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GSoC 2026: Scribe Conjugation Application Development
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Description

Project title: Scribe Conjugation Application Development

Brief summary:

The Scribe community makes Wikidata based mobile keyboard applications to help second language learners communicate in the languages they're learning. Till now the Scribe community has been working on keyboard applications, namely Scribe-iOS and Scribe-Android, along with the infrastructure projects that support them (Scribe-Data and Scribe-Server). We'd now like to expand the end user applications that we have on offer to include Wikidata based, multilingual verb conjugation applications. Scribe-Conjugate (see designs on Figma) for both iOS and Android would provide users with an open-source, open-data and highly performative experience in a new version of a low barrier application that is used by language learners all over the world.

Expected outcomes:

The release of Scribe-Conjugate apps for both iOS and Android. Work for this would predominantly make use of existing infrastructure of the Scribe-iOS and Scribe-Android keyboard applications. We want these two new applications to be maintained within the already existing iOS and Android repositories, so the intern would be able to use most of the existing applications like the Settings (link to Figma) and About (link to Figma) tabs.

The main work will be creating the Conjugate tab (link to Figma) of both applications. This tab would include:

  • A search for verbs, with the data coming from Wikidata
    • The search would work for all languages that the user has downloaded data for in parallel
    • No need for a second application for a different language (the language of the verb is shown)
  • A download data UI that uses the same UI as Scribe keyboard applications (link to Figma)
  • A recently conjugated view that has the most recent conjugated verbs (link to Figma)
  • Autocompletion of verbs based on alphabetical next word from the database (link to Figma)
  • A verb conjugation view (link to Figma)
    • This view is both scrollable and filterable by verb tense (link to Figma)
    • Tapping a cell in the table would copy the conjugation to the user's clipboard

Skills required/preferred:

Kotlin for Android development, Swift for iOS development

NOTE: The intern would ideally have access to developing on macOS so that they can use Xcode to develop the iOS application.

Possible mentors:

Expected size of the project: 350 hours

Rating: Hard

Microtasks:

All good first issue and help wanted issues and Scribe community projects are available for GSoC applicants.

Please read through the project README.md and CONTRIBUTING.md files for each project for all steps needed to get started with contributing! Other helpful documents are the Scribe Wikidata Guide, architecture diagram and data contracts documentation.

The following are the links to good first issue and help wanted issues for all Scribe projects:

Any other additional information for contributors:

NOTE: Community communications for Scribe happen in our public Matrix chatrooms. If you're new to Matrix, we'd suggest using Element as your client :) Feel free to introduce yourself in the General room if you'd like, and communication for the projects involved will happen in the Mentorship Programs, Android, iOS, and Data rooms.

Why are you proposing this project?

This is by no means going to be the first verb conjugation application ever made. There are countless versions of these kinds of applications on the market, but the issue is that they are consistently riddled with ads, are paid and/or collect user data. The Scribe community already has the infrastructure in place to derive the needed data for such applications via Wikidata, so we have thought for some time that it would make sense to create highly performative versions of these applications that respect user privacy and show what Wikidata data can be used for to a broader audience.

What is the expected impact?

Having verb conjugation applications powered by Wikidata will be another example of how to use Wikidata lexicographical data in mobile applications. These applications will be much more accessible to users than Scribe's current keyboard applications that are more geared towards advanced learners. The Scribe community should be able to grow through the creation of these applications, and with it also interest in our currently existing services.

Recommendation

We strongly encourage mentors to request additional specific details to help weed out AI-generated applications from potential contributors. Consider adding pre-reqs and ensure that you communicate directly with contributors before making your selection.

IMPORTANT: GSoC / Outreachy candidates are required to complete micro-tasks during the application period to prove their ability to work on a three month long project