Phrase Port

Phrase Port is a travel app that puts the essential phrases you need abroad in your pocket. It contains 1,700 phrases in 61 languages and plays each one aloud with a single tap, so users learn how to say a sentence by hearing it. I, Berke Özyaşar, built the app as a personal project and published it on Google Play.

The idea

The sentences you need when traveling are fairly predictable: asking for directions at the airport, checking in at a hotel, ordering at a restaurant, explaining what is wrong at a pharmacy. Translation apps are good for free text, but they do not always offer correct pronunciation and ready-made, reliable phrases. Phrase Port sorts these phrases into categories and presents them with audio.

Content

• 61 languages, including Spanish, French, German, Japanese, Arabic, Turkish, Chinese, Korean, Russian and Hindi
• 1,700 phrases across 26 travel categories
• Categories such as airport and flights, hotel and accommodation, restaurant, transport, health and pharmacy, emergency and safety, shopping and bargaining, directions, money and currency exchange, and business meetings
• One-tap audio playback of every phrase at an easy-to-follow speed

Technical approach

I built the app with React Native and used text-to-speech for audio playback. Content is organized by language and category. Each phrase is shown with its meaning in a language the user understands and played in the target language. The UI priority was letting users reach the right phrase in a few taps, even in a moment of panic: category first, then the phrase, then play.

My other app, built for real-time speech translation, is Offline Whisperer. For an app or website that works with multilingual content, see the mobile app development page.

Status

Phrase Port is live on Google Play for Android.