Chinese

It’s been a while! My last post was about this app, about a year ago after a couple months of work. I did not expect this to be a long-term project. Studying Mandarin became one of my main hobbies. Using my own app to study was cool, but it had lots of issues so I kept chipping away at it over nights and weekends. At this point I use it daily. After showing my in-laws (who are Malaysian Chinese, and native speakers), they showed enormous support and ended up motivating me to polish it for release as a proper app. ...

I’ve been studying Mandarin Chinese for a few years, starting with basic phrases (Pimsleur) and then moving on to Hello Chinese. This app was excellent for the basics, offering (quality!) gamified lessons and a content of library with a slick reading interface where you could tap unknown words for translation and audio. After completing all the structured lessons, I focused on reading. When I saved new words, they went into a separate review system: flashcards. I found this system, particularly the self-grading aspect, less engaging than the original lessons and their multiple-choice based review system. ...