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Iphone/iPad Apps for Learning Chinese


reallych1932

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iPhone app developers - you're welcome to introduce your apps in here, but explain that they are your apps, don't pretend to be an excited customer who just had to rush on to the Internet and recommend it. Because that annoys us, and we delete your posts. I'm looking at you, 'Interactive Chinese'

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I am new to this site & have seen there are many apps for iPhone to help learn Chinese. I will be getting an iphone in the next week. I am looking for one to help me, help my 6 year old who will be starting in Chinese Immersion class this year.

What would your suggestion(s) be? I know ZERO Chinese

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  • 4 weeks later...
  • 4 weeks later...

@liuzhou

Is "app" some kind of word for people who are too tired, or busy or lazy to say application?

I haven't heard anything so ugly since chefs became too busy making television programmes to bother pronouncing 'preparation' and every thing became "prep",

Just to clarify, app refers SPECIFICALLY to iOS/Android/mobile applications, due to the high demand of them. Application can refer to any program running on any OS. When someone says APP, it means something you run on your mobile device.

It's language, just like Chinese. In Japanese you say apuri for a mobile app. (appli as in application) It happens when more and more technology comes into existence.

Food-prep is an industry standard vocabulary. It's not laziness... it's just what happens to language when you use it a lot. If someone says "prep" you know, as a chef, what exactly to do. That way, if someone says "preperation" then you know it's outside of the kitchen, such as "It's preperation for an exam." or "my mother's preparing for surgery." etc...

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I'd like to bump this thread to ask people what they think now, in 2011 (things change).

My company has a very solid Japanese vocabulary study tool (read: not a dictionary) and we're considering the same concept in Chinese; curious as to what people are using.

From what I gather, Pleco & above-mentioned iCED seem to own the dictionary space for high-end stuff (they have all the licenses with all the top dictionaries), and then there are a number of smaller players that cost less and are using CEDICT data as a dictionary.

What else is out there in terms of SRS and vocabulary/hanzi tools?

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Make a reasonably priced text reader that has tap-dictionary-lookup (CEDICT is fine) and export-to-wordlist features and I'll buy it. Well, make it before I switch to Android anyway. I just want a reader like Stanza but with Perapera-kun-style dictionary lookup and word export - Pleco's reader module, essentially. This would be good for those of us who are using other dictionary apps already and don't want to buy Pleco for it.

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  • 3 weeks later...

We are happy to release our new app, Hanzi Warrior. This is part of a new genre of language adventure games. Most of the Chinese language apps out there are dictionaries and flash-cards, and we wanted to create something new that is engaging for both beginners and native speakers of all ages. You can watch the trailer on YouTube

and visit our homepage http://dfnt.tv/hanzi you can also look for us on the iTunes App Store. Hanzi Warrior has support for both Bopomofo and Pinyin, as well as Traditional and Simplified Mandarin words and characters. Words are pulled directly from HSK and TOCFL/TOP exams, so it is a great study tool as well.

Disclosure: I am part of the Hanzi Warrior development team at Difint, LLC.

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Hey, guys, I just got iPhone so it was great to find this topic. I've read it all and downloaded the apps I was interested in based on the suggestions here. However I have to ask about the CCTV app. You all keep talking about it but provide no link and don't give any details. I have searched the app store and do indeed find CCTV apps, but there are many, most if not all are in Chinese, and I simply don't know which to get. I suspect I may also be seeing official as well as 3rd party apps.

Let me say that my interest is in more easily accessing their videos such as their various Chinese language shows or the music show. I am not interested in using CCTV for news, but if this affects your app suggestion, please explain the different ones for the benefit of any other person who comes across this topic. Thanks!

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creamyhorror, sorry, I didn't see your response until now. Was busy making an app... we just launched an Anki/Pleco flashcard module competitor, focused on Chinese (I find that Anki's generalized nature also makes it more work up front).

Anyway, yeah, we were thinking about porting our Japanese product for Mandarin -- a reader for the iPhone/iPad, basically exactly as you've described in your post. Have a look at this:

http://longweekendmobile.com/get-our-apps/rikai-browser-for-ipad/

Is this what you want (but for Chinese instead)? Would be good to know that someone wants it before I go making it.

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@LongWeekend

On the iPad I currently use the bookmarklet from mandarinspot.com for popup translation of web sites: http://mandarinspot.com/bookmark Also check the iPad thread: http://www.chinese-f...post__p__260604 .The safari web browser does not support resizing text with automatic reformatting such that the resized text still fits on the screen. The Atomic web browser does support it however, therefore I use the combination Atomic web browser and bookmarklet to read Chinese web pages on the iPad. The bookmarklet is free and the Atomic web browser was about one US Dollar when I got it. You might want to check the combination and see if your app would be an improvement.

Cheers

hackinger

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  • 2 weeks later...

My six year old daughter started learning Chinese this year so I decided to write an app to help her learn Chinese. The app is called Hanscript and can be found in the app store.

The app is designed for kids and beginners learning Chinese. However, I have received very good feedback from users ranging from 6 years old, all the way to 60 years old!

If you are looking for an app for beginners, I welcome you to try out Hanscript and let me know what you think about the app.

Here's the link to the Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/hanscript in case you are interested.

Thanks!

Jung

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  • 3 weeks later...

The Maodou workshop people, who used to be known on here for ripping and uploading 锵锵三人行 shows as podcasts, now have an iPhone app. I have no idea if there's any useful content, but might be worth a look.

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/mao-dou/id473678715?l=zh&ls=1&mt=8

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I developed an iPhone app at the start of the year and have just come out with Version 2.

It's called LingoSpring Chinese Memory Game and is available in the App Store for $1.99.

It's a Card Matching Game similar to classic "Memory" but with Chinese characters.

The most valuable part to me is that I've grouped characters for study by similar-looking characters. This is one study option, but there are others as well and you can import your own study list really easily.

Other Features:

--Save characters to a "Study List" for later study

--Match simplified characters to traditional, English or pinyin

--Skip the games and memorize through "Study Mode"

--As you flip cards, you get lots of words that that character is in

--Characters are color-coded based on how frequently you'll see them in written Chinese

I continue to make improvements so please let me know if you have suggestions or constructive feedback.

Screen-Shot-2012-03-17-at-1.32.33-PM.png

Screen-Shot-2012-03-17-at-1.33.27-PM.png

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I tend to favour Pleco. The dictionary is generally quite extensive, and I think the "handwriting extension" (which allows you to write the unknown character on the iPhone screen directly) is, while a bit expensive, generally worth it!

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Hi All,

We published a new iOS app, Chinese Flash, for Mandarin study. I wanted to tell this forum about it, in case you're looking for a solid vocabulary study app.

I know there are plenty of apps (and have been discussed on this forum) -- but ours is particularly good for quick vocabulary study (and includes tone audio as well). That said, I'm not about to go up against Pleco as a dictionary anytime soon :P

Anyway, we've created a brief video outlining the features on the website below; if anyone has any questions, I'm happy to answer. I hope that you might find the app useful in your studies!

http://www.chineseflashapp.com/

Also, here's the App Store link:

http://bit.ly/IeLmwR

Cheers

Mark

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