#app resources

[rigelmejo]

Some language learning apps:

Notifyword - free, closest I cpuld find to a free alternative to Glossika with the feature to upload your own sentences/decks/spreadsheets, and it makes audio using TTS and plays them. However I did not test it enough to see if it schedules new/reviews so you don't need to manage figuring all that out yourself. It has potential, I will check into the app again in a year.

Smart Book by KursX - free, used to be my favorite app to read novels as it could do parallel sentence translation, then something broke on my version and it crashed whenever I opened a novel. Now any chinese book I add epub or txt shows me a black screen, no text, making the app unusable. Its easier to read in the web browser now. Which makes me sad because this app was so good back when I got it. Then something broke and I haven't been able to fix it. I paid for premium for this app I liked it so much, I'm really sad I can't see text in books in it anymore. If anyone knows how to fix this problem please let me know? Maybe it's a txt file setting? But then why do the epubs also not load text? Anyway great app... if it works for you. Sadly its broken for me.

Live Transcribe - I don't use this enough. It transcribes what people say (or audio), then you can click to translate the text.

LingoTube - only free app I know where I can put in a youtube video link, and it will make dual subtitles/let me replay the video line by line (including repeating a loop on one line), click translate individual words. Excellent for intensive listening. I'm usually lazy so I just watch youtube and look up an occasional word in Google Translate or Pleco. But this tool is excellent for intensively looking a lot up in a video/relistening to particular lines.

Duoreader - basic collection of parallel texts. No options to upload files, but super nice for what it is. Totally free.

Chinese:

Hanly - a new free app for learning hanzi. Looks great, has great mnemonics and sound information and you can tell it was made with love/a goal in mind. It's still new though so only the first 1000 hanzi have full information filled out, making it more useful for beginners. As the app is worked on more, I'm hoping it will become more useful for intermediate learners.

Readibu - free, great for reading webnovels just get it if you want to read chinese webnovels. You can import almost ANY webpage into Readibu to read, just paste the url into the search. So if you have a particular novel in mind you may want to do that instead of searching the app's built in genres.

Pleco - free, great for everything just get it if you're learning chinese. Great dictionary, great (one time purchase) paid features like handwriting, additional dictionaries, graded readers. Great SRS flashcard system, great Reader tool (and free Clipboard Reader which is 80% of what I use the app for - especially Dictate Audio feature which Readibu can't do).

Bilibili.com app - look up a tutorial, it is fairly easy to make an account in the US (and I imagine other countries) using your email. The algorithm is quite good at suggesting things similar to what you search. So once I searched a couple danmei, I got way more recommended. Once I searched one manhua video, more popped up. Once I searched one dubbed cartoon, more popped up. You can easily spend as much time on this as you'd like.

Weibo - you can browse tags/search without an account. I could not make an account with a US phone and no wechat account. Nice for browsing tags/looking up particular topics.

Japanese:

Tae Kims Grammar Guide - has an app version that's formatted to read easier on phones.

Yomiwa - this is the dictionary app I use for japanese on android.

Satori Reader - amazing graded reader app for japanese with full audiobooks for each reader (which you can listen to individual sentences of on repeat if desired), individual grammar explanations for each part, human translations for each word and sentence. When I start reading more this is what I want to use. Too expensive right now unless I'm reading a bunch, as only the first chapter (or first few) of each graded reader is free. I would suggest checking out the free Tadoku Graded Readers first online, then coming to this app later.

[rigelmejo]

Chinese Learning Apps I've heard good things about:

Pleco - a great dictionary app. The free Clip Reader area is a reading tool where you can paste any text in. There's also one time payment add ons that can be purchased depending on one's needs.

Readibu - a reader app for Chinese specifically, has better translations than Lingq. Free version is fine for reading. Most online pages can be imported into Readibu if you paste the URL into the 'search' for reading material area. So if you want to use Readibu to read webnovels or news articles, that is possible. If not, try Pleco's Clip Reader tool instead to paste in text from online.

SuperChinese (in app store it's the monkey icon) - I've seen people recommend this instead of duolingo and lingodeer, they have lessons with grammar and vocabulary up to HSK 6 from what I've heard. If anyone knows what HSK level they teach up to, please feel free to add that to this post.

Dot Languages (in app store it's the polar bear icon) - an app with graded reader articles by HSK level. Recommended for HSK focused vocabulary, and providing good reading materials.

Hanly: Chinese Decoded - a free app for learning some of the most common hanzi. I have looked at it and it has similar information to some beginner hanzi reference books, certainly enough to get started learning. Hanzi taught with radicals, which is useful.

Skritter - an app for learning hanzi, recommended for Chinese as much as WaniKani is for Japanese, teaches a LOT of hanzi. Comparable to bigger hanzi reference books that exist (and Skritter has more hanzi than some popular hanzi reference books I've seen which only include the HSK hanzi).

Youtube - searching "Chinese lessons," "Chinese comprehensible input," "Chinese listening," "Chinese learning podcast" and other variations will help you find a LOT of channels that teach Chinese. You can look at this Mandarin Input Media google spreadsheet for browsing the CI Lessons youtube channels and some other Chinese materials on youtube. The spreadsheet does not include everything, there's so much on youtube! Youtube also has cartoons, podcasts, shows, and audiobooks. Try out Mandarin search terms in youtube too!

Special Mentions (not apps, but useful websites that you can use on your phone if you want):

HeavenlyPath.notion.site - an excellent site for looking up reading material recommendations by difficulty. Their Comprehensive Reading Guide - from Beginner to Native Novels article is an excellent guide for learning how to read, what tools can be helpful, and what Graded Reader resources exist. If you want to start reading webnovels, I highly recommend exploring that site and it's guides.

Vidioma.com - if you struggle to find material on youtube to study with, this site shares youtube Chinese Comprehensible Input Lessons, categorizes it by difficulty, and tracks your study time. So you can just open up this site, click 'beginner' videos and start watching. Or 'intermediate' or whatever level suits you. It may also help you if you find being on youtube directly distracts you, and you end up watching other stuff that isn't for learning Chinese. Vidioma was made by someone learning Chinese, and his goal is to make a free site for Chinese like the Dreaming Spanish, so learners can just log on and watch CI Lessons to learn and see their progress go up. Maybe it will motivate some people. I find the site useful for finding new stuff at a level I understand, since I don't have to sort through Youtube on my own and guess of the difficulty of a given video on Vidioma.com.

If you're a Total Beginner, and want to start studying primarily with apps, I recommend SuperChinese and Vidioma.com at first.

I recommend some other Structured Resource like a textbook or course (from a Library or eLibrary) if you'd like to use physical resources primarily.

If you like learning primarily by listening, ChinesePod101/Innovative Languages Chinese is a good course to start with (that's the name of the course on Hoopla if you want to check them out from the library for free - Innovative Languages owns LanguagePod101).

If you want to learn primarily with reading, reference Heavenly Path's Comprehensive Reading Guide.

On my Beginning to Learn Mandarin - Resources post, I went over exactly what I used toward the bottom after the purple text "Want to copy what I did?" I studied primarily to read, so the resources I used skew that way. And I used a smattering of different things, you do not need to do the same.

For more details about picking learning resources, read below the cut.

If you are a Total Beginner, I recommend sticking with 1-2 resources and just going through and completing them before picking a new resource. If the resources you pick do not include all 4 skills reading, listening, writing, speaking - then pick as many resources as you need to get coverage for all 4 skills, or focus on just 1-2 skills at a time.

Most good Structured Resources will cover at LEAST listening and reading, and then you may have to get creative to practice writing and speaking. Some Structured Resources cover ONLY listening or ONLY Reading, so use a resource limited to just 1 skill if that skill is one of your more important goals. (Example: Vidioma.com covers ONLY listening, Readibu covers ONLY reading. However, youtube videos often have captions so they can be used for BOTH listening and reading if you turn captions on, and many webnovels have audiobooks so one could BOTH read a webnovel in readibu AND listen to the audiobook online to practice both skills). If you get creative, most resources you find can be used as listening and reading practice. Structured Resource classes (such as at university, or online free on Coursera) usually cover all 4 skills - the textbooks/lesson materials usually cover listening and reading, and then the class exercises force you to practice writing and speaking.

If you are using self-study resources then you may have to wait to practice writing and speaking until later, or use a different resource (tutor, language exchange partner, class, a journal and voice recorder on your own) to practice writing and speaking.

On my Beginning to Learn Mandarin - Resources post, I went over exactly what I used toward the bottom after the purple text "Want to copy what I did?" I studied primarily to read, so the resources I used skew toward that skill. And I used a smattering of different things, as I tried to figure out what would work best for me.

Some other useful posts for Total Beginners: Free Structured Resources for Beginners, Common pitfalls Beginners fall into - and how to get out of them (TLDR: stick to 1-2 resources that are working for you for a while, and finish them!), How to Learn a Language: Making a Study Plan.