Look up words, learn languages.
A dictionary for language learners that fits on one phone screen. Type a word, pick a language, and read its Wiktionary entry. When Wiktionary is not enough, bab.la is one tap away.
- dog
Why it exists
Looking up word after word on the Wiktionary website from a phone was hard work. Maybe it was just me, but I kept editing the URL by hand, because that felt faster than the search.
When Wiktionary was not enough, I went to bab.la for example sentences, and to hear the word read out loud. And Wiktionary does not always show the pronunciation in IPA.
Lemma puts all of that on one screen: a search bar under your thumb, Wiktionary and bab.la side by side, and the IPA for the word.
What it does
Search where your thumb is
The search bar sits at the bottom of the screen. The keyboard closes after each lookup, so the next word is one tap away.
Jump to your language
Pick English, Swedish, Spanish or French. Lemma opens that language's part of the entry.
bab.la, one tap away
The second tab opens the same word on bab.la, with example sentences and audio.
Pronunciation
The IPA shows above the entry, also when Wiktionary has none. It comes from ipa-dict.
A link for every lookup
Bookmark a lookup or send it to someone: lemma.mrnagydavid.dev/?word=perro&lang=es
Remembers and installs
Lemma remembers your language. Add it to your home screen and it opens like an app.
Privacy policy, in full
There is no tracking pixel watching you look up words.
Those sites have their own privacy policies, which are — regrettably — longer than this one.
By using Lemma you agree to… use Lemma. That's it.
Quoted from the app's privacy and terms textHow it's built
- Stack
- Plain HTML, CSS and JavaScript
- Size
- About 600 lines. app.js is 212 of them.
- Build
- None. No framework, no dependencies.
- Offline
- A service worker keeps the app itself available
- Hosting
- GitHub Pages
Known limits
- The entries need a connection. Only the app itself works offline.
- Four languages for now.
- The entries belong to Wiktionary and bab.la. When they change their pages, what you see in Lemma can change too.
- On Firefox for Android, the toolbar moves to the top of the screen.