# Chinese Characters 汉字 — Read and write characters > Chinese character learning app with writing guides, dictionaries, and OCR. (iPhone/iPad app by YOYASOFT LLC.) - Source: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/chinese-characters/id1437589680 (this page in markdown: same URL + `.md`) - Developer: [YOYASOFT LLC](https://appshunter.io/developer/325345561) - Category: Education, Reference - Price: Free with in-app purchases - Rating: 4.70/5 from 286 App Store ratings · 16 written reviews indexed - Age rating: 4+ - Requires: iOS 16.0 · 123 MB - Languages: American English - Released: 2019-01-09 - Data updated: 2026-08-25 - Monetization: free with in-app purchases - User reviews in markdown: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/chinese-characters/id1437589680/reviews.md ## What is Chinese Characters 汉字? - Writing instructions for nearly 3000 Chinese characters - Covers all and more characters than required in the official Chinese Proficiency Examinations (HSK levels 1 to 6), and required in AP Chinese exams administered by the U.S. College Board. - Free Optical Character Recognition (OCR) for Chinese text for easy translation, which is also free. - Free download of English-Chinese and Chinese-English dictionaries for quick lookup - Links to the Chinese edition of renowned news sites such as New York Times, BBC and Reuters, with free Pinyin annotation to assist you read new words. ## Key features - Writing instructions for 3000+ characters - HSK and AP Chinese exam coverage - Free OCR for Chinese text translation - Free English-Chinese and Chinese-English dictionaries - Pinyin annotation for news articles ## Pricing and in-app purchases Base price: Free. **One-time purchases** | Purchase | Price | Type | | --- | --- | --- | | Advanced Chinese Characters | $12.99 | one-time | | MDBG Dictionary | Free | one-time | | English-Chinese Dictionary | Free | one-time | ## Recent user reviews (10 of 16) All indexed reviews: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/chinese-characters/id1437589680/reviews.md ### 5/5 — Woah ! 🙏🙏🙏 *2026-08-19* This App is Amazingly superb! ### 1/5 — Terrible *2025-07-26* Incredibly, the app does not allow searching based on tones, e.g., zhong1, zi4, zhe3. This makes the search function practically useless. In addition, this purchase is NOT eligible for a refund - despite this debilitating flaw. ### 4/5 — A Couple of Features Missing *2024-05-09* I really like the fact that this app provides the historical development of most characters. However, the only way I have found to save characters is in the journal, but it only gives you information on the stroke order and not the pronunciation or Pinyin. There’s a sound icon in the journal, but it doesn’t work. ### 5/5 — If they made one simple improvement, it would be awesome *2024-02-25* I love the app for keeping my characters memorized in a structured way, but the indexing is a nightmare and I REALLY wish they would make one simple improvement to save me so much unnecessary scrolling/searching. Namely, i wish the search feature would take you to the location of the character within the massive scroll, or at the VERY least, label their location more specifically than merely HSK 6, for example. Even the alphanumeric location would be an improvement over simply the numeric location since to find a character’s HSK 6 location within the scroll, I would have to search through 1000 characters to find it’s scroll location. For example, I am someone who wants to not only memorize the characters, but where every character is located to keep better track of which characters i know, and to be continually conscious of whether new characters i learn elsewhere are not this list or whether I’ve just forgotten them. To integrate this with other learning materials, I separate each 120 character section into 10 groups of 12 to memorize. This gives me a sense of structure and completeness of this list relative to characters not on the list. It’s like learning the alphabet in order as opposed to simply knowing a bunch of random letters and guessing which letters you know when you learn new words. With some of the note taking i do in other apps, I try to index the characters of this app, according to the context of their location in the scroll, but man is it ever unnecessarily redundant and time consuming to type a character in the search bar, have it designated as HSK 5 or HSK 6, and have to scroll through all of HSK 5 or 6, to find it’s location. It’s not that you don’t get all the relevant information about the searched character, it’s that the process of structuring SETS of characters in one’s memory for sake of completeness requires a real searching headache which could be easily fixed by one simple fix to the search feature. Take me to the character’s location in the scroll when i search for it. MAN, would that save me a lot of headache. If that small improvement was made, this app would be SUCH a fast, convenient tool for structured memorization of characters. ### 5/5 — Excellent Beginner App *2024-02-05* Perfect for beginner, and probably intermediate Chinese character learning. Stroke order, definitions, all laid out logically....for a very reasonable price. ### 5/5 — Brilliant *2023-05-26* Found this app as I prepare for my HSK exam it has a lot of information to assist me with my preparation. I would highly recommend it ### 4/5 — Tracing feature needs improvement *2023-04-14* The fonts in the tracing feature are based on Chinese Kaishu calligraphy structure, which makes it harder to trace and be understood by beginners. Just imagine how much harder it is to trace English alphabets in cursive than in Arial fonts… I think this is why the tracing goes out of control at times for all characters I tried. Should provide an alternative where users can trace characters with simple stroke fonts. ### 5/5 — best education tool *2022-12-21* this is very helpful for my learning chinese. ### 5/5 — Awesome *2022-07-31* This is a awesome app. It’s everything I wanted. Tells you stroke order, meanings and even example words! This is so huge in language development. Honestly the price for all the characters that they provide makes it worth the purchase if/when you get past the free ones. Great job, guys. Next make one for Japanese! 🤌🏽🙏🏼 ### 3/5 — Traditional characters don’t show up *2022-06-24* It looks like a good app overall but I can’t get it to switch to traditional. It’s on in the settings but when I go back to the list it’s still all simplified. ## Frequently asked questions about Chinese Characters 汉字 ### What does this app do? This app helps you learn to read and write Chinese characters. It provides writing instructions for nearly 3000 characters, covering requirements for HSK levels 1-6 and AP Chinese exams. It also includes free translation tools and dictionaries. ### What are the key features of this app? Key features include detailed writing instructions for thousands of Chinese characters, coverage of official exam requirements, free Optical Character Recognition (OCR) for translating Chinese text, free English-Chinese and Chinese-English dictionaries, and Pinyin annotation for reading news articles. ### Is this app free to use? The app is free to download and offers many features for free, such as writing instructions, dictionaries, and OCR translation. However, it does have in-app purchases, suggesting some advanced features or content may require payment. ### What exams does this app prepare users for? This app covers characters required for the official Chinese Proficiency Examinations (HSK levels 1 to 6) and the AP Chinese exams administered by the U.S. College Board. It provides the necessary writing instructions and vocabulary support for these assessments. ### How can I use the OCR feature? The app includes a free Optical Character Recognition (OCR) feature for Chinese text. This allows you to easily translate Chinese text by using your device's camera or by inputting images. It's a convenient tool for understanding unfamiliar Chinese characters in real-world contexts. ## Version history (last 5 releases) ### 3.2 — 2024-07-24 Enabled speaker function in the writings journal view. ### 3.1 — 2024-07-21 * Added traditional character writings to Level 3 HSK characters. ### 3.0 — 2024-02-02 - Added traditional character writing for HSK levels 1 and 2. More traditional character writing will be included in upcoming releases. - Fixed character pronouncing bug encountered since iOS 16. ### 2.2.7 — 2021-03-14 More supplemental character information. ### 2.2.6 — 2021-02-28 More supplemental character information. ## Apps similar to Chinese Characters 汉字 | App | Rating | Price | Category | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | [SuperChinese - Learn Chinese](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/superchinese-learn-chinese/id1462500984) | 4.9 (3,602) | Free | Education | | [HelloChinese - Learn Chinese](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/hellochinese-learn-chinese/id1001507516) | 4.9 (22,739) | Free | Education | | [ChineseSkill - Learn Chinese](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/chineseskill-learn-chinese/id777111034) | 4.8 (15,287) | Free | Education | | [Hanzii: Learn Chinese & HSK](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/hanzii-learn-chinese-and-hsk/id1468400944) | 4.7 (423) | Free | Education | | [Laoshi: Learn Chinese & HSK](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/laoshi-learn-chinese-and-hsk/id1510215770) | 4.6 (623) | Free | Education | | [Chinese Pinyin: Learn Mandarin](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/chinese-pinyin-learn-mandarin/id1076450419) | 4.3 (52) | $2.99 | Education | ## More apps by YOYASOFT LLC - [iLearn Chinese Characters Lite](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/ilearn-chinese-characters-lite/id349253256) - [I Learn Chinese Characters](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/i-learn-chinese-characters/id389073069) - [Rul3r](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/rul3r/id997746189) - [Words Lens](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/words-lens/id1489872903) - [Text Snap](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/text-snap/id1519591273) All apps by YOYASOFT LLC: https://appshunter.io/developer/325345561 ## Related topics [chinese characters](https://appshunter.io/ios/topics/chinese-characters) · [chinese characters translator](https://appshunter.io/ios/topics/chinese-characters-translator) · [chinese characters write](https://appshunter.io/ios/topics/chinese-characters-write) · [chinese characters study](https://appshunter.io/ios/topics/chinese-characters-study) · [chinese characters photo](https://appshunter.io/ios/topics/chinese-characters-photo) · [chinese characters guessing 3](https://appshunter.io/ios/topics/chinese-characters-guessing-3) · [chinese characters guessing 2](https://appshunter.io/ios/topics/chinese-characters-guessing-2) · [chinese characters dictation](https://appshunter.io/ios/topics/chinese-characters-dictation) · [ilearn chinese characters lite](https://appshunter.io/ios/topics/ilearn-chinese-characters-lite) · [i learn chinese characters](https://appshunter.io/ios/topics/i-learn-chinese-characters) · [art of chinese characters 2](https://appshunter.io/ios/topics/art-of-chinese-characters-2) · [art of chinese characters](https://appshunter.io/ios/topics/art-of-chinese-characters) · [chinese characters kids](https://appshunter.io/ios/topics/chinese-characters-kids) · [chinese characters stroke](https://appshunter.io/ios/topics/chinese-characters-stroke) · [symbols chinese](https://appshunter.io/ios/topics/symbols-chinese) · [chinese characters guessing 1](https://appshunter.io/ios/topics/chinese-characters-guessing-1) · [learning chinese words writing](https://appshunter.io/ios/topics/learning-chinese-words-writing) · [chinese characters daily](https://appshunter.io/ios/topics/chinese-characters-daily) · [chinese character reader](https://appshunter.io/ios/topics/chinese-character-reader) · [mulan chinese reader](https://appshunter.io/ios/topics/mulan-chinese-reader) --- *Data collected daily from the US App Store and indexed by [AppsHunter](https://appshunter.io/). User reviews are verbatim App Store reviews. Ratings, prices and chart positions refresh continuously; this snapshot is from 2026-08-25.*