# Journey to the West 西游记 — Learn Chinese with the classic

> Learn Chinese with the classic (iPhone/iPad app by Kai Daniel.)

- Source: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/journey-to-the-west/id6761887450 (this page in markdown: same URL + `.md`)
- Developer: [Kai Daniel](https://appshunter.io/developer/1862648671)
- Category: Education, Books
- Price: Free with in-app purchases
- Age rating: 12+
- Requires: iOS 26.0 · 67 MB
- Languages: American English
- Released: 2026-08-11
- Data updated: 2026-09-04
- User reviews in markdown: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/journey-to-the-west/id6761887450/reviews.md

## What is Journey to the West 西游记?

Learning Chinese? Bored of graded readers and learning artificial 小明买苹果 sentences? What if you could read a *real* Chinese novel? And not just any novel, but "Journey to the West", maybe the most famous story in all of East Asia?

The key idea of this app is that given an explanation of every necessary character, word and piece of syntax, everybody can read "Journey to the West". By tapping the words you don’t know (and just … reading the ones you do know), the app explains exactly the amount of context you need. Every single word of the text is annotated with:

• Gloss (what the word means in this context)
• Transcription (how it is pronounced)
• Grammar (what its role is in the sentence)

Every sentence also comes with an English translation, and difficult passages (like poems) carry additional notes.

The app also includes a hyperlinked etymological character dictionary for every character in the novel, and notes on people, places and cultural concepts referenced.

The whole novel would take ~1,000 pages to print. All the annotations would take an additional ~7,000 pages. The text contains about 20,000 unique words and 4,500 unique Hanzi. If you finish this book, you will have mastered a substantial amount of the Chinese language. 

For most learners, this should provide enough material for hundreds of hours of language learning, with zero hours of boredom or rote memorisation: There are no flashcards, no spaced repetition, no streaks and no notifications. Just the annotated original Chinese text. It is still a language-learning app: By letting you choose exactly which parts of a sentence you don't understand, the input tailors itself to your level.

## Pricing and in-app purchases

Base price: Free.

**One-time purchases**

| Purchase | Price | Type |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Chapter 8 | $2.99 | one-time |
| Chapter 14 | $2.99 | one-time |
| Chapter 9 | $2.99 | one-time |
| Chapter 13 | $2.99 | one-time |
| Chapter 11 | $2.99 | one-time |
| Chapter 18 | $2.99 | one-time |
| Chapter 12 | $2.99 | one-time |
| Chapter 15 | $2.99 | one-time |
| Chapter 16 | $2.99 | one-time |
| Chapter 17 | $2.99 | one-time |



## Version history (last 5 releases)

### 1.8 — 2026-08-31

Two new ways to explore the character dictionary.
• Tap the search button to search for any character.
• Tap "View Large" to view a large rendering of any glyph.

### 1.7 — 2026-08-24

• Less waffly chapter & story arc summaries
• Fixed word bubbles getting clipped when opened from the syntax inspector

### 1.6 — 2026-08-22

• Now includes all 100 chapters of the novel.
• Chapter overviews now show total reading time for that chapter!
• Tap script forms in character dictionary to see labels for components.
• The 'particle' grammar role now appears in a shade of gold.
• Download button for interrupted chapter purchases.
• Dismissing a maximised character sheet doesn't crash the app anymore.

### 1.2 — 2026-08-19

- 10 more annotated chapters. You can now read chapters 1-29 (about 300 printed pages) in the App.
- More pizzaz and less waffle on the App Store description page.

### 1.1 — 2026-08-12

Word arguments now have a reduced, less confusing set of roles, inspired by SUD.
The tutorial text had a few tweaks.
Word bubbles can now appear without the inspector, and they are placed more consistently.

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*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 2026-09-04.*