Noodle Chinese

This app is excellent for learning to write Chinese characters with the correct stroke order. There is no charge for downloading and there are no ads, and it is even contained within your phone, ipad or computer so you don't need to connect to the internet to use. I have only two gripes: 1) Font: The characters are in a font that differs from the standard digital form for characters you'll get when using a Chinese keyboard or browsing the web in Chinese. Having said this, one could make the argument that being able to recognise characters flexibly would make your reading better and be useful since the characters are far from fixed in form when used in real life- especially people's handwriting! 2) Personal Input: the app does not contain many premade decks, which is certainly understandable. This meant I had to use the search function to find and collect the characters I wanted to study (specifically the top 1,000 most common characters). Mind, it was no special nor difficult effort to find said characters; the app seems to have pretty much any character you're looking for. Overall an excellent app that works very well as SRS and as a quick practice tool when you've got a spare minute.

Many chinese language resources really seem to miss the mark for me, starting by teaching all sorts of characters you are very likely to see in a textbook, but very unlikely to see out in your daily life. This app gives lists of most commonly used characters - ones you will actually come across on signage and menus. However, if you are a student or something and need to know how to write the the obligatory “teacher” and “nice to meet you” type of characters, they are included as well in the HSK lists. Really a wonderful app, a very good use of spaced repetition software. Making the act of remembering characters into a sort of game with instant feedback is such a good way to learn. The fact that it is offline makes it even more convenient. One thing - a few of the recordings are wrong but the pinyin (so far) is always right so do mind that. I also would love the capacity to make an account so that I can keep the same progress on my ipad and my iphone. Edit: trying to use this app again in 2024 most lists are locked behind a paywall. More importantly though, there’s a weird glitch where every stroke I write appears first backwards and then the correct way. Very very disorienting. I will not be using this app anymore

Lately, the app has been spoiled. Practice stroke order. The stroke appears briefly upside down. Then it rights itself. It is jarring. Makes the learning unpleasant. Please fix. I used to love doing it. Silky. For hours. So helpful. But now I can’t really do it. Please oh please.

This app used to be the perfect app for learning to write Chinese! But on my new phone it has a bug that reverses all of the character strokes when you write and is really distracting 😭 I can only use it on my old phone - hope you can fix this sometime 🤞🤞🤞

The practice writing feature doesn’t work on the iPad

I got this app to learn how to write characters, but when I practice, I am unable to see all of the character, because of how zoomed in it is

When I’m on my iPad and I click on the Chinese character to write I can’t exit so I had to reopen the app

I love the concept for this app. It has a ton of great potential. But the number of glitches that it has makes it annoying as heck to work with. Whatever you do do not buy the subscription. If you ever Delete and the re download or update the app it will delete you subscription with no option to restore your access. It just eats your money. The app has so many glitches that it is impossible to give a comprehensive list but a few of my favorites are: not letting you access the last few words in the list you’re studying, speaking the wrong pronunciation on several different flash cards, having the wrong character in the writing portion of the flash card, having the most sensitive “double tap to show answer” feature that makes you accidentally reveal the answer to the question marking the question wrong and making you start over. I would love to give this app 5 stars. I can tell that someone put a lot of effort into a stellar concept. But it is just too glitchy to deal with.

The character 和 is a very common Chinese hanzi, and its definition is “and.” But I looked this character up in Noodle Chinese’s dictionary, only to find out that “and” is not among this character’s listed definitions. I find this surprising, considering how common of a character 和 is. Please fix for a good rating.

There’s a big when using this app in landscape mode on the ipad. It zooms in to part of the view and I can’t see the necessary prompts.