Thinking about downloading some free Chinese apps for your mobile device? There are tons of free Chinese language related iPhone/iPod apps out there now. If you’re in the market for some free downloads, you’ve got a task in front of you to figure out which ones are worth your while. The large majority of the free apps are basically worthless–laced with ad banners, anything but user friendly, devoid of useful content, and full of bugs.
After downloading a massive amount of free Chinese apps and testing them out, I’ve come up with a list of my top 10 free apps, along with a bunch of other honorable mentions. Check it out! Happy downloading!
1. Pleco– This is the best free mobile Chinese-English dictionary that I’ve used. The free app includes a huge database of words. The layout of the app is straightforward and easy to use. You can look up words by English, Chinese, pinyin, or by writing the character by hand. Payed add-ons include: extra dictionaries, full screen handwriting lookup, and an amazing function where you point the iPhone 3GS/4 camera at any Chinese characters and it will look them up for you.
2. Dedotv– Do you hate trashy daytime TV gameshows? Have you ever watched Chinese ones? Regardless of your answers to those questions, you should check out this app, which helps you link over to recent episodes of some popular Chinese TV shows. It might just surprise you how interesting some trashy shows can be from the language learner’s perspective. A lot of the shows are Chinese-style variety shows along the lines of “American Idol”.
3. Tianya Luntan– This app takes you to a gigantic bulletin board chock full of topics. Pop culture, celebrity scandals, international news, car related stuff, etc… It’s got it all (in Chinese of course).
4. Renrenwang/Xiaonei– The Chinese Facebook. It looks almost identical to Facebook in every way, but it’s all in Chinese. The games tend to be a bit crazier though. You might log on sometime to find your screen covered with smashed tomatoes your friend has thrown at you!
5. Beebchinese– This app gives you the latest news in Mandarin from the BBC. The language is fairly difficult, so be ready to dip into your dictionary!
6. Radio Chinese Plus– This cool app has 6 internet radio stations. All of them are pretty heavy on Chinese pop music. One of the stations is in Cantonese. The stations play well without interruptions for rebuffering.
7. Golden Songs– Want to dig deeper into classic Chinese pop songs? Here’s your chance. This app is essentially a giant list of YouTube and Tudou links to music videos. You can browse by male singer, female singer, film/TV, folk song, or other.
8. Lunar Calendar– This app is pretty barebones, but is a good reference tool for keeping track of your Chinese holidays.
9. Chinese idioms– Time to bone up on some chengyu! This app has audio explanations with hanzi and pinyin about the following chengyu: 半途而废，熟能生巧，以貌取人，井底之蛙，and 自相矛盾. It’s a good for newcomers to these chengyu, and also as a refresher for those who already know them. The only shortcoming of the app is that you can’t download additional idioms.
10. China Plates– Have you ever noticed how the license plates in China have special characters to show which province the car is registered in? China Plates is a list of these characters with links to explanations on Wikipedia and Baidu.
Honorable Mentions:
chinese number trainer, dictionary & flashcards, pinyin trainer, phrase books– These four apps from trainchinese.com are great for the beginner Chinese student. The pinyin trainer and number trainer give you simple listening drills that help your listening comprehension speed and accuracy. The other two apps give you limited content without a payed subscription to trainchinese.com, but the layout is user friendly and looks promising.
Don’t forget the kids! Here are three of the apps that looked the best to me. Let the kids be the judge though.
book box mandarin– This app includes two free animated children’s stories narrated in Chinese. You can buy extra stories for $1.99 a piece. The animation is pretty basic, more like moving stills, with Mandarin audio and subtitles.
Chinese for Kids– In this app you can listen to and read a Chinese word and then tap on the matching picture. There are 16 categories, including stuff like numbers, food, school, getting places, etc…
chinese for munchkins– This app would probably be good for Chinese-learning toddlers. The free content includes animal cards, numbers, as well as a memory game.
Here are three other interesting apps that might not be useful for everyone, but just might be perfect for some.
Chinese Law Handbook– Looking to dip into some Accounting Law of the People’s Republic of China? Or perhaps a chapter on the law of the People’s Republic of China on Individual Income Tax would brighten up your day. I don’t know how reliable this source is. Can any Skritter users/law specialists out there tell us what they think of this app?
chinesecolor– This app gives you the chinese words for specific shades of colors. I’d imagine that it would come in handy for web designers or painters working with Chinese clients.
biz chinese– This app is focused on business Chinese, complete with dialogues, flashcards, vocab, readings, substitution drills, and a glossary. There are 8 free topics, with plenty more to purchase if you like what you see.
Also, to beef up your mobile learning experience you might consider subscribing to some Chinese podcasts. A few of my old standbys are popupchinese, chinesepod, and sexybeijing.