adripv Posted January 23, 2013 at 10:39 PM Report Posted January 23, 2013 at 10:39 PM Hi, I have been given an iPad for Xmas and I would like to use it for helping me with my Chinese ( I have been studying for already 5 years). Do you have any recommendation of interesting apps? Also, I would like to have a dictionary on it. The little research I have made only refers to tools that are useful for beginners, and I was wondering if you happen to know good resources for more advanced learners. Thank you! Quote
Shelley Posted January 23, 2013 at 10:56 PM Report Posted January 23, 2013 at 10:56 PM What a great Xmas present. i think you would find Pleco is a great addition to your Chinese learning arsenal. its got loads of features, go check out the Pleco website. Quote
icebear Posted January 24, 2013 at 01:09 AM Report Posted January 24, 2013 at 01:09 AM Pleco (free), and it's Reader and Flashcard add-ons (in app purchases) - these together meet a vast majority of a Chinese student's needs. Qiyi, Youku, Sogou, etc video apps are also good for viewing video, if you are at that level. All free. ChinesePod has a great app, if you are a subscriber. Quote
ManManLai Posted January 24, 2013 at 02:56 AM Report Posted January 24, 2013 at 02:56 AM A bit of self-promotion for my company's app.... http://manmanlai.net ManManLai is an integrated dictionary and learning assistant... • dictionary with search (characters, pinyin and other romanization schemes, and English) • flashcards • HSK vocabulary lists • miaohong (描紅) character writing. It's designed for iPhone and iPod but runs fine on the iPad, and it's being actively developed. Matt Quote
Popular Post joshuawbb Posted January 24, 2013 at 02:24 PM Popular Post Report Posted January 24, 2013 at 02:24 PM Before I start, Shelley and Icebear have hit the nail on the head with Pleco and those video apps. Dictionaries - aside from Pleco, Nciku Online is also a decent dictionary as I find myself using Nciku most often when using the computer. It's free - the offline Nciku app costs money but it's not nearly as good as the online dictionary. Study - if you use an SRS flashcard system, then I recommend Anki, though only if you already use it. It is very expensive (£17.99 in the UK I think) but since I'm a heavy long-term user I find it well worth it. If you don't use it much, you might try the other SRS options in the app store.. Also, 有声小说 allows you to download a selection of Mandarin audiobooks, though the interface is fully Chinese; 听书城 is similar but I haven't looked too much into it.. HSK Exam Free provides some practice HSK exams with integrated listening too; one set of HSK 1 to 6 is free and more can be purchased. 暴走漫画 provides downloadable Chinese versions of those popular, scruffily drawn 'rage' comics - whether or not you find them immature, there are some real gems to be found. Video - icebear has already written the best video players, and you can add Qiyi Animation (奇异动画片), PPS影音 and Baofeng (暴风影音) as other good players. It sounds like overkill to get them all, but each player often has different content to others. 高清影视 is also a very good player for streaming live Chinese TV channels. The apps following aren't so much related to study, but may be good for your Chinese and your daily life regardless. Communication - QQ and Weibo are good if you happen to have accounts in either; WeChat (微信), an instant messenger that ties in somewhat with QQ, and also MoMo (陌陌), another one of those IM programs that shows you others in your area and allows chat, etc. It's seen by most as a bit of a dating tool so I don't use it, but you may still find conversations - if you live in China, that is. Music - for streaming Chinese music and to an extent, downloading, 酷我音乐 is probably the best. Other - The local Chinese version of Flipboard is available only from the Chinese App store, but it is extremely useful and fun to use; you can add Weibo feeds as well as other Chinese language news feeds from the app's selection and it will present them in a very attractive magazine format for you to browse through and keep up your daily reading with things you're interested in. If you have or can make a Chinese app store account, this is well worth the trouble. I'd also suggest GoodReader, a PDF reader/editor which allows double-page reading, something curiously absent in most other PDF apps. This is decent for downloaded Chinese material or annotating HSK papers, etc. 5 Quote
mikelove Posted January 24, 2013 at 02:34 PM Report Posted January 24, 2013 at 02:34 PM Surprised that nobody here has mentioned Skritter which just recently iPad-optimized their delightful flashcard app. 1 Quote
icebear Posted January 24, 2013 at 03:09 PM Report Posted January 24, 2013 at 03:09 PM A major omission on Skritter - especially since I use it daily. Good catch mikelove! A good Flipboard alternative is Zaker - not sure about regional restrictions. Another obvious one is the Weibo app, although Weico is a more popular front end. AllSet learning has a free app called AllSet Pinyin that may be helpful if you are just getting off the ground - good to drill your pronunciation. Popup Chinese has a app called HSK Test (iPhone, but find on iPad) that is great if you are trying to evaluate your level or get random tests here and there. 1 Quote
ChTTay Posted January 24, 2013 at 05:00 PM Report Posted January 24, 2013 at 05:00 PM Can anyone recommend a quick, straight up, simple dictionary for iPad/Pod? I used to use a combination of Hanping Chinese and Pleco on my Android but now I've just got an iPad and hanping isnt available. I would usually use Hanping for quick searches when I just heard a word and searched using pinyin. I'd use pleco more to write characters I didn't know to find the meaning. I have seen dianhua mentioned a lot but the threads on here were all really old, especially in the world of technology/apps. Thanks p.s. I used skritter online until I bought my iPad ... the app makes it such a better experience. Really great app Quote
mikelove Posted January 24, 2013 at 06:35 PM Report Posted January 24, 2013 at 06:35 PM Pleco can be customized in a variety of ways to make it simpler / faster - is there a particular task that seems too slow / difficult in it now? Quote
ChTTay Posted January 24, 2013 at 06:56 PM Report Posted January 24, 2013 at 06:56 PM On my phone: Hanping was always quicker in class, when I'd try to find out what the teacher said but had to guess the pinyin. My classmates would try on pleco but i'd always find it first with hanping ... or they wouldn't find it at all. Equally, some of the words we searched in English wouldn't show up in pleco but would in hanping. If I type the word "gay" in pleco, I don't get any words associated with homosexuality. If I type it in hanping, there are a 4/5 included in the top 10 results. This happened with a few English searches, I just happened to search for 'gay' today. Sorry but I don't know why really. I just typed in partial pinyin (like "xi h" instead of xi huan) in both dictionaries and they both found the stuff. I can't remember which words from class as we stopped a while a go. Quote
mikelove Posted January 24, 2013 at 07:53 PM Report Posted January 24, 2013 at 07:53 PM Thanks for that feedback. It sounds like you might have been searching our PLC dictionary (which isn't as up-to-date but has lots of details and example sentences) rather than CC-CEDICT (which is the primary dictionary in most other apps). If you install CC-CEDICT (built in on Android but a separate download on iOS due to Apple download size limits), then switch to that (tap on the "PLC" icon so it turns to "CC") you'll get better results for words like "gay" and other new terms. You can also configure Pleco to make CC the default dictionary for all searches while still having the option to switch to PLC for more details with one button tap. This isn't something you should have to think about, though, so in our newer Android updates and in our next iOS update we've started aggregating results from all dictionaries in the same list and eliminated the need to switch altogether. (rather complicated thing to implement because we've got users with 10 or 15 dictionaries and we need to be able to return results from all of them in real-time) 1 Quote
lechuan Posted January 25, 2013 at 01:43 AM Report Posted January 25, 2013 at 01:43 AM My favorite iPad apps targeted at Chinese learners: These apps get everyday use: Skritter: SRS flashcards for reading and writing chinese characters. Tons of pre-built lists, great writing engine, optional integration of Heisig keywords, and example sentence system soon to be released. Pleco: Tons of dictionaries, many features and add-ons. I especially like the Tuttle Learner's dictionary, flashcards, and OCR I like these as supplemental material: Great Wall Chinese 1-6: Basically a collection of 180 animated dialogues from beginner level. I use this one to practice native speaker imitation, since the app is designed to record and compare yourself with the dialogs (either one line at a time, or role-playing one or more of the characters). Dialogues are quite interesting, much more so than any textbooks I've given up on. You can also select whether to display pinyin, characters, and/or english subtitles (and turn on/off subtitles) depending on what you're looking for. No grammar notes or individual vocab lists though (they might be in the companion books, I've never looked at the books) Dim Sum Warriors: Fun comics targeted at Chinese learners. You can tap the dialog bubble to hear the mandarin spoken, or long-press the dialog bubble to see an english translation AllSet Learning Chinese Picture Book Reader: Only have a couple stories released so far, but you can switch between simplified, traditional, pinyin and english with a swipe. Stories are kind of short, but have original storylines and pictures and, unlike most bilingual reader apps, are not targeted specifically at children. Some useful utilities: Pinyin Typist: Let's you easily type pinyin for copying into email, a web browser, etc Hanzi Reader: Has a cool feature where you swipe your hand across sentences, which updates the definition in real-time. Those are the ones that stand out for me among the sea of flashcard, CC-CEDICT dictionary, phrasebooks, and Pinyin chart apps. 2 Quote
scoff Posted January 25, 2013 at 06:15 PM Report Posted January 25, 2013 at 06:15 PM Everyone has already given some great suggestions, but I'm listing a few below that haven't been mentioned yet. Regarding tools for advanced learners, I think the Chinese-Chinese dictionary built in to iOS 6 is really useful and can be used in most apps. Reading 多看阅读: App for reading ebooks. I like that there is a Chinese-Chinese dictionary built into the app based on 金山词霸. You can load your own books or buy from their store. The store has a relatively limited selection, but the formatting is nice if you find something you like. Video (in addition to the players mentioned above) PPTV 风行电影 搜狐视频 News 南方周末 (recently in the news) FT中文网: Original Chinese content as well as Chinese translations of English content about business in Asia with the original English included as well! I know I'm forgetting some, but this thread has more than enough to keep everyone busy for a while. Quote
ChTTay Posted January 25, 2013 at 06:17 PM Report Posted January 25, 2013 at 06:17 PM If you guys don't use ANKI as a flashcard program ... which one do you use? I like the fact I can make the flashcards on my laptop then sync them to my devices with ANKI but not sure it's worth the £17.99 price. Quote
imron Posted January 25, 2013 at 09:34 PM Report Posted January 25, 2013 at 09:34 PM Pleco. I like the fact that I don't have to make flashcards on my laptop/desktop and that it's all automatic from the dictionary definition (I realise some people like more on their flashcards than just what's available from a dictionary definition, so this may or may not be a viable solution depending on your preferences and the types of flashcards you are making). Quote
feihong Posted January 25, 2013 at 09:45 PM Report Posted January 25, 2013 at 09:45 PM I second imron's recommendation of Pleco. I used to have all my flashcards in Anki, but now I just use Pleco. It saves me a ton of time and effort. Regarding imron's point above, you can customize any automatically-generated Pleco cards, so it's not an issue unless you need to add pictures or custom sounds to the cards. If you prefer making your own cards, you can do so within Pleco, or you can create cards on your computer and then import them into Pleco. Quote
ChTTay Posted January 26, 2013 at 02:00 PM Report Posted January 26, 2013 at 02:00 PM Can you make your own sentence/grammar flashcards in pleco? Ive found it helpful for me to use gapfills/cloze to remember grammar structures and for "kouyu" phrases we get given in class. Thanks! Quote
Hro Posted January 28, 2013 at 10:44 AM Report Posted January 28, 2013 at 10:44 AM Get all the dictionaries and then get Anki for iPad. That's my suggestion. Also the standard comms tools - QQ, Weibo, Momo... get them all! Quote
feihong Posted January 28, 2013 at 03:50 PM Report Posted January 28, 2013 at 03:50 PM @ChTTay: Yes, you can make sentence/grammar flashcards, but I don't think that Pleco will automatically grade them for you. Anki will do that, though. Quote
ChTTay Posted January 28, 2013 at 04:12 PM Report Posted January 28, 2013 at 04:12 PM Thanks, I don't know what to do really. I found that just having the words from my speaking classes didn't really help me learn them. Better if I had a whole sentence. I could always use ANKI on my netbook at home for sentences then pleco on my Ipad mini. It was a real pain making all the single word flashcards on ANKI. Might be less so if I just take key words and make sentences. Quote
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