Family recordings, translated into your language

Shijro writes out every family recording in the language it was spoken in, and translates it into the language of whoever is reading. It works with around sixty languages. A grandparent can tell a story in the language they grew up with, and a grandchild who never learned that language can still follow every word.

Why I built translation in

My own children understand a little of their grandparents’ language when they hear it, but can’t read it at all, and they find it hard to talk to their grandparents in it. That’s part of why Shijro exists. In many families, the grandparents speak one language, the parents speak two, and the grandchildren speak only one of those. The best stories are often in the language the youngest generation can’t follow. That used to mean waiting for someone bilingual to sit down and translate. I wanted the app to do that job, and to keep the original words so nothing gets lost.

How it works

Record the story as it’s told, in the app or as the answer to a question sent by link. Shijro writes it out in the original language, then translates it into each reader’s chosen language. As it plays, the translated words follow the voice.

One tap switches between the translation and what was actually said. A relative who speaks both languages can check them side by side, and anyone in the family can correct a word or a name the AI got wrong.

In the Hartleys, the sample family, Kasia Kowalski tells the story of her grandad Jan’s gate in Lviv in Polish. It reads in English, and the Polish is one tap away.

Asking a question in another language

When you send a relative a question, choose the language they should answer in. Their answer is written out in that language and translated back into yours.

What happens to the recordings

AI models write out and translate the recordings. They run through our cloud provider, for your family only, and they are never allowed to train on what they hear. Each family starts with an allowance of AI time, shown as minutes of recordings. A family that uses it all can buy more once, and it doesn’t expire.