Berkeley, California – Creekcats LLC is today proud to announce the release and immediate availability of Le Menu Dit 1.0, their English to French menu translator for iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch devices. More than just a word translator, the app is designed to make ordering from a menu easy: an entire column of a menu can be translated at one time, and results are presented in bold type with each line of the original menu immediately followed by its translation, so the traveler can point to what they want to order. Users simply take a photo of the menu, crop as needed, and tap “Translate.” Le Menu Dit immediately handles the translation, resulting in an understandable menu for users to read and order from.

“Le Menu Dit” is French for “The Menu Says,” which is the perfect description of what the app does. While laying the groundwork for Le Menu Dit 1.0, developers created a list of over 37,000 menu-related phrases, which they translated from English to French. The resulting phrase dictionary is the basis of Le Menu Dit 1.0.

Why Choose Le Menu Dit?
* It is designed specifically to make it easy to order from a translated menu: Each line of the menu is followed by its translation. Many competing apps create a single block of translated text, and it can be very hard to figure out which item on the original menu corresponds to the desired item in the translation.
* It is reliable. It works very well on most menus, and gives an acceptable translation on most of the rest.
* It works the same offline or online, so it works anywhere, whether the user has a data connection or not. Many competing apps either require an Internet connection, or perform poorly if one isn’t available.
* It has a very simple interface so users can use it easily the first time, and won’t need to re-learn it if they don’t use it for weeks or months.
* The translation is in bold, easy-to-read type.

“The idea for Le Menu Dit 1.0 came to us – myself, my wife, and my parents – while we were biking along the Danube,” says Phil Price, inventor of the app. “We stopped at a restaurant for dinner, and even though we know a smattering of German we couldn’t read the menu: we would have been able to read the German words for ‘fish’ and ‘vegetables’, but that didn’t help because we didn’t know the words for ‘halibut’ or ‘asparagus.’ We tried using a popular translation app (Word Lens) , but it was frustrating to use and the results were very poor. I said out loud, ‘This is awful! I could write a better app myself!’ My mother challenged me with, ‘If you do, I will happily invest in it.’ And that’s how Le Menu Dit came to be.” Upon returning from their trip, Phil and his two friends, Nathan Addy and Yixing (Ethan) Chen, set to work on developing the app.

Unlike most other translation apps for iOS device, Le Menu Dit doesn’t try to be an all-purpose translation tool. Instead, it concentrates on being excellent at one thing, quickly translating menus from English to French and presenting the translation in a way that makes it easy for users to point to what they want to order. There are no complicated procedures to learn, or confusing icons that must be hit in the proper order. Menu translation is merely a matter of point, shoot, crop, and wait a moment for the translation.

Features:
* Translates English menus to French, using a photo of the menu
* Includes over 37,000 menu-related words and phrases
* Translated words are displayed in a bold font, perfect for travelers 55 and older
* Each line of the menu is shown with its translation immediately below, so it’s easy to match each item to its translation.
* Results are saved, so users can easily go back and forth through pages of a menu
* Includes a built-in flashlight function for use in low-light conditions
* Share translation results via email or Facebook with an available Internet connection

Visits from France to the United Kingdom and the United States in 2013 tallied over 5.3 million, and most of those visitors do not speak fluent English. Those visits were of approximately one week’s duration, making an app like Le Menu Dit a must-have app for any French traveler’s iPhone or iPad.

Device Requirements:
* iPhone iPad, and iPod touch
* Requires iOS 7.1 or higher
* Universal Application
* 17.9 MB

Pricing and Availability:
Le Menu Dit 1.0 is available worldwide exclusively through the App Store in the Travel category. It can be launched five times for free, and several menu pages can be processed with a single launch of the app, so a user can use the app for several meals for free. They will then be need to unlock the app via a convenient in-app purchase. Options for premium features include one week’s usage for $0.99, or unlimited usage for $2.99.

Le Menu Dit 1.0
Download from iTunes
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Headquartered in Berkeley, California, Creekcats LLC was founded in 2013 by Phil Price, Juliet Lamont, Mary Price, and John Price. The company was born from a desire to create apps that would make user’s lives easier, by supplying tools to aid them in their everyday lives. Copyright (C) 2015 Creekcats LLC. All Rights Reserved. Apple, the Apple logo, iPhone and iPod are registered trademarks of Apple Inc. in the U.S. and/or other countries.