Du Chinese - new Mandarin reading app for iPhone and Android

[sinamon]

*EDIT* Du Chinese is now available for both iOS and Android.

You can get the iOS version from the iOS app store, and the Android version from Google Play.

(For those of you who cannot access Google Play, the Android version is also available at 360手机助手.)

 

 

Hi, everyone!

 

Today we released Du Chinese for iPhone, our app for reading Chinese texts (previously ChineseReader).

 

In short, it's an app with Mandarin lessons that lets you quickly look up the translations

of words or sentences with a simple tap. Each lesson has complete voice recordings

played in sync with the text to make it easy to follow along.

 

You can find detailed information and screenshots on our web page at https://www.duchinese.net/

or download the app directly from the iOS app store.

 

 

Features

• Human voice recordings synchronized with the texts
  
• Context-dependent word translations
  
• Sentence translations
  
• Simplified/Traditional characters
  
• Ability to hide/show pinyin
  

At the time of release the app has 20 lessons of difficulties ranging from newbie to master.

We add new texts every week, and if you turn on push notifications you will be notified when a new text is available.

 

The app and all the lessons are available for free while we work on completing all of the app's features.

We would love to get your feedback on things that need to be improved and features that you want.

 

At the moment we are planning the following features and improvements:

• Ability to save words you want to study later
  
• Increased reading speed in the voice recordings (following feedback from the beta test)
  
• More lessons
  

Thank you very much.

[TheBigZaboon]

Make sure you check in with Admin and read the rules for commercial posters. This app looks very promising, and it would be a shame to get kicked off for an infraction of the rules.

Now, when will the android version be available?

Good luck...

[sinamon]

Thank you for the heads up, I've now sent a message to the admins.

 

If people like the iOS version, we'd love to make an Android version as well!

We've not yet started making it however, and it will probably take at least a couple of months to develop.

[imron]

Generally speaking, admin don't have a problem with commercial posts so long as the poster is clear about their connection with the product (eg no 'I found this app on the internet' when actually it's something you make), and the posts are relevant and on-topic (eg no spamming barely related threads to say bye check out my app).

Posts like the above are generally ok.

[dtcamero]

i think this is great, not so much for studying really but it's nice to have an essay read aloud by a human.

the chairman's bao does that but this has a nicer design for my phone and better UI. great job!

[xiaokaka]

Will you add a filter for the lesson levels? Maybe allowing the user to specify a range (for example intermediate-master). Of course it's not a big problem now that there aren't that many lessons, so it's no hurry, but it would be a nice feature for the future.

[sinamon]

Yes, there will be a filter!

It's actually already done, but we decided to hide it from the UI because like you said, there's not really enough lessons yet to make it necessary.

 

Being able to specify a range sounds like a good idea, I'll keep that in mind. Thank you!

[sangajtam]

Does not look good on ipad, too small

[sinamon]

Du Chinese is now out for Android as well as iPhone!

 

Since a lot of people asked for an Android version, we spent the last month developing it.

You can download the Android version from the Google Play Store. (iOS version here)

 

We have also started a blog here with interactive sentences, which you can check out if it sounds interesting

 

All feedback is very welcome, either by responding to this thread, or via Facebook or Twitter.

There is also a contact link inside the app where you can reach us.

 

 

 

(For those of you who cannot access Google Play, the app is also available at 360手机助手)

[sinamon]

Does not look good on ipad, too small

 

We apologize about that! We have not yet added iPad support, but it will be in the next version.

[sangajtam]

How long until finish, until whole app with all lessons and premium content will be complete?

Its looking good for me... (except this ipad small screen, but on ipod great)

[sinamon]

 

How long until finish, until whole app with all lessons and premium content will be complete?

Its looking good for me... (except this ipad small screen, but on ipod great)

 

Thank you!

We are actually working on iPad support at this very moment,

and I hope it will be much more useful in the next version.

 

If the app goes well, we will keep on adding lessons indefinitely, so in that sense it will never be "complete".

Because we try to write lessons about things that are happening right now, we think it is important to keep

creating new content and not stop once we've reached some quota.

 

I dare not give any estimates as for when premium content will be added, but it will be when we feel

that the app has all the features one might expect from a reading app.

[Geiko]

I downloaded the app yesterday (android version) and I'm enjoying it very much. I agree with xiaokaka (#6), a filter which allowed to search by range would be great. So far I've only found one small mistake: I chose traditional characters, and it seems the conversion simp>trad was done automatically and not revised later, because it says 兩百多只猴子 or 一只非常有名的狗，只 instead of 隻。

[sinamon]

> Geiko

 

You are absolutely right! Thank you very much for alerting us about this!

I've updated the "只" in the Monkey lesson. After learning about this issue, we found

a few mistakes in some other lessons as well, which we will update later today.

We are aware of the issue now, and will do our best to prevent such mistakes from now on.

 

Again, thank you for letting us know!

[drungood]

This is a fantastic app. I am about HSK 5 level and find this (and Chairman's Bao) is the perfect resource for practicing reading.

 

One feature I would like is the ability to disable spaces between words.

 

also fyi, I would pay $20 for a good novel that used this app's system.

[Pandarollroll]

I've been using the app for a couple days now and I have been enjoying it. Keep up the good work. A little scared of what premium might bring though. Hopefully for the free users, it doesn't mean only being able to read 1 article a week with ads playing halfway through the audio reading

[sinamon]

Thank you! We are glad to hear you are enjoying our app!

 

One feature I would like is the ability to disable spaces between words.

 

The spaces between words are added to fit pinyin which is sometimes wider than the characters. You can reduce this side-effect by going to the settings screen and setting the pinyin font size to its smallest setting.

 

 

 

Hopefully for the free users, it doesn't mean only being able to read 1 article a week with ads playing halfway through the audio reading

 

We are still working out the exact details of the premium version, but we have no plans on putting ads in the app, since we believe usability is one of our biggest strengths.

[sinamon]

Hi everyone!

 

We released a new version of Du Chinese for both iOS and Android last weekend.

The new version adds the following features which were requested by a lot of users:

• iPad support
• Filter lessons by three difficulty levels
• “Mark as read” for lessons
• Hide/show sentence translations by tapping

We hope that you enjoy these new features, and as always we are very happy to

hear if you have any feedback or suggestions.

 

Thank you!

[sinamon]

Hi everyone, this is Yueyuan from Du Chinese.

 

We are running a discount campaign at Du Chinese until 2016-12-11 and have a 30% discount on all premium subscriptions on our website. The discount applies for as long as your subscription is active.

 

If you're interested, use the campaign code AUTUMN at checkout on our website to get the discounted price.

Visit our campaign page at https://www.duchinese.net/autumn_campaign for more information.

 

Thank you for supporting Du Chinese!