Android app
Setswana – English, in your pocket
A small offline dictionary and phrase book. Search in Setswana or in English, and see where every translation comes from.
Coming soon to Google Play
688 words, 950 word forms and 340 phrases. Free, no ads, no account.
What it does
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Search both ways
Type a Setswana word or an English one. Results show words and phrases together.
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Word forms lead home
950 plurals and verb forms point to their dictionary word: type dikgomo and you get kgomo – cow.
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Everyday phrases
340 phrases in 21 topics from the Peace Corps lessons: greetings, food, family, places, prices, health and more.
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Every entry shows its source
You always see which book or dataset a translation comes from, so you can judge it for yourself.
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Works offline
The whole dictionary is on your phone. No connection needed to look up a word.
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Honest about what it knows
The dictionary is small and grows with every update. Translations are not yet checked by a native speaker.
A look inside
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Browse all words -
Plurals lead to the word -
Search in English -
Phrases by topic
Where the translations come from
Every translation in the app comes from an open source, and the entry names it: English Wiktionary, the Peace Corps Setswana language lessons, J. Brown's Secwana Dictionary (1895), and word pairs from a Setswana Bible translation by Biblica aligned with the World English Bible. Old spellings from 1895 are marked as historical.
None of this has been checked by a native speaker yet. When we are not sure about a meaning, we would rather leave it out than show you a wrong one. Details and licences are on the sources and licences page.
Why Roona
Roona is a first step towards a bigger idea: reading real texts in a new language, with every word explained in your own language. We are starting with languages that most tools overlook, and Setswana is the first.
Learning Setswana?
Install the dictionary, and if you find a mistake, tell us. Every report makes the next update better.
Coming soon to Google Play