How can we
help?

The app opens straight on the Talk screen, with no sign-up and no setup. The home board has eight cards: I, I want, Food, Drinks, Bathroom, Rest, Yes and No. Above them are the quick words Help, It hurts, I don’t want, More and All done.

Start with a few familiar pictures. Use them together in everyday moments and leave time for an answer.

• Water
• Apple
• Home

Tap a card: the word is said right away and added to the sentence at the top. The “Speak” button says the whole sentence and lights up each word as it says it.

Tap a word in the sentence to take it out. The trash can at the end clears everything, and for a few seconds afterwards you can bring the sentence back. Cards like “Food” and “Drinks” open their own words; “Back” returns to the start.

Yes. Talking, changes, photos, recordings, schedules and “More words” all work offline. The internet is needed only once, to download an English voice in iOS (see “How do I download an English voice?”).

Tap the lock at the top right and enter the 4-digit PIN. The first time, you create a PIN and get a recovery code. Write it down: it is the only way to change a forgotten PIN.

Parent Mode locks itself when the app is closed or after 5 minutes without activity.

Yes. Marty Talks has no purchases and no subscriptions.

Yes. In Parent Mode, choose “Edit the board”. Tap an empty space and choose “New word”, or tap a card to change it.

With “Add picture” you can take a photo, pick one from your phone or choose a built-in illustration. That is also where you change the card’s name, what it says and its color. The changes reach the child once you tap “Save”.

Open the card in the editor and, under “Your voice”, tap “Record your voice”. Say the word and tap “Stop” (up to 10 seconds). “Listen” plays the recording back; “Again” records it once more.

The card will speak in your voice, in sentences too. If recording does not start, allow the microphone: Settings → Marty Talks → Microphone.

In Parent Mode, open “Sound”. There you choose a voice and a speed (Slower, Normal or Faster) and can listen to an example. The settings are for the selected child.

If you want words to be said only with the “Speak” button, turn off “Say each word when tapped” in “More settings”.

In the editor, hold a card and drag it to another place. “Hide from the child” hides it and leaves its place empty. “Delete” moves it to the “Trash”, where you can put it back.

The button next to “Speak” opens a built-in library of over 800 words, sorted by topic, with search. A word you tap is added to the sentence. You can turn the button off in Parent Mode, under “More words”.

They are picture schedules that show what comes next, step by step. The child reaches them by swiping left from the Talk screen or by choosing them from “Talk ▾”. They can show all the steps at once or one at a time.

In Parent Mode, under “Schedules”, you can change or hide them, or make a new schedule with your own photos and voice.

No. Everything works without an account and without the internet. There are no accounts or cloud backups yet.

On the device. Each child’s words, photos, recordings and settings stay on the phone or tablet. If you delete the app, the data is deleted with it. For now there is no way to move it to another device.

Yes. In Parent Mode, open “Children” → “Add child”. Each child has their own cards, photos and settings.

With more than one child, the child’s name is shown at the top of the screen. Tap it to switch to another child; switching asks for the PIN.

In “Children”, choose the child and tap “Delete profile”. The profile stays in “Recently deleted” for 30 days and can be restored with “Restore”. The profile in use right now cannot be deleted: choose another child first.

• The volume. Turn it up with the buttons on the side. Silent mode does not stop the speech.
• The English voice. If the screen says “No English voice installed”, download one (see the next question).
• Saying words when tapped. In “Sound” → “More settings”, check “Say each word when tapped”.
• Touch. In “Touch” → “More settings”, check “Select by holding” and “Skip repeats”.

Marty Talks speaks with the voices of iOS. Open Settings → Accessibility → Spoken Content → Voices → English and download a voice. You do this once and it needs the internet; after that the app speaks offline too.

When you come back to the app, it checks by itself. You can also tap “Check again” in “Sound”.

Tap “Forgot your PIN?”, enter the recovery code you wrote down the first time, and choose a new PIN.

If the code was not kept, the PIN can only be changed by deleting the app and installing it again. The data on the device is then lost.

Turn on “Guided Access” in the device’s Settings → Accessibility. It keeps the child in one app until you turn it off.

On iPhone and iPad with iOS 17 or later. On iPhone the screen is upright; on iPad it works in every orientation.