Degchi in Urdu, Hindi, Bangla and Arabic: One Kitchen App, Six Languages

A kitchen where everyone reads something different

In a lot of homes, the person who cooks reads Urdu, the teenager scrolls in English, and a grandparent would rather see Hindi, Bangla or Arabic script. A recipe app that only speaks one language ends up being used by one person.

Degchi is built so the same app can work for all of them. This is a short tour of how the languages work, what to expect, and a few small settings that make the app friendlier for older family members.

The six app languages

You can use the Degchi app in:

• English
• Urdu (اردو), written right to left
• Roman Urdu, which is Urdu typed in Latin letters
• Hindi (हिन्दी)
• Bangla (বাংলা)
• Arabic (العربية), also right to left

You pick one when you first set up the app (the welcome screen says "Choose your language"), and you can change it any time under Me → Language, which is labelled "App and recipes". If you switch to or from Urdu or Arabic, the app restarts once so the whole layout can flip to the right direction. That is expected, so do not worry when it blinks.

Roman Urdu is part of the app only. The Degchi website currently comes in English, Urdu, Hindi and Bangla. There is no Arabic version of the website yet.

One language at a time

This was a deliberate choice. When you pick a language, the screens show that language only. English mode does not scatter Urdu words around for flavour, and Urdu mode does not hide English labels in the corners. If a translation is ever missing, Degchi falls back to English rather than to another language you did not choose.

The exceptions are the brand name, Degchi, and the language list itself, where each language is written in its own script so you can find yours even if the rest of the screen is unreadable to you.

Names that match what you call things

Language is not only about buttons. In a kitchen, the hard part is names. Is it aloo, alu, batata or potato? Is it toor daal or arhar daal? In Degchi, ingredient names carry aliases in every supported language, so your pantry list, your shopping list and the recipes all use words you recognise.

Recipe names and instructions are available in the six languages too. That means the dish you cook on Sunday can be read by the next person in Hindi, or checked by an elder in Urdu or Bangla, without anybody retyping anything. Try it with a dish that crosses borders, like hummus, falafel or tabbouleh, and switch the language to see how the same recipe reads.

Amounts follow the same idea. Every recipe shows metric and US measurements, and you can flip between them. The recipe page guide shows how.

Bigger text and Simple Mode

Open the Me tab and look under Display. Two settings are worth knowing about:

• Text size has S, M and L, with the sentence "What should we cook today?" as a live preview.
• Simple Mode gives you bigger text and one button per screen. Its own description says it is great for elders, and that is how we think of it.

Neither one changes your data. You can set it up on a parent's phone in a minute and leave it.

Language as a personal setting

Degchi helps a multilingual household by treating language as a personal setting. Each person chooses their own, on their own phone, and still sees the same pantry, shopping list and family votes once you set up your family. Nobody has to translate for anyone else, and ingredient names are never a guessing game.

If you are just getting started, the five-minute setup walks through choosing a language first.

Try it in your own language

Degchi is in beta and free to use. If you would like to try it in the language you cook in, join the Degchi beta by adding your Gmail address on the homepage, and tell us which language you would like us to polish next.