What it does
Yarn Igbo translates between Igbo and English. It's made for people in Nigeria and the diaspora reconnecting with the language: understanding a message from a relative, learning greetings and proverbs, or helping children pick up words at home.
How it works
Yarn Igbo is a hybrid. Common words, greetings and expressions come from a hand-checked phrasebook with rules, so they're reliable. Longer or unusual sentences are handled by NLLB-200, an open translation model published by Meta that supports Igbo, running on servers we operate ourselves. Your text is not sent to a third-party AI service.
A few examples
| Igbo | English |
|---|---|
| Kedu? | How are you? |
| Nnọọ | Welcome |
| Daalụ | Thank you |
| Biko | Please |
| Ka ọ dị | Goodbye / See you later |
Tips for better results
- Igbo is a tonal language, and the dotted vowels (ị, ọ, ụ) change meaning. Typing them when you can gives more accurate translations.
- Short sentences translate more accurately than long paragraphs.
- The model-powered part of the translator may occasionally be offline for maintenance.
Help make it better
You can suggest a better translation or vote on suggestions inside the app. Every suggestion is reviewed before it is published, so the phrasebook improves without losing accuracy.