Expanding one’s vocabulary has countless benefits, and this currently-free app is therefore a must for anyone with an iOS device. Having a wider vocabulary not only allows one to express themselves more accurately, it also can help one be more successful. As this is a free app, my personal opinion would be that everyone should own it, but especially high school students who could greatly benefit from these vocabulary skills on standardized tests such as the SAT and ACT. For students in general, a wider range of vocabulary can also help with just about any writing assignment. That’s not to say that adults or people already in professional fields can’t benefit; more obscure words can convey meanings that popular and more generic words simply can’t.
IntelliVocab works on any iPhone, iPod Touch, or iPad running iOS 3.0 or later, and was built off research done by the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory and MIT Web Semantics Labs. Faqden Labs, the company behind the app itself, claims that this technology makes it possible for IntelliVocab to essentially learn about you from your answers and “collapse billions of possibilities into comprehensible probabilistic profile information, in real-time.”
When practicing, the app will speak the word for you so you’re aware of how it’s pronounced and then you’ll be given a list of possible definitions, from which you must choose the correct one. IntelliVocab will track your success and give reports showing how you’ve progressed over time with your word list. Since each session contains custom word sets based on your level, you can be exposed to newer and more difficult words as you master previous sets.
If apps like this catch on, I don’t think it will be long before full-featured language-learning apps are popular on mobile devices, although other educational programs would be just as likely to pop up. For some examples, make sure to check out this list of 10 Free iPhone Apps for Students or some iPad Apps for Writers.
