#mandarin app

1. Hanping Lite

if you’ve been following me for a while then you’ll know hanping is my ride or die dictionary app for mandarin. i’ve been using it ever since i got a smartphone and absolutely love it. here’s why:

you can handwrite characters if you don’t know the pronunciation

you can also search for characters using a radical index organized by stroke order

has stroke order animations for a couple hundred characters

can use pinyin or zhuyin for pronunciation, and there are multiple ways to show tones. i personally use color-coded pinyin without the tone marks

traditional and simplified

pre-made vocab lists for all 6 HSK levels, idioms, and common characters

the cons:

only a couple hundred characters have stroke order animations

no example sentences for words

the app is only available for android

2. Written Chinese Dictionary

i decided to try this app out on a whim a while back and, despite being thrown off by the look of the app, i really like it

you can download a free stroke animation pack for every single character

when you click on a word you can not only get a handful of example sentences, but also related words

radical index

there is a free flashcard feature. you can either use the pre-made flashcards for HSK or do your own based on a list you compile

this app also offers a handful of free short stories you can download and read in the app

here’s the one issue i have with the app:

there’s only about five or six example sentence for each word. sometimes this is enough, but there are some words that just have oddly complex examples that don’t help me understand how to use it

3. Line Dictionary

i’ve been using line as a website for a long time now but i recently checked out the app and i’m so glad i did. it’s basically the same as the website but easier to access

can handwrite characters

has both diagrams and animations for stroke order

as a sentence analyzer that you can use to figure out which characters form words together as well as the meanings of the words

gives you daily expressions, quotes, and idioms

example sentence heaven. there are so many different example sentences it’s amazing

i have nothing bad to say about line

4. 有道 Youdao

i’ve never really used it before but i know my chinese language partners all use it to help them translate words from mandarin into english so i figured it deserves a spot on the list for that alone

5. 萌典 Meng Dict.

this is another chinese app that i’ve used a bit before. it has a bunch of other features that i haven’t explored yet (i think it has a taiwanese dictionary too) but here’s what i think based on my experience so far

has the main definition in mandarin, then really basic definitions in english, french, and german

has stroke order animations

shows both pinyin and zhuyin for pronunciation

cons:

only uses traditional characters