My Cree App | Description

1) Pronunciation guide

You can start anywhere in the App, but when your app loads it will take you to the Cree

Basics page where you will find the Cree alphabet chart. Just click on the letters to hear

how they are spoken – and hear examples of how they sound in relation to both English

and Cree word examples. This way you don’t have to guess at what the letters sound like,

you can actually hear them spoken.

Cree uses fourteen letters of the Roman Alphabet to represent the sounds of the Cree

language. These letters represent seventeen sounds plus sounds of several combinations

of consonants. This section helps you practice those sounds.

2) Words

Here we have a variety of word categories, including Activities (sports and other fun things),

Food, Seasons and Weather, Friends and Family, Animals, Greetings and Feelings and

More Words. Each category has a number of words to learn, with inspirational images and

a smooth, easy to use action as you maneuver through the flashcards. Each flashcard

plays an audio clip of the word with a related image, making it easier to connect the word

with its meaning. Both the Cree text and English text appear. There are quizzes in each

category, so you can test your learning.

Experts say that knowing around 300 words and phrases in a language is a great start to

allow you to have simple conversations with fluent speakers of the language. My Cree App

launches with a more than 300 words. Our approach makes learning words easier than

learning by simply translating from English to Cree Words.

3) Phrases

The Phrase section is another way to practice your Cree and to learn phrases you might

want to use in your everyday life. Our phrases section builds on the first lessons, combining

words into phrases and letting you go places and meet and greet people. These phrases

include greeting conversations and we’ve added a section where we break down some of

the included words and also give some related phrases. This way you can keep learning.

4) Songs

Putting Cree to music helps both adults and children to learn faster. Our songs incorporate

key Cree words into different musical styles, such as ballads, rap and world music. They

are composed and played by Aboriginal musicians and designed to be memorable and

appealing to all ages.

FYI

We want you to know our app is not a dictionary. This stage is a basic introduction to Cree,

but if you like what we are doing, we plan to expand the app to make My Cree the go-to

resource for on-line nēhiyawēwin. Most entry-level language classes start with about

300-500 words, which is our approach with this beginning My Cree App.

We will be adding to My Cree App – introducing new words and phrases 2 or 3 times a

year – so after you’ve learned the first round of words and phrases, check back for more

knowledge.

Please note we are using the Y Dialect – Plains Cree. Please also note that we are using

the standardized Cree spelling, adopted by many teachers and linguistics.

We acknowledge that there are different spellings for words but these are the spellings we

are working with. If you see something that needs review, please let us know.

We would like to acknowledge that we drew from our own knowledge and experience with

nēhiyawēwin. We also referred to creedictionary.com and nēhiyawēwin: itwēwina / Cree:

Words, Volume 2, compiled by Arok Wolvengrey.