Iphone/iPad Apps for Learning Chinese

[creamyhorror]

Just wanted to say I really like iCED (specifically, the ability to quickly navigate from word to component character to word). It would be awesome if iCED could access StarDict dictionaries, because that would really open things up for more advanced learners who want to use Chinese-Chinese and other dictionaries. It might be hard to implement, but it would be a big step forward.

About the grammatical patterns, perhaps you could have fuzzy search such that entries like "既...又..." could be found via 既 and 既又 and 既又. I don't know how useful a separate index for these would be, but it usually doesn't hurt to have more classification.

[querido]

Panda Radical Chinese Flashcards can be downloaded for free in the app store

http://tiny.cc/cXl4m

Panda Chinese Flashcards is located here:

http://tiny.cc/OWPYT

Yes. Excellent. Nice big cards... effortless to handle. For me, the most attractive usage would be quick review without my glasses. :-)

Also very good:

Declan Software Chinese Audio Flashcards: (with the Chinese flag on the icon) It has exercises and flashcards for 5700 words, all or subdivided in various ways, e.g. by parts of speech (see the preview or website). But, this is in effect an Iverson Method (google "Iverson's word list method") oriented application, not SRS. I say that as a possible plus. Real multiple-character word audio sounds perfect to me.

My Chinese Coach: Only $4.99? Wow. This thing is neat: whack-a-mole, timed multiple choice, etc. (more types of exercises at higher levels). There's a lot of drilling... so it would take some time before actually graduating up to where I should be and beyond. I can finish a "lesson" in about 15 minutes, but there are 1000? lessons! Whack-a-mole font is small.

But the drilling seems good for me.

I already have mnemosyne, anki, etc. What the above provide is exercise and I'm enjoying it.

[HSC]

Just wanted to say I really like iCED (specifically' date=' the ability to quickly navigate from word to component character to word). It would be awesome if iCED could access StarDict dictionaries, because that would really open things up for more advanced learners who want to use Chinese-Chinese and other dictionaries. It might be hard to implement, but it would be a big step forward.

About the grammatical patterns, perhaps you could have fuzzy search such that entries like "既...又..." could be found via 既 and 既又 and 既又. I don't know how useful a separate index for these would be, but it usually doesn't hurt to have more classification.[/quote']

Thanks for the feedback. Version 2.0 will come pre-packaged with the CDICT5 StarDict (English to Chinese dictionary in which the definition are all in Chinese). The next phase of development will involve a server from which you will be able to download and install other dictionaries. This will include many of the StarDicts. Whether a desktop importer could be part of the solution, I don't know yet.

I will consider what you have said about the grammatical patterns. I think I can get all of the different ways to search into one "grammatical patterns index", such as searching by either of the characters in your example, along with pinyin. I'll probably look into this in a few weeks and see if I can have something ready for version 2.1.

[creamyhorror]

Thanks for the feedback. Version 2.0 will come pre-packaged with the CDICT5 StarDict (English to Chinese dictionary in which the definition are all in Chinese). The next phase of development will involve a server from which you will be able to download and install other dictionaries. This will include many of the StarDicts. Whether a desktop importer could be part of the solution' date=' I don't know yet.

[/quote']

As long as it doesn't cost much/anything to install the Stardicts, I'm all for it

I will consider what you have said about the grammatical patterns. I think I can get all of the different ways to search into one "grammatical patterns index", such as searching by either of the characters in your example, along with pinyin. I'll probably look into this in a few weeks and see if I can have something ready for version 2.1.

Good luck!

[HSC]

Thanks for the feedback. Version 2.0 will come pre-packaged with the CDICT5 StarDict (English to Chinese dictionary in which the definition are all in Chinese). The next phase of development will involve a server from which you will be able to download and install other dictionaries. This will include many of the StarDicts. Whether a desktop importer could be part of the solution' date=' I don't know yet.

As long as it doesn't cost much/anything to install the Stardicts, I'm all for it

StarDicts will not incur any additional costs.

Other dictionaries that will be licensed from their resp. publishers will cost extra, but will be optional.

[creamyhorror]

StarDicts will not incur any additional costs.

Excellent! If you implement Stardict capability, and keep the ability to flexibly look up components of ciyu, you'll be ahead of the pack. A "jump" feature (looking up words in definitions) would be great, too, but I don't know if it'd be easy to implement. Hope to see a nice new version from you soon!

[DVD00]

For Chengyu knowledge in a game format, try ChengYu KuWan, available in both simplified and traditional Chinese. Also comes with an in-built pinyin, Chinese and English dictionary.

Traditional Characters

Simplified Characters

DVD

[fredrik_w]

There is a free app called "Feed me!" created by Edutainment Resources Inc. You hear simple questions in Chinese and you should feed the monster with correct answer.

This is nothing for advanced students. My five year old son really likes it and he always wants to play it. Try it!

[gato]

Some useful apps for Chinese learning and/or living in China:

DICTIONARIES

Pleco

金山词霸

ChineseIdiom

ChengyuLite

READERS (NEWSPAPER / GENERAL)

南方周末

21财经阅读器

南都报系阅读器

蘋果日報

台灣報好你知

Stanza

MobileRSS (Google Reader app, from a Chengdu software company)

MISC UTILITIES

Pocket Tune (listen to radio stations from around the world, including mainland China and Taiwan)

万年历 (lunar calendar)

全国影讯 (schedules of movies playing in China)

中国天气 (weather forecast for Chinese cities))

[fredrik_w]

Using a VPN tunnel is not really an Iphone application. However, I think anyway this qualify for the Iphone app thread. By setting up Hotspot Shield on your Iphone, you can access independent news such as VoA Mandarin news and Radio Free Asia Mandarin news bulletin.

Free VPN:

http://www.iphoneinchina.com/tag/vpn/

With a VPN, you can also access Youtube, Twitter, Facebook, Blogger etc.....

[Don_Horhe]

Nciku also have an iPhone version of their dictionary: http://itunes.apple.com/app/id351524716

[Prodigal Son]

The Nciku app kinda sucks, surprisingly. I was looking forward to that.

[taijidan]

Here are some Chinese themed Apps I have :

Pleco - awesome dictionary and all round chinese learning tool.

Ancients – some facts and a quiz on Chinese history e.g Tang Period, Warring states period.

Opera Masks - In English has pictures and notes on various peking opera masks

CCTV Mobile – Can watch some online video clips from CCTV. I am a big fan of 星光大道

KaiXin – social networking

QQ – social networking

Renren – social networking

Kingsoft Powerword – has a dictionary and encyclopaedia (needs online connection). Has a nice word cloud feature

Magazines – an issue of FHM 男人装and Mens Health are free

Ziyouquanshu – offline Chinese wikipedia

性感美女来赵若 免费 – spot the difference game (with cute chicks)

数字暗语 - dictionary of online slang using numbers. E.g.88 = 八八 sounds like bye bye.

极品笑话 博乐版 – 免费 – Collection of Chinese jokes (most of them not very good)

[lrdict]

Hi there,

is anyone interested in reviewing my new iPhone app?

LRDict is a chinese dictionary, useful for foreign students studying chinese. For more details please visit http://www.lrdict.com/

Best regards

Lutz

[vr2nr]

I am an Anki Fan, but have wanted an iPhone application for over a

year now.

So here is an application that can directly read Anki files exported

to their dropbox. It will read the media as well. Ideally suited to

audio and sentence/phrase study (e.g., smart use of screen real

estate).

*** Video: http://goo.gl/fVEM

*** Further details: http://goo.gl/seTV

[chrix]

After looking at some of the threads here, it seems that pplive doesn't work on the iPhone (or the iPad for that matter). Though I do find some google results for that, "pplive for iPhone". Am I right in assuming that these websites are a bit fishy to say the least?

Anyone been successful in using pplive in whatever way on their iPhone/iPad?

[Gleaves]

Air Video - $3. Streams video from your computer to your iphone/ipod. It works on your home network or remotely over wi-fi. It's handled all the video types I've thrown at it (mostly mkv and rmvb). It can handle multiple audio tracks and subtitles.

[chrix]

So does this AirVideo also stream videos from websites? Because the way I understand pplive, the videos aren't on your computer, but in turn streamed from the internet...

[Gleaves]

Chrix - I was curious about your pplive question. I did some googling, but couldn't find a solution (and can't think of a way to make it work). I just happened to see Air Video on a lifehacker post and was pleasantly surprised that it handled mulitple audio tracks and soft subtitles (which many of my Chinese videos have). I got a little giddy when I suddenly had all my Chinese shows on my ipod (see pics). Doesn't help with connecting to pplive content, though.

[chrix]

Thanks Gleaves, while there are still no good news on the pplive front, it seems that if you have an iPod touch, iPhone or iPad, you can at least skip the tedious step of having to convert the videos...