Best of Chinese Study Tools, Studying Chinese Online and Off

[peg]

wow, great list of resources, thanks.

[tim89]

Thank you very much for this great thread! I am about to get started with my chinese and this post is like and neverending resource of usefull stuff! Great!

[character]

Extension for Chrome browser for language immersion supports Chinese (story has video showing extension in action)

"Google's Translate team has crafted a Chrome extension to make language learning a bit more accessible. The extension does the trick by translating random portions of text to any of its 64 supported languages, so that your native tongue is interspersed with the lingo you're learning. Users have a sliding scale to set their knowledge level from novice to fluent, and can roll over translated words to hear how they should be pronounced."

[Susu]

Hello,

I like studying offline as it I can then do some studying when I have time while I am travelling or when I am waiting for someone.

My favourite offline tools are hanping dictionary, anki cards for learning new vocobulary and I find decipherchinese useful too - http://decipherchinese.come as it integrates real life chinese reading with learning and makes the whole process more fun.

Watch out for posts in Chinesehacks.com and Confusedlaowai.com as they keep an eye out for latest offline apps too.

[RedCloud]

Wow, great find with Deciper Chinese! Downloading the app now...what a cool way to learn! Thanks!

[geo33]

Great tools Wenlin and KEY5 on sale here:

http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/topic/38301-chinese-translation-tools/

Are there any better tools than these? Any opinions?

[bluetortilla]

The link to the ChinesePod Dictionary is dead. Does the dictionary still exist? I tried to find it on ChinesePod.com but could not. Does it still exist?

[querido]

bluetortilla: http://chinesepod.com/tools/glossary

[bluetortilla]

Yes, that looks like the thing indeed. Thanks!

[Manuel]

Anki is my favorite tool for studying Chinese. Unfortunately I am not too keen on the latest versions of Anki. I always recommend Anki v1.01 if you just want to use it on your computer. For mobile Anki v2 is the obvious choice, however it won't be compatible with v1.

If you use Anki you'll want to type pinyin with tone marks. For that there are several tools available. If you use Windows there's Imron's legendary Pinyinput, which has been around for a long time, and of course QuickPinyin which I develop and maintain. Both are excellent programs, the main difference is that QuickPinyin does not need to be installed which may be convenient in certain situations. If you are on Mac then what you need is MacPinyin.

[OFK2013]

for me the best study tool at this moment is www.memrise.com, I spend 2 - 3 h a day there

[muirm]

Just came across a potentially awesome new tool at http://fleex.tv/ (you can click the big arrow for a short intro video). It's software to turn foreign language videos into convenient study aids. It's designed for studying English, but it seems like you could use it for studying the other direction just as easy (but maybe the dictionary stuff only works for English). I haven't actually tried it (only on Windows right now), and I'm not positive it supports Chinese, but it seemed interesting so I thought I'd share. Once the Mac version comes out I'm going to explore it some more.

[Joseph Kimbrell]

I don't think anyone mentioned it, but BYKI offers a free (and paid) software for learning Mandarin. http://www.byki.com

[Shelley]

I wish that all of these great apps were available to people who don't have access to Google Play (the Market) Does any one know of any good apps that can be downloaded without the market?

I use Train Chinese, available from their website. But it would be really good to have more apps. Decipher Chinese looks great but only available on the market from what I can find.

A lot of people in china don't have access to the market so I would have thought developers would make it available other ways.

If anyone knows of apps available off the market, maybe we can get a list together.

[Shelley]

My offerings:

Train Chinese

Hanping CE

Hanzi Flashcards

Learn Chinese

Spoken Chinese

Go keyboard with Chinese handwriting

Sorry no addresses but a Google search for these should find them.

[mikelove]

Pleco's available outside of Play too, FWIW - just type pleco.com/getandroid in any Android device's web browser.

[Shelley]

Yes Pleco is available and I didn't mean to leave it out, but I was thinking of apps for my tablet and unfortunately it is too early a version to use Pleco on. I have it on my new little phone but it would be much better on the big screen of my tablet. but hey that's life

I would probably stop searching for apps if i could have Pleco on my tablet, but one day I will update it and then ......happy days.

[mikelove]

Ah, sorry, I think I even remember that email conversation now - Android 2.1 tablet with no easy upgrade path to 2.2/2.3, right?

[Shelley]

Yup that's the one, phone is now 2.3 so I have it just a small screen but hey I will live with it.

[Joseph Kimbrell]

I just downloaded the Learn Chinese app. It got really great reviews, so my hopes are high!