Speaking of interesting word websites – here’s another!

Forvo is an audio pronunciation database which aims to have every word in every language (yes, even swear words and slang) pronounced by a native speaker.  It looks like it’s already most of the way there for the more widely spoken languages – at least any random thing I tried in English, Spanish, German, Italian, and Japanese was available.

The interface is presented in multiple languages, but any word in any language can be queried from any of them without needing to specify the language of origin.  Words not natively in Roman characters can be searched for either in the native script or their Romanized versions (e.g., 犬 or inu).

Common words also tend to have multiple pronunciations to listen to, phrases with the word, and translations to other languages as well.  If you’re a native speaker of a language whose word is not yet included, or is not pronounced to your satisfaction, you can help Forvo out by submitting your own words and pronunciations.

Give it a look (and listen) at http://forvo.com – it’s pretty neat!

Bene scribete.