Grammarly-like app for Urdu to be launched next month

Grammarly is a free tool that checks for grammatical errors in content. It basically ensures optimal content quality on the grammar and language front. However, Grammarly is only available in English. To cater to the local market, an app similar to Grammarly is going to be launched in Urdu.

The app, called Harf Kaar, is co-developed by Akhtar Raza Saleemi and Saeed Raza Khan. The former is a poet/writer while the latter is an experienced software programmer. The app is said to be near completion. Speaking to Express Tribune, Akhtar Raza said that the app will be launched in a formal ceremony in the first week of August.

The app has been designed to help Urdu writers and poets worldwide in their work. According to the developers, the app will correct vocabulary errors and sentence structure, expression errors etc. with a single click. Akhtar Raza further added, “We have carried out so far, 500 successful trials of this software,”

Saeed Raza commented that he himself along with his team have worked really hard on the development of this app. It reportedly took more than a year for them to finalize the app’s coding. He further remarked, “`Harf Kaar’ is quite small in size and can be run in any computer. Urdu Diction is spread in such a huge form that the software programme will be quite helpful in resolving issues of diction, proof errors etc.”.

The app has been developed after consulting major dictionaries of the Urdu language. Additional help has been employed from a seminar conducted by the National Language Promotion Department in 1985. Akhtar Raza commented that the software can be helpful for students as well.

This is a good step towards the promotion of the national language. A similar step was taken by Google last year with the introduction of the ability to convert text from Roman Urdu to Scripted Urdu.