Learn Chinese through trending stories in China with Amanda App

[Amandanepo]

Hi Guys!

 

We have developed a brand new, free app that lets you learn Chinese through bite sized - trending stories from China Social Media! 

 

Download link: https://itunes.apple.com/app/id979096843?mt=8

 

 

Key Features: 

 

- Authentic, interesting and current stories happening right now in China

- Easily switch them  between Chinese and English

- Audio for entire articles and individual words to assist with pronunciation

- Customizable wordlist to collect your favorite word

-Archives so you can easily see past stories as well!

 

As for the Android version, it is still under development.

But please follow the Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/amandfans and Instagram Page: http://www.instagram.com/amanda.app for the latest updates and other content from us!

 

We would also love to hear your comments/suggestions to make the app better, so don't hesitate! 

[Tianjin42]

Sounds interesting. I will give it a try. 

[Tianjin42]

Okay I am impressed. It's slick and there are a few nice features on there - switching to Chinese, saving words and audio if required. Certainly a good way to read a Chinese short whilst commuting or something. 

Good effort. 

 

One suggestion: perhaps some sort of lock on the language so that it isn't so easy to quickly switch to English. A user could use a pin then the English language would removed, look-up function disabled???

[Reno]

Looks very interesting, will it be available for android.

[Qiaonansen]

I just downloaded it. I'll give it a try.

[LiMo]

This sounds great. I would definitely use this app. Please make an android version as soon as possible

[stapler]

This app is great. The design and layout are nice and clean. Easy to get around. And perhaps most importantly the stories are relatively interesting (certainly much more so than what's in the bulk of text books!)

 

As a beginner the level is about right for me too. I only have to look up the occasional word. So I think it's written fairly simply. Easy to read on the bus.

 

My one gripe is that the main screen with the headlines is in English and the default language for the news articles is English. I guess this is minor but I think it'd be good if there was an option to have everything in Chinese by default. Oh and also the "audio" for every story is just TTS. I guess it's better than nothing. But having a recording from a real speaker would be infinitely better. 

[Amandanepo]

Hi Guys!

 

Thanks for your comments and suggestions, we will definitely keep them in mind for the next update! 

 

Also, the android version is under it's development process, but for now you can get a sneak peek of the app on our Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/amandfans and Instagram page  http://www.instagram.com/amanda.app where we post content from the app online.

[Qiaonansen]

This is a fantastic app!

 

I created a video review of it followed by a text review. You can find it here:

 

http://learnchinesecafe.com/review-of-amanda-iphone-app-for-studying-chinese-through-trending-news-stories-in-china/

 

I am including the text review here.

 

To the developer: I also made some suggestions near the end.

 

 

Here I will introduce a new iPhone app for studying Chinese. The app is called “Amanda”. The concept is as follows. Each day the learner is provided with a selection of 7 to 8 short trending news stories that are currently happening in China. As you can see from the image below, on May 8th you have a selection of various stories. You can also should rollback to the stories from previous days.

 

Once you click into a story you are presented with the view below. One of the things I love about this app is that each of the stories are extremely short, about one paragraph. Learning Chinese through reading news stories can be very overwhelming and frustrating. The bite -sized nature of these articles make it very doable, and a learner can feel good rather than frustrated after working through a short story.

The learner can toggle between the Chinese and the English version of the story. The learner can also have the story read to them out loud in Chinese by clicking on the button. All the vocabulary in every story can be clicked on, after which it appears near the bottom with an English translation and an audio button that can be pressed to hear it pronounced. The learner can also star the vocabulary which adds it to a word list.

 

Overall, this is a great learning tool.

 

Some Suggestions For The Developer

 

It would be helpful if there was a way to bookmark stories. Currently, to review stories you read in the past you have to scroll back and scan for stories you may have read. This will get cumbersome after several weeks of using the app. It would be nice to be able to bookmark a story so that all the stories you have read can be kept in one place.

 

The vocabulary list is a great feature, but you can’t do anything with it other than look at it and scroll through the words you have collected. A feature allowing the learner to export that list in a tab delimited file would make it easy to then import it into a flash card program such as Quizlet.

 

Finally, it would be useful to be able to export stories so that you could then work with the text in a word processing program. I understand that the developer may be concerned about people stealing their content. However, while reading and studying stories I constantly wanted to be able to manipulate the text to make my studying more effective.

 

Over all, a great app. If you have an iPhone, go get it.

 

[xyz123abc]

Ill follow this topic because I need the android version ;)

[ChTTay]

The app is great, very easy to use and helps me read a little bit of Chinese every day.

 

Some feedback;

 

Would prefer the news story start in Chinese and not English. Even just a flash of English and I already know what the story is before I get a chance to look at the Chinese.

 

I prefer the slightly longer stories - double the size of the window you use to view the story - so they require a little bit of a scroll. The stories today were all very short. This in itself is fine but a mix of lengths would be nice.

 

The app is really nice looking and easy to use. I've recommended it to friends.

[ChineseReading]

Just downloaded it. Will try. Thanks!

[Amandanepo]

 

Hey guys! Amanda version 1.6 is now available on the App Store!

Here's what's new in Version 1.6
1. Optimized reading experience
2. Made sharing a tiny bit more fun 
3. Stability fixes
4. Crushed bugs

 

 

Thanks for using Amanda, and we hope you enjoy this update! & If you haven't downloaded the app here's the link:https://itunes.apple.com/app/id979096843?mt=8

 

Android users: Our anroid version is till under development, however, we post stories and other content from the App on our facebook: https://www.facebook.com/amandfans and instagram: stay tuned! 

 

Thanks again for supporting Amanda! 

[amanda92]

 

Hi Guys, Great news!

Amanda is now one of the best new apps in 22 countries around Europe: UK, Sweden, Netherlands, Belgium etc since yesterday! If you haven't tried out Amanda yet, please do! download link: https://itunes.apple.com/app/id979096843?mt=8

[Amandanepo]

Hello again everyone, We have just updated to version 1.7 which will definitely enhance your Chinese language learning! https://itunes.apple.com/app/id979096843?mt=8

 

1. Improved the reading experience with a bigger space for articles
2. Added a way to change the default language of the articles, simply tap the ≡ button to open the settings and change the default language to English or 中文
3. Faster loading time
4. General Bug Fixes

 

[studychinese]

Android, please.

[RyanGarg]

Hi Guys !!

 

I have recently come across an awesome app which is great for learning Mandarin Chinese. Here the learning is fun as there is no boring translation of words and you don't have to memorize it like the old school way. This app teaches Chinese through the trending stories on the Chinese Web, something I haven't come across before.

 

Check this out here -  http://apple.co/1GHb3De

 

Best part is, this is completely free of cost. Enjoy !!

[roddy]

Oh wow, a couple of low content posts and then lots of praise for a commercial product. Where have we seen that in the last half an hour. 

 

Your app's got some decent feedback on here. It'd be appreciated if you call off your internet marketers and engage with the community here directly. Rather than via... lets see.... some poor bloke in Calcutta....

 

Edit: Amanda92 - looks like you were a CSC student at XMU a couple of years back - plenty of current and prospective students would love to hear from you.