PreservationFor families separated by more than distance
Don't let a language barrier become a generation barrier.
Spanish and Urdu are available now
Your parent or grandparent speaks in the language that feels natural to them. Preservation captures their memories, stories, advice, personality and voice, and makes them accessible to the generations who come after them, whatever language they speak.
One question, four crossings
A granddaughter asks, in English
“How did you and Grandpa meet?”
Her grandmother hears it in Spanish, read aloud
“¿Cómo se conocieron tú y el abuelo?”
She answers in her own Spanish
“Nos conocimos en la feria. Yo vendía flores, y él no tenía ni para una.”
The family reads it in English, marked as a translation
“We met at the fair. I was selling flowers, and he couldn't afford a single one.”
The question crosses over. The answer comes back. What she actually said never changes.
They speak naturally. Everyone gets to understand.
Your loved one doesn't have to search for the right words in English.
They can answer questions, tell stories and share memories in the language they know best. Preservation keeps their original words and makes them available to the family in the language they speak.
So nothing has to be simplified just because the next generation speaks a different language.
You can even have a conversation across languages.
Neither person has to speak the other's language.
You ask, in English
What was your mother like when you were growing up?
She is asked, out loud, in Spanish
¿Cómo era su mamá cuando usted crecía?
Her recording
Spanish, in her own voice, kept exactly as she said it.
Her granddaughter asks, in English
What did she say about her mother?
The question crosses over. The answer comes back. What she actually said never changes.
Keep their words. Understand their meaning.
Translation makes their memories accessible. It never replaces them.
Your family can return to what they actually said, in the language they actually said it in, while children, grandchildren and the generations after them can understand it in their own.
A translation is always shown as a translation. The recording and the original words are kept exactly as they were given.
Their language. Their words. Their voice.
Because language is part of who we are.
The language someone grew up speaking carries more than information.
It carries expressions, humor, family sayings, ways of describing places and people, and words that sometimes don't translate perfectly at all.
A person can speak English for fifty years and still remember childhood in Spanish.
Preservation lets them speak as themselves instead of asking them to tell their life through a second language.
One family. Different languages.
- A grandmother who speaks Spanish.
- A grandson who only speaks English.
- A father more comfortable in Urdu.
- Grandchildren growing up speaking French.
Families change across countries and generations. The language may change with them.
That shouldn't mean losing access to the people who came before.
Spanish and Urdu are available now.
Urdu is written right to left, so the whole screen turns around for the storyteller: the questions, the buttons, everything, in Nastaliq script.
More languages are coming. Maybe your family speaks Mandarin, Hindi, Punjabi, Farsi, Arabic, Vietnamese, Korean, Tagalog, Polish, Portuguese, Italian, or a language we haven't listed yet.
Tell us what your family needs. The languages families ask for will decide what we support next.
Tell us which language your family needsPreserve them in their language. Know them in yours.
Give someone you love a place to tell you who they are, in the words that come naturally to them.
Start preservingNo credit card required.