I made an app to help you learn & practice tones!

[kailoh]

Hey everyone,

 

I'm the guy who was behind this free newsletter during the early days of the pandemic where I wrote 75 intermediate Chinese articles and emailed them out to people, 100% free... got some really positive encouragement from folks here when I did this.

Well, I'm back again to try my hand at another project to help people learn Chinese... this time, it's an app! (of course...)

 

This app possibly best described as Tinder meets Tones. Cards appear on your screen, and you swipe left or right depending on whether the word on the card matches the sound. The goal is to provide a fun, easy way to learn tones & help people hear the difference between similar-sounding syllables (e.g. si vs shi vs xi)

 

Check it out at https://apps.apple.com/us/app/ka-chinese-tones-learn-pinyin/id6444140899?uo=4 It's free of course. 

 

Would love for you guys to try it out. Let me know if its useful!

 

[Moshen]

It's free but only available for iPhones?

 

I liked your article series, by the way.

[Zeppa]

I listened to the first few and it was fun. I had a problem when I heard more than one syllable and was expecting one (bama? yijima?) but I think I would get used to that. Then I did the next and it said Sixteen in a row!

 

Very good, I will go on with it. But it gives me a bit of brain fog, a bit like patting my head and stomach in different directions.

 

[kailoh]

Thanks @Moshen. Yes, only iPhones/iPads for now. But if it's popular enough I could also make a version for Android.

 

@Zeppa Do you think you are getting the "brain fog" from too much repetition of the same syllable over and over again, or if not, what is causing it?

 

I was thinking about that too, because I get a similar feeling. If it were caused by the endless repetition, I could add a greater variety of sentences & phrases in each level instead of having the same single "ma" word repeatedly.

[Zeppa]

No, I'm at the brain fog age! I only tried it very briefly, I think it is fine.

 

I think my brain fog problem was more the variety than the repetition. Maybe I was trying to do it too fast. There is a variation of whether pressing R is yes and L is no, or whether they mean something else.