5 popular apps for learning Chinese Language

Learning another language is a long process and it takes time and patience. I totally understand for I have been through this process and still learning it. I want to help my future students to learn Chinese in many different ways and use App is a good way. There are not so many apps to learn Chinese, especially for kids. It is hard for beginners to use this app to learn another language by themselves without teachers’ assistance.

For example, Chinese Characters are based on strokes and all the strokes have their own writing order. And you also have to Learn Pinyin(Phonics) to help you to speak it. But there is no connections between the Pinyin and the Characters which means you have to learn both of them, and when you see a Chinese character, you have to recognize it and speak it without Pinyin on it. It sounds complicated, but there are many apps have been created to help people to learn Chinese, and I want to discuss 5 of them with you.

1.Pleco- A Chinese dictionary tool for all the level learners.

Pleco is a popular free app that I see many Americans who live in China use it to learn Chinese. Its basic function is a dictionary and you can input both English and Chinese in Pinyin or strokes.

I think it is a good tool for both students and Chinese teachers. For example, if you want to teach a Chinese character, you can use this app to find the character and then you will know its meaning in English expression. It will help teachers to explain its meaning better to students. Furthermore, it will also inspire teachers to teach some information related to the character according to its explanation.

For the students, it will help them to use this app to learn the new words or characters by themselves. Its explanation is written in English and Chinese, including Chinese pronunciation. I  will suggest my students to use Pleco app to learn the word they do not know. In my Chinese class, I will also use this app to ask students to check first the new Character in this app before I teach them.

But it is a tool app but not a tutorial app to teach Chinese. For one word has many different expressions in Chinese, and it sometimes confuses the students when they check one word and find many words.

2.Laokang-learn Chinese in different parts.

Laokang apps are separated into Pinyin, Tones, Characters in different apps and they provide both training and tests. Some of them is free and some of them are not.  I know the founder of these apps when I was in China. He is an American and he has been in China more than 20 years. He can speak well Chinese almost without accent. He created these apps with his group to help others to learn Chinese better. It is also his methods to learn and teach Chinese in these apps. For example, in  laokang-Character Conqueror app, he taught you to learn Chinese character in different components instead of  strokes. It also gives you some tips to memories the characters.

I will use it as a reference to teach Chinese but I am not sure if I will use his ways to teach Chinese. The students learn Chinese is based on content and I will teach them according to their needs, probably I will use the tests app for just have fun. It is better to be used by the older students not children.

3.Skritter-an app to practice writing Chinese characters

Skritter is a popular free app to learn to write Chinese and  it allows you to write the Character by your fingers on the iPad through the app. It will show both Chinese character and their meanings in the app. After you see it, you can practice them on the iPad. It also could be connected with Pleco app to see the words meaning in Pleco app’s explanation. So many people will download both of them to learn Chinese.

I think it is really hard for the people write the Chinese characters without any instructions. It gives no any instructions to write the Characters and I do not believe the people could write the Character without any basic knowledge of writing character.

I probably will not use it in my class for it is not easy for my students to practice by themselves. And  I will also not teach the characters from the app. For they were put in no order.

4.My language-a helper to translate language

MyLanguage is an app to translate language. You can chose the language which you want to be translated, not only Chinese but also other language.

I think it is not a good way to learn Chinese by use this app. For example. If you input English and you choose to be translated to Chinese. It will show the answers written  in Chinese Characters. If you don not know much about characters, especially for kids, it is useless for them to understand it in Chinese. You have to pay for it if you want them to speak it in Chinese. Compared with Google translator, I like the Google translator better.

5.Wechat-Let we chat with Chinese

WeChat is a very popular social media app in China and I see more and more other countries’ people start to use it. You can use it to send both written and voice record message. You can also use it to make a voice or video call. Here are many more functions in this app and you even can pay for it through this app.

Learning the language is for communication and the WeChat app is a good way to communicate with Chinese people.

In my Chinese class, I will use this app to make a WeChat group and ask the students to record their pronunciation in Chinese and sent it to the WeChat group . It will help them to practice both speaking and listening.

In the future, maybe their Chinese is good enough, they can use this app to talk to Chinese students in Chinese. But as a teacher, you should be careful for your students to use the social media app in a wrong way.