iPhone Apps for Chinese
I don’t actually have an iPhone. Guess I am not quite that cool. I do have an iPod Touch though, so I must be kind of kù. And so with all of my coolness, I sometimes keep watch for apps that would help me or students or faculty. I’m a helpful person. Here are some apps I recently learned about that might help you:
- iCED Chinese/English Dictionary $29.99 – Quickly find words you hear or know how to pronounce. Kind of puts my crusty old paper dictionary to shame.
- eStroke Animated Characters $4.99 – A great way to see character production. If you struggle or are anal about that kind of thing. But also has really nice reference dictionary built in.
- Chinese Flashcards II $4.99 – Produced by ChineseLearnOnline.com. Audio mode looks interesting. Contains 1000 words from HSK 1 List.
I’d like to see a Chinese menu app. I’ve always struggled when it comes to reading Chinese menus. There is so much variety. It could list the dish name with all the typical or optional ingredients. And maybe when you shake the phone it randomly provides a decent selection of food for how many friends are eating together. Anyone else have a good app idea? Or has anyone already developed my Chinese Menu app?
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I've been teaching Chinese since 1998. This site was built to help my students practice the sounds of Chinese. Hope it continues to help others. Let me know if you have questions.
January 2nd, 2010 at 5:13 pm
Anyone with an iPhone/iTouch who is studying Chinese needs to download Pleco. Better interface than iCED, and also has the ABC dictionary (in addition to several others). In my opinion it even trumps a dedicated electronic dictionary such as a Besta or kuayidian.
March 17th, 2010 at 2:54 pm
iCED is still pretty nice, but interface-wise it has gone downhill and become rather clunky the last few updates. In any case, having the full DeFrancis ABC on a handheld is simply incredible.
June 26th, 2010 at 7:51 pm
I use Qingwen (€3.99). You can write the character on the screen or type pinyin. It saves so much time not having to look up a character in a dictionary. Also gives the right pronunciation in Mandarin and Cantonese.
August 31st, 2010 at 9:59 am
You really need to check out Pleco.
October 2nd, 2010 at 7:15 pm
Pleco is superior in every imaginable way. It just is hands down the best software imaginable for learning Chinese, or using it for that matter. Also available for Windows Mobile.
December 27th, 2010 at 3:00 am
yeah, I know many friends use Pleco, they all like it based on what I’ve heard.
June 12th, 2011 at 9:54 pm
Check out HanziTrainer, a free app for Android phones, that drills on the pinyin pronounciation of the 500 most frequent Hanzi characters. https://market.android.com/details?id=com.blueringmobile.hanzitrainer
September 27th, 2011 at 5:25 am
Pleco is amazing!! It’s free (I think). You can type in English word and find the word in Chinese. You can type in pinyin or the actual word (using the Chinese keyboard) and find the English meaning. If you see a Chinese word you don’t know you can use the Chinese keyboard to write in the character without knowing anything about it and find the English meaning. I love using Pleco!!