# Wordbrush: Learn Chinese HSK — Mandarin flashcards with audio > Mandarin Chinese HSK vocabulary flashcards with spaced repetition and audio. (iPhone/iPad app by Urban Algorithm LLC.) - Source: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/wordbrush-learn-chinese-hsk/id6770278044 (this page in markdown: same URL + `.md`) - Developer: [Urban Algorithm LLC](https://appshunter.io/developer/1883430262) - Category: Education, Reference - Price: Free with in-app purchases - Rating: 5.00/5 from 1 App Store ratings · 1 written reviews indexed - Age rating: 4+ - Requires: iOS 18.0 · 190 MB - Languages: American English - Released: 2026-05-21 - Data updated: 2026-09-04 - Monetization: subscription - User reviews in markdown: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/wordbrush-learn-chinese-hsk/id6770278044/reviews.md ## What is Wordbrush? Free, in full. Drill every HSK 1, 2, and 3 word into long-term memory, all 2,200 of them, in frequency order. Natural HD audio for every word and every example sentence, every character decoded by its radicals, scheduled by FSRS spaced repetition. No accounts. No ads. No streak guilt. Ten minutes a day. Open it, do today's session, close it. Come back tomorrow. The science wins arguments. Wordbrush uses FSRS, the modern free spaced repetition scheduler that powers Anki. Cards reappear on the precise day your brain is about to forget them, not before, not after. Failed cards loop back in minutes; mastered cards stretch out for months. A Chinese flashcard without sound is half broken. Every word is paired with studio-quality audio rendered by Google's Chirp 3 HD voices. Tones, prosody, register, all there. Every word also gets a hand-curated example sentence in a second voice for context. Show, don't tell. Each character is broken down into its radicals, the meaningful sub-components, with pinyin, name, and a one-line note on what they signify. The water radical 氵, the heart radical 心, the woman radical 女. You stop memorizing characters one stroke at a time and start seeing how they're built. The HSK levels unlock in order. You start with HSK 1. Once you have introduced every HSK 1 word, HSK 2 unlocks. Then HSK 3. The Statistics screen shows your progress through each level. The scheduler keeps you focused on what's actually in front of you, not what comes next. What's inside: • 2,200 words, every HSK 1-3 word, in frequency order • 4,400 audio recordings (one per word, one per example sentence) • Five card formats: recognition, listening, and production for every word, plus sentence-building and character-tracing cards • Hand-curated example sentences for every word • Character breakdowns by radical, with etymology and position • Bottom-up unlock so you finish HSK 1 before HSK 2 starts • A simple home page: a calendar showing your activity, today's count, and a single "begin" button • iPhone and iPad • Full VoiceOver, Dynamic Type, and high-contrast support What it costs: • Nothing. Wordbrush is free, in full. • Nothing is locked. No trial to run out, no locked words, no tiers, no add-ons, no ads. What's not inside: • No accounts. All your data lives on this device. • No advertisements. • No notifications nagging you back. • No streak shame. Skip a day, the app waits patiently. • No leaderboards. The only person you're competing with is yesterday's you. Open the app. Today's session is already cued up. Read or listen to the front of each card, mentally answer, then tap to reveal. Rate honestly, Again if you missed it, Easy if it was instant. Wordbrush handles the rest. Built for: • Adult learners who already know other resources exist for grammar and conversation, and want a tool that does one thing well • Anyone who's bounced off gamified language apps and wants something that respects their time • People who appreciate restrained, calligraphic design over neon mascots Wordbrush is finished. Open it, do today's session, close it. Come back tomorrow. Terms of Use (EULA): https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/ Privacy policy: https://wordbrushchinese.com/privacy ## Key features - HSK 1-3 vocabulary mastery - Spaced repetition (FSRS) - Natural HD audio for words and sentences - Character breakdown by radicals - Multiple card formats - Offline data storage - No ads or notifications ## Pricing and in-app purchases Base price: Free. **Subscriptions** | Subscription | Price | Period | | --- | --- | --- | | Wordbrush Pro Weekly | $7.99 | per 7 days | | Wordbrush Pro Yearly | $49.99 | per year | ## Recent user reviews (1 of 1) All indexed reviews: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/wordbrush-learn-chinese-hsk/id6770278044/reviews.md ### 5/5 — Just amazing… *2026-07-22* What a pity I didn’t discover this app sooner, it would have saved me so much time… no more searching for the right Anki deck, looking up character etymologies on Wiktionary, or sentence-mining God knows what… this app really does it all, and it’s completely free Update: after a long sessions, my eyes start to hurt. I hope you could make the font a bit larger, or at least allow users to adjust it **Developer response:** So glad you enjoy it! I’ve added larger font options in the settings menu. :) ## Frequently asked questions about Wordbrush ### What is the learning methodology behind Wordbrush? Wordbrush utilizes the FSRS spaced repetition algorithm, a modern system that schedules reviews precisely when your brain is about to forget information. This ensures efficient long-term memory retention for HSK vocabulary. ### Does Wordbrush offer audio for all vocabulary and example sentences? Yes, Wordbrush provides natural HD audio for every word and example sentence. This includes studio-quality recordings rendered by Google's Chirp 3 HD voices to capture tones and prosody. ### How does Wordbrush help with understanding Chinese characters? Each character is decoded by its radicals, showing meaningful sub-components with pinyin and etymological notes. This approach helps users understand character construction rather than memorizing them stroke by stroke. ### What are the pricing details for Wordbrush? Wordbrush offers a seven-day free trial. After the trial, it requires a subscription at $7.99 per week or $49.99 per year, with all features included. Users who downloaded it while free will retain free access. ### Does Wordbrush have ads? No, Wordbrush is ad-free. The app is designed to provide a distraction-free learning environment, with no advertisements or nagging notifications. ### On which devices can I use Wordbrush? Wordbrush is available for iPhone and iPad. It also offers full VoiceOver, Dynamic Type, and high-contrast support for accessibility. ### How often is Wordbrush updated? The latest version is 2.0.0, and the app was last updated on August 6, 2026. Updates typically focus on refining the learning experience and ensuring reliability. ### What HSK levels does Wordbrush cover? Wordbrush covers all 2,200 words for HSK levels 1, 2, and 3. The HSK levels unlock sequentially, ensuring a structured learning path. ## Version history (last 5 releases) ### 2.3.3 — 2026-09-03 Tap the word, hear the word. The example sentence on a revealed card has always replayed when you tapped anywhere on it. The word above it did not, you had to find the small speaker beside the pinyin. Now the top of the card behaves the same way. Tap the character, the pinyin or the meaning and the word plays again, in the same native take, as many times as you like. The speaker button is still there if your thumb is already on it. The App Store listing now speaks ten more languages. Japanese, Korean, Spanish for Spain and for Latin America, French, German, Brazilian Portuguese, Vietnamese, Russian and Italian learners can read what Wordbrush actually does before they download it. The app itself is still in English, and every listing says so plainly instead of hiding it. Wordbrush teaches the 2,200 HSK words in ten quiet minutes a day: characters decoded into their components, native HD audio on every card, and real sentences from your very first session. ### 2.3.2 — 2026-09-02 Seven words now say what the card teaches. Audio is the whole point of a listening card, so a clip that says the wrong thing is worse than no clip at all. The old recording for 岁 said a different word entirely. We went through the flagged words one at a time and re-recorded seven of them: 我, 请, 送, 岁, 多少, 忘 and 十. Every one now matches its card exactly, tones and all, in a clean native take. If any of those seven are already in your rotation, the corrected audio is there the next time the card comes up. Nothing to reset. Backups also travel cleanly between iPhone and Android now. Restore a backup from either one and your review history lands with the same shape it left with, so your daily numbers stay honest across the move. Wordbrush teaches the 2,200 HSK words in ten quiet minutes a day: characters decoded into their components, native HD audio on every card, and real sentences from your very first session. ### 2.3.1 — 2026-08-29 The writing hint now draws the real brushstroke. Tap hint on a writing card and you no longer get a thin guide line down the middle of the stroke. You get the stroke itself: the weighted entry, the taper, the hook flicking out at the end, laid down in the order a hand would write it. A light sweep then travels the shape from start to finish, so the direction is unmistakable before you try it yourself. It is the difference between being told roughly where the stroke goes and being shown what the stroke actually is. Have not tried a writing card yet? Settings, practice, word cards. Switch writing on and it joins your next session. Wordbrush teaches the 2,200 HSK words in ten quiet minutes a day: characters decoded into their components, native HD audio on every card, and real sentences from your very first session. ### 2.3.0 — 2026-08-28 Wordbrush is now completely free. Every word, every card, every story. No trial, no locks, nothing held back while we grow. That means all 2,200 HSK 1-3 words, native HD audio on every word and every sentence, every character decoded into its components, the short stories, and the FSRS schedule that knows when you are about to forget. Open it, do today's session, close it. Nothing will ask you for money on the way. Also in this update, the writing card's hint is rebuilt around actually being usable. - The hint is simply always there now, in a fixed slot on the pad. Tap it and the stroke draws itself start to end, with a bright sweep travelling the path so you see the direction, turns and all. Previously it appeared once and then vanished for the rest of the card. - Replays are free. You pay for a stroke's hint once, however many times you watch it. - Run out of hint budget and the card no longer just ends. It walks you through every stroke that is left, one at a time, until the character is whole. Failing to produce a character and then never seeing it produced was the wrong place to stop. - Friendlier finger tolerances throughout. The old ones were tuned against a stylus-straight ideal rather than a fingertip that has width, starts late, and covers its own ink. Already subscribed? Thank you, genuinely. You paid for this app when paying was the only way in, and that is a large part of why it can be free now. You can cancel any time in Settings, subscription, and you keep absolutely everything. Nothing is taken away. Downloaded Wordbrush in the free era? Nothing changes for you. You were always free, forever. ### 2.2.0 — 2026-08-17 Wordbrush teaches the 2,200 HSK words in ten quiet minutes a day: characters decoded into their components, native HD audio on every card, and real sentences from your very first session. In this update, the writing card is rebuilt around the thing that actually teaches: writing from memory. - A blank pad, and no model to copy. You produce the character yourself, or you find out that you cannot. - Your own ink stays exactly as you drew it. Nothing is snapped into a tidier shape you did not really write. - Each stroke is quietly checked as it lands. A wrong one fades away without showing you the answer, because being shown the answer is just copying again. - Stuck three strokes running? A hint is offered, never forced, and it is honest about what it costs: take it and the card's suggested rating caps at hard. - No tracing busywork, and no fanfare at the end. You decide the character is finished and tap done. It is trained on the characters worth writing by hand rather than all 2,200: the core stock, and the ones that look alike. Producing a character from memory is the strongest exercise there is for telling look-alikes apart, so this is the card that keeps 我 and 找 from blurring together the next time you meet them in a sentence. Writing is off by default. Turn it on in Settings, practice, word cards. New here? Say your first real reply out loud on day one, unlock short stories as your vocabulary grows, and watch the calendar fill. Free for a week. Downloaded Wordbrush in the free era? Everything stays free for you, forever. ## More apps by Urban Algorithm LLC - [Kangaroo Workout](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/kangaroo-workout/id6760243469) - [Flying Prep: CLEP & DSST](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/flying-prep-clep-and-dsst/id6768346179) - [Bloomfall: The Last Seed](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/bloomfall-the-last-seed/id6780161859) - [Slow Hello](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/slow-hello/id6782214415) - [Powerhouse Prep: CLEP & DSST](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/powerhouse-prep-clep-and-dsst/id6787383180) All apps by Urban Algorithm LLC: https://appshunter.io/developer/1883430262 --- *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.*