The best apps to learn Chinese on your smartphone or tablet

I’ve been studying Chinese language for nearly four years. Unfortunately I’m too old to be a full-time student and finding the time to study has been my biggest challenge. Thus I had to come up with a way to keep my motivation and, at the same time, be efficient.

Smartphone’s apps have been a really helpful tool because they allow me to study Chinese while I’m on the subway or in a coffee shop. However in the recent years hundreds apps to learn Chinese and other languages have been released. And I’d say that most of them are inefficient or even useless.

In this article I’ll share my criteria to spot a good app to learn Chinese language and I’ll review my favorite apps.

The features of a good app for learning Chinese

• Active learning: A good app should involve active learning. This means that the app should ask you questions and force you to remember the correct answer. You can read more about this topic by clicking here.

• Customized product: A good app should let you the flexibility to choose the settings according to your needs. For instance, you should have the opportunity to choose to study the lessons or the vocabulary that match your interests and proficiency level. The best way to keep your motivation is to study only things you are interested on and you can use on your daily life.

• Learn from your mistakes: A good app will “learn” from your mistakes – by recording them – and force you to review what you forgot while skipping the parts you already know. I recommend you to find an app based on spaced repetition software (SRS). If you want to know what an SRS is just click here.

• An app should cover a specific need: A good app is going to be helpful (and a wonderful tool) to review your lessons or learn new vocabulary; however to master a new language you’ll need more than that. Never trust a developer that claims his app is the only tool you need to learn Chinese language.

In my opinion at the moment the two best apps for learning Chinese are Skritter and Anki (they are both SRS based). Additionally, Hanping and Pleco are two apps that anyone aiming at learning Chinese should have.

Skritter: Learn how to write Chinese characters

Skritter is the best app out there to learn how to write Chinese characters; this app was initially released on Apple devices and the last version of the software is only available for iOS7 devices. If you own an iOS7 device (iPhone 5 for instance) you can try Skritter for free right now. If you have an Android or iOS6 device you can still use it; just keep reading to know how to do. Also, here you find our full review of Skritter.

Skritter for Android devices

On December 2013 Skritter released its Android app. The app is still in beta and it’s quite basic, but it works off-line.
Source: http://www.saporedicina.com/english/best-apps-to-learn-chinese-on-your-smartphone-or-tablet/