Anyone who knows me knows that I am a student of languages. I’ve enjoyed dabbling in Vietnamese, getting really into Korean and learning little bits of Thai, so that I’m not too much of a tourist when I’m a tourist and can get around alright. Hah!

These days, I’m a resident of Wenzhou, China. Here, I hear two languages spoken regularly, one of which I am studying. The local language “Wenzhou Hua” is a regional language that is spoken by all who consider themselves local. It is considered by people who know, as one of the most difficult of the approximately 55 Chinese “dialects” to learn. I’ve not tried to do so, as (the language with four names: Han Yu, Putong Hua, Zhong Wen or) Mandarin Chinese is also spoken as a primary language, much as Spanish and English are prominent in certain regions of the USA. A person can get around on one or both here, but I choose the latter, as it will travel more easily with me around mainland China.

You’ll notice that I mention a few variations to the language, such as “Beijing accent” or “Taiwan style”. Unless noted as such, all these programs teach a clean version of the language that will travel well-enough, though as a traveler, accents will be seen, witnessed, and at times learned. It is a journey~

This article is about computer and app-based programs that can be used to help learn this particular variety of this vast and elegantly diverse language (along with its “simplified” version of the written script and its “pinyin,” which is the romanization of Chinese as defined by the Chinese governmental education system). Obviously, the human touch is invaluable. Subtleties like the use of tone/prosody absolutely require working with first-language speakers, and my friends as well as people I’ve called Teacher these last five years of living in China, have all been soundly helpful. If you see this article as a guide towards learning, enjoy, but mark these words of the value of a native speaker’s ear for your betterment. However, another person isn’t always around, and modern apps are convenient for the sake of drilling and exposure to new material. My problem at this point is that there are just too many.

In preparation for this article, I looked at the programs that I have installed on my phone, my iPad, and on my computer, which uses the Windows operating system. I mention this to illustrate my position of being non-aligned OS-wise. I’ve occasionally found that there are some programs that work in one device better than another, though I’ll only speak to this occasionally. Also, while many articles that are reviews of products are sponsored by one or another company, mine is not, by any. Nor do I get kickbacks if you use the links provided below. They are simply for your use so that you can look into these programs if you wish to.

For a touch of additional perspective, you should know that I am a professional teacher of English to speakers of other languages and have been for well over ten years. From this perspective, I am able to focus on the mechanics of how a lesson works precisely, though in this case the lessons are for myself instead of others. I am truly, simply a learner of the language for my own purposes and this article represents my own personal experience from the last five years of being a student of the language known as Zhong Wen, Putong Hua, Han Yu, or Mandarin Chinese if you will.

The purpose of this article is largely self-serving. I’ve found that I have a bit of redundancy in my collection and I’m looking to streamline my studies. One valuable result of this study is that I am now much more aware of the programs in focus and as such, will be able to use them more effectively. One great example is that I found that a series of my programs are linked, and I can share information from one to another easily. More on that later. However, I hope my research can be useful to others as well. For that, I’m typing this up for you today.

In no particular order, I will share a list below showing which programs I’m reviewing, and I will group them into my own sorts that I have used them within. These groups are: Single character writing, Short-form reading, Flash card, Dictionary, and Long-form reading,

Many leading apps aren’t here (e.g. FluentU, Anki), especially in the flashcard category, either because I haven’t felt a connection to them, or perhaps I’ve never run across them. These are the ones that I had installed the day I began, or I considered too big to ignore (e.g. Baidu, Duolingo)

I’ll list them below with links, so that you can check them out as well:

Single Character Writing: Word Fireworks, Writer, Hello Chinese, Skritter

Short-form Reading: Chinese Skill, Hello Chinese, Rosetta Stone, Duolingo

Flashcard: Memrise, 10,000 Mandarin, Characters, Bigrams, Art Chinese (1&2), Audio Trainer, Zizzle

Dictionary: Pleco, Google, Baidu, Train Chinese

Long-form Reading: Du Chinese, Decipher, Manga Mandarin, Speak Chinese

Disclaimer: I know there is plenty of overlap when it comes to styles, I even put Hello Chinese in two categories to show it as an example. As well, 10,000 Mandarin and Audio Trainer could go into Short-form reading and Pleco has good Single Character aspects, though without the writing, and so much more for the others as well… I’ll speak to the broadness and limitations I’ve run into, in the paragraphs below. That’s the point of this article. For now, I don’t want to get too tied up in which category each app falls in above, but I will lead from those categories as I speak to each. That’s what they will allow for, for this article today.

Single Character Writing

Considering single-character writing, I’ll start with my favorite. It’s called Chinese Writer. The buy-in is ~15 dollars for the full-monty. For that, you get the painted script and 7,000 characters, organized in manageable 150-character graded sets. It shares the spoken audio and scrolls the definitions across the top as you practice.

This program is one of the woven few that I discovered through the research this article pressed. I found that this app is connected to Train Chinese, which is a dictionary that has quite a lot of flexibility in its make-up. What I like about the connectivity to the dictionary is that I can make my own lists and practice writing through them. They can be phrases, Tang poetry, whatever. I input a list with a simple copy-paste from whatever source and roll. Very cool. Of course, there is a buy-in through the dictionary to create it as a hub, but in the long-run, it’s well worth it to have that kind of control over what is learned, I think.

I appreciate that I can stay on a character as long as I want to. If I want to write the same character eight times in a row, or only once, both are just as easy. There’s also a speed-writing game that gamifies the act of writing characters quickly that is pretty fun too. Definitely a well-rounded app. Highly recommended.

Next up is Word Fireworks. It has a very flashy gamification of the tone and image focus. It also has a restricted environment that requires a person goes through the exercise before advancing through levels. Testing out of levels is not something that I’ve seen how to do. This is both frustrating and awesome because it won’t let me cheat past things that I only sort-of know well.

It approaches aspects of single characters almost randomly during the game, alternating tone-knowledge and stroke-order in a way that doesn’t seem academic though it clearly makes me think… It’s hard to tell if it’s really helping because it’s almost too fun to discern.

Following these is Hello Chinese. As I mentioned, it isn’t primarily single-character based, but it does have an aspect that is worth note. While it is primarily a short-sentence/grammar and vocab app (well-worth working with!) it has a training aspect that I appreciate because of how precise it requires my pen strokes to be. For contrast, with the Writer app, missing by a long-shot is allowable. I’ve left a comment about it in their comments section. But hey, who knows how many of those make a difference? As an aspect, while using Hello Chinese for speaking, grammar, and reading practice; definitely don’t overlook the writing available here as a place to drill on some of the more common characters. What’s nice~ is to help extend your learning after you’ve completed the 50 or so lessons that are provided by this app, there is another app that the same group of people have created called SpeakChinese that I will get into later. Suffice to say, the add-on of immersion studies that are offered in the Hello Chinese app aren’t really needed, since their other app is quite forward with free offerings.

Finally, I’m including Skritter. Skritter is a big-dog player and charges out the ear to say so. As such, I’ve skipped them, having found sufficient practice elsewhere. I did trial their program, and I’m sorry to say, for 15$/month, I would have appreciated a bit more teaching before testing. I was a bit uncomfortable with how they were moving in reverse order for my learning pattern. I have had them recommended by people who I appreciate and respect the opinions of, so my lack of connection isn’t to say that it might not be a really useful app for someone else, just not me. I found while trying it out that it required a lot more knowledge in the standard mode than I was prepared to offer. Might be a great app for people who are more advanced than where I am, but I found it a bit of a struggle to work with. Maybe next year.

Short-Form Reading

For the next variety of apps, I’m looking at short-form language. This represents the apps that focus on sentences, phrases and grammar. It’s a great segment that really ties together post-beginner work, into actual utility. Also, fluency-flexibility starts to happen here, when grammar structures are learned, and individual bits of vocab can be swapped in and out.

For this section, I’ll start with a big-dog player that I did buy into, and that’s the Rosetta Stone application for Windows. I’ve spent many hours working through the middle of this program. I showed up too advanced for the first disk, and hopped into the level two, made it through most of level three and drifted away. Just got distracted is all. Life happens. It is a great app that teaches what I should point out is extremely formal Chinese. Very polite. Also, Beijing dialect, which can be good. One powerful limitation that I ran into is that it doesn’t bend into the iPad without a secondary purchase. It’s already 350$ out of the box, and they want a hundred more for a subscription service per year! That seems excessive. I’ll keep using it on my computer, but I’m not about to kick another hundred their way yet. Thanks, but no thanks. Also, I wish they would thoughtfully introduce vocabulary instead of making us guess what the difference between new words is. There’s a great example in the area of the word “jump” where one kind of jump is a hop, another is one that only a horse can do, one is from a run… It’s just weird. Trying to figure it out from pictures makes it extra hard. For me, it’s a great tool to learn and practice grammar with vocabulary that I already know. For that, I give it high marks.

Next up is the biggest little-dog in the park, which I mentioned earlier. All style, no bark ~ Hello Chinese is a deceptively awesome app. Looks simple, covers a lot of ground. Its layout is extremely easy to use, and the chunking that the designers have created is tiered, so if  you only have a few minutes, it’s cool, if you have an hour, that’s cool too. It goes all the way from primary points of the pinyin to complex arrangements of sentences that seem intentionally absurd to make sure you’re paying attention, with a lot of reasonable little bits in between. I find that the review the app incorporates is really valuable making the path towards better fluency far easier to walk. To boot, it’s completely free, except for some stuff that they’d charge for, but it doesn’t seem worth it yet. Hah! (Perhaps buying into another 50 lessons broadening the lead topics or new ones? More of a gamified character writing aspect?) Really, brilliant work.

The only limitation is that it does stop after something like fifty lessons. At that point, you can review all you want and dial in the structures that much more tightly (highly recommended!), but it won’t keep going. . . Or will it. . . It leads into another level of itself called immersive learning, which is basically the material that I’ve labeled long-form reading. Or you can use the company’s other app that is far more extensive in this learning-design called SpeakChinese. It is the variety of lessons that you’ll need after mastering this app anyway, so more on that later.

Next up is a name that everyone (in the language learning world) knows, Duolingo. Here is a quality app that I still have a tough time getting into. It’s the ads that really get in the way for me. As well, they’re kind of latecomers to Mandarin. Duolingo didn’t have Chinese until recently, started off with a terrible machine voice, but has ironed that out. Now they have human speakers, so that’s not a worry, but it did bounce me at first. Realistically, I know that they are really good at doing their thing generally, but I’m not jazzed yet on their Chinese language service. What keeps me away is that it wants 60$/year to use without ads, in a game that Hello Chinese has covered for free (with no ads). I’m not interested in sifting through the distracting, blinking calls for more money. If I could see through those, I might jump on board too. They’ve got a reasonable system otherwise. I’m looking for focus. Peace out guys.

Okay, here’s a star I didn’t expect: Chinese Skill. Very much like the others in format at first, but has a mode in the writing practice that I call ‘blind with leader’ that is super helpful for creating the memory of what goes where and when. Also, it’s got a full gamut of phrasings that are grouped by topic, and they don’t make you work up to them, they just let you jump into Nature or Negation, or whatever topic you want and you can start working. Coming in at a mid-intermediate level helps, I think, for me, because it isn’t difficult to open up the new material in those levels. But they also have beginner level material and a lot of flexibility into the long-form reading as well with a broad immersion library, at about 800 articles that can be found, and that’s without an account. They have games, challenges, and more. Really a great app.

Flashcard

Considering flashcard app or image-based style, I have to admit, this section will not conform to a lot of people’s ideas about what should be here. That’s because I really don’t enjoy or connect to a lot of the regular flashcard apps and as such, they aren’t listed here, though they may be alright if that’s a kind of learning that is useful to you. That said, there are a few apps below that I’ll include that are at least close to that description, and that I’ve found useful.

We can start with the one that I’ve used more than all the rest: Memrise. Memrise is a program that covers everything from languages to art history and everything in-between. It is both core-sourced and user-sourced. That is to say that the core team makes many courses and there is also a gigantic community of learners that are creating consistently, so you can run into a lot that are made by random high-school teachers, or even students who are making personal lists. The diversity of possibilities is really impressive. On the other hand, if there are errors in a list, it might be less than clear as to how to fix them. What I really connected to with the program is how the cycled words or phrases are supported by mnemonics that are user-sourced. You can create your own or use one that someone created before. They are really helpful for remembering what a character is.

I should point out that I’ve found a very different user-experience between the internet application and the iPad/iPhone application. I find the internet application is distinctly better for learning vocabulary because of how much more they show in the screen and for the flexibility of the UI. They’ve mastered the internet portal. Unfortunately, the Apple app is limited for certain functions, but it is still has great strength for being useful for quick review, I feel.

Next up is another that uses mnemonics really well, but is painfully short on content. I’m speaking of Zizzle. I have to lead by complimenting their work. The program really has one of the best image-based designs I’ve seen. They are however, pushing far too little content for what they ask in relation to payment. I imagine they may grow their volume over time, and as they do, they’ll be worth time, but until then, I have to give them a pass.

Next up is a great that seems like a floating ghost-ship from time-before. 10,000 Mandarin is an app that has a well-organized set of phrases that are grouped by purpose, and then explained in detail. They are supported by imagery and native speakers for each of what seems to actually be 10,000 phrases. Truly well-worth the 10 bucks for the full version.

Another that I’ve enjoyed is named Audio Trainer. This is one of the set that connects through the Train Chinese dictionary. So lists can be shared, which I find powerful. In addition, it begins as a well-built audio player of phrases that allows for good personalization, and is a really nice piece to set up and practice with. I find myself using it while doing other things like cooking, showering, staring at the ceiling, you name it. It’s nice to have a program that doesn’t require hands, and keeps the learning going in a real way.

The next program (really a pair named Art Chinese 1 and 2) that I’m going to describe is one that I wish I used more of, but it has one invisible flaw to a learner like myself that I can’t abide, so I’ve neglected it in all its brilliance lately. This app has great imagery~ Truly formative material, showing the origin of the character in what amounts to fine art, together with the historical images of itself, from ancient oracle bone carvings all the way up to simplified versions. The hairline flaw that gets me is that the verbalization of the words is the Taiwanese spoken dialect, even though they’ve updated the writing for mainland Chinese learners, using simplified characters. It is a truly beautiful way to learn, and I would recommend it for learning the meanings of the characters, certainly. But a word of caution with the spoken factor.

Two other programs that travel together are named Bigrams and Characters, from the WCC app makers. This is from an international team in Shenzhen that I’ve communicated with in the past and still marginally support financially, if reluctantly. I fell for their company some time ago because of a game they had in their collection that they no longer support and has become inaccessible after the iOS 11 update. It was truly awesome, and is now dead to the world. They’ve reported to me that they will not be updating it, that they are going to focus on their dictionary and these two flashcard apps that fit the description perfectly for the kind that give me exactly zero joy. (Sad face.) If you guys are reading this, really, please bring that game back. It was a great way to quiz and learn, and the apps that you otherwise have are numb to me. To me they’re just lists. What have I missed? Great graphics, great sets, so much possibility! But dear reader, as a learner, if you like the interactivity of flashcard studies, this is actually a really well-built collection of apps and they have a lot of support material like printable posters to work with as well.

Dictionaries

This is a good time to transition into dictionaries. The above company WCC has a very good one called Written Chinese. It extends into their broad flashcard exercise regimen and also has a fair shake of fun design to make it well worth the time. If flashcards are useful to you, then it would be a great dictionary to start with. I’m sorry that that type of learning seems awkward to me. Perhaps one day…

Another dictionary that has a learning regimen attached is Pleco. It’s a real out-front leader in dictionaries. Pleco stands in the class as Baidu and Google for vastness, but is more intricate than either of those two in regards to the individual words and characters themselves. As a result, their precision is accordingly more noticeable and useful. They break down the aspects of every single character, as well as branching out into various uses of it in compound words and phrases as you are studying it. It’s a very nice way to look at words. As you look at the meaning of one character, you are given information about other places it is used in combination with others, for other reasons. This is a very helpful way to learn.

Pleco has a series of buy-ins or add-ons that I have looked at and avoided. While their free dictionary is brilliant, their add-ons are rather expensive in the scope of things, as they don’t offer much that isn’t available in other apps for free or much less of a cost. I’d appreciate seeing their graded reading sections more in the style of Du and Decipher, where the Chinese and English are together, as books written for children in China are as well, along with the Pinyin~ so that the phonetics and meaning can all be processed at the same time.

Another that does the same and unusually stands as the hub for many apps mentioned above is Train Chinese. This dictionary links to Audio Trainer, Writer (both discussed above), Pinyin (which focuses on elemental basics), and one called My Chinese Library that apparently wasn’t updated to work with iOS 11. That said, I’m a huge fan of this system. The dictionary is vast and well-situated to help a learner in all ways (excepting long-text-translation). The way I can pipe one set of learning into another format within these programs is amusingly powerful. I’m a big fan. I’ve bought into their first tier of service which is at about 35$ per year for the ability to link the programs and share lists, including up to a thousand words of my choosing.

The other style of dictionary is led by Google and Baidu (including Bing, etc.). I use Google and not Baidu, simply for the sake of habit, UI language settings and that they both basically do the same thing to the same extent. A couple things that these two do that others don’t include: long-text-translation and visual translation (for free, Mr. Pleco). Long-text translation is incredibly valuable. I’m talking about phrases, whole paragraphs and more. I find it really useful to be able to copy a text message from my phone, drop the whole thing into the Google-translate window and I can get a “pretty much correct” version popping out the other end. Of course, Google is blocked in mainland China, so the way to work is to install the program on your device in another country, upload the offline-dictionary of the language, and rock-on. It’s completely independent of the network at that point. The same can not be said for the visual translation, which does require a network connection to work. The explanation for how to make that work is censored. Too bad about that. Please, government agencies and corporate behemoths, play nice. The rest of us are just trying to be normal people around here. Thanks.

Long-Form Reading

The final segment of study-style is what I call the long-form reading apps. For this section, I’ll be looking at four programs that cover the basic premise, while one is an outlier for format, and among the other three, one has an added feature that I like a good bit that’s shared by the outlier, Manga Mandarin.

Format-wise, Manga Mandarin is unique next to the others. Its format is illustrated to give the impression that you’re reading a comic book, and it is a different type of learning-experience as a result. All the functions are present that I could hope for, from the line-by-line explanations of specific grammar, to the pinyin of all the words, together with the verbalization of it, along with challenges in the form of speaking exercises and more. It’s a really comfortable way to study and I think effective as well. Unfortunately, without an account it’s pretty limited. The audio section is blanked out and only a small quantity is available for study. It seems like enough to tease out some awareness of how the program works, but not enough to use regularly. Weirdly, they have a cost-system that isn’t very clear. They use “beans” instead of subscriptions, and so I’ve stayed away since it isn’t obvious how much long-term, or even extended short-term use, might be.

Next, Decipher is one that I like, but not as much as I wish I could. Someone I know swears by it, but I’ve found very similar functions done in ways that I find more comfortable, elsewhere. It is good. It offers articles in Chinese parsed out with or without hints as to where each word begins and ends, what level of HSK it is, and you can listen to it in sections (though in a mechanized voice), and you’re able to see the pinyin when you press on a word, with the explanation, though it isn’t up by default. Probably better for higher-level learners than myself. The free version is extensive, though the available articles will expire after about a month. If you were to use it regularly enough, it wouldn’t really matter though. And then, for 5$ a month, you can access the entire library.

One that I find more comfortable, which is very similar, is Du Chinese. It offers articles and conversations that are accompanied by the pinyin, while at the same time the English is given in a section above so you can see what each sentence is saying. Also, when the audio is playing, it is a natural voice, not a computer generated one. Similar to Decipher, the free version has plenty to work with for a learner that is interested in using multiple sources and they have a subscription that comes to 90$ a year for the whole catalogue.

An additional aspect I like about both programs, Decipher and Du, is that they have a list-export function that allows you to push out the sets you’ve been studying into a variety of formats including CSV files (that can be used by the Train Chinese collection and universally), and specially designed formats for Anki and Pleco.

And finally, Speak Chinese is another great program that I include with this style. While it serves the same functions in the world of reading as the others, it offers a speaking challenge that I particularly like. Made by the same people as Hello Chinese, this app has a strong voice-testing area of study that I’m happy about seeing in this type of format (Manga Mandarin also seems to have this, but it isn’t available in the free version).

Additionally, one formatting element that I like better than the other two is that it has Chinese, pinyin, and English meanings running together in the same line, but on top of each other. I find it a comfortable way to read. Unfortunately, I didn’t notice any way to export lists in the same way that someone can in the others mentioned above. It is though, worth the time to work with none-the-less as its scope is as broad, UI is as sound as the others, and has the added feature of the speech exercises. Well worth the time, indeed.

Final Look ~ Summary ~ Recap

Below are my winners for future use. I appreciate that other people learn different ways. But for me~

Single Character: Writer, by Train Chinese. The program itself was already great, then when I realized I could feed it lists, it won, hands down.

Short-form Writing: I’ve loved working with Hello Chinese, but I think I’ll move more into Chinese Skill. For one reason, I’m almost complete with the lessons in HC. It has like fifty, and I’m in like number forty-five. It’s a great app, highly recommended. But I’ll work with CS for a while to feel it out.

Flashcard: Audio Trainer and Memrise work differently than each other, so I can let them stand together in this section. Audio Trainer is a great program and is linked with Train Chinese, and Memrise has great vocabulary expansion exercises. I’ll do well to enjoy them both.

Dictionaries: Pleco for precision, Google for glut, Train Chinese as the hub in the wheel.

Long-form Writing: I think my current leader is Speak Chinese, though Du and Manga Mandarin are close behind. I like how it is a good format with the speaking along with the reading and writing, and there is plenty in the free version to keep me busy.

As a bonus for reading this far, I’d like to recommend an app called Tang Poetry. This provides a small glimpse to a learner, but with some really pleasant roundness, of a small collection of Tang Dynasty era poetry. It’s an app that doesn’t look like it has been updated in five years or so, but still works just fine. Fine, indeed.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this survey.