to request the pronunciation of the word and on other users to record the pronunciation for them. There are currently 829 pronunciations available for 177 languages but this should continue to expand and the site should become an online database of all the world’s words and the correct way of saying them.

“Forvo is the place where you´ll find words pronounced in their original languages. Ever wondered how a word is pronounced? Ask for that word or name, and another user will pronounce it for you.”

Many languages are not phonetic meaning that they are difficult to learn how to pronounce. Being able to hear the words pronounced by native speakers will allow people to make themselves understood wherever they are.

This site is reliant on users for it content creation and currently has a very small database of recordings. Perhaps they should consider contracting native speakers in a few key languages to increase the size and usefulness of the database and thereby stimulate user growth and user participation in the site.