HANZI vs Han4ABC
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
HANZI
This app helps users learn Chinese characters by integrating sound, glyphs, and animation. It uses flashcards, sample sentences, images, and games to aid memorization and understanding of radicals, strokes, pronunciation, and meaning.
- Sound, glyph, and animation integration
- Flashcards for memorization
- Sample sentences for context
- Images to aid understanding
- Learning games
- Focus on radicals and strokes
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Most people would think that learning Chinese characters is challenging. Not only because the characters comprise of different radicals, strokes and apply to dynamic writing rules, but also because the pronunciation and meaning of Chinese characters may vary. HANZI is a free and unique mobile application designed by Chinese professionals based at a British university. The app aims to integrate sound, glyph and animation to better demonstrate characters on your smart phone. Unlike other learning software, HANZI not only focuses on the design and development of mobile application technology, but also draws on various academic research in L2 Chinese teaching and learning together with theories of L2 learners’ acquisition. HANZI pays particular attention to the process of using, learning and memorising characters in practice. This is achieved through a range of functions of HANZI such as flashcards, sample sentences, images and games. This is a light version of HANZI, a collection of the 30 most basically used characters. We will continue to expand HANZI to meet the requirements of the majority of learners. We hope you enjoy using HANZI and make great progress with leaning Chinese characters!
Han4ABC
This app acts as a personal tutor to help you learn Chinese characters, pronunciation, and vocabulary. It offers interactive exercises for stroke order, speaking practice, idiom composition, and reading classic poems.
- Practice stroke order
- Listen to Mandarin and Cantonese pronunciations
- Pronunciation quiz with speech recognition
- Guess English words from Chinese phrases
- Compose idioms
- Read Tang poems with pinyin
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Han4ABC helps Chinese children growing up outside China learn Chinese like having a personal tutor. - Practice stroke order, Mandarin & Cantonese pronunciation, meanings, and example sentences - Improve speaking with Apple speech-recognition pronunciation quizzes - Learn common Chinese characters by grade level - Build English vocabulary through Chinese phrase games - Compose and read Chinese idioms aloud - Enjoy Three Hundred Tang Poems with pinyin and audio playback Interactive lessons, speaking practice, and classic Chinese culture — all in one app.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is rating: Han4ABC at 4.4 against HANZI's 3.0. Han4ABC also leads on update cadence (every 3 months vs every 12 months) and ratings volume (27 vs 1). HANZI's advantage is ads (none vs shown) and monetization model (free vs ad-supported). On price and in-app purchases there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS
Both are free to download. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
Han4ABC holds the better App Store score, 4.4 against 3.0. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Han4ABC has 27 ratings behind it against 1, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 67% of HANZI's written reviews are positive against 83% of Han4ABC's.
HANZI ships an update every 12 months, Han4ABC every 3 months. The most recent releases landed on October 24, 2026 and October 29, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | HANZI | Han4ABC |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 3.0 (1 ratings) | 4.4 (27 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 66.7% of reviews | 83.3% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 1 | 27 — better |
| Update frequency | Every 12 months | Every 3 months — better |
| Ads | No — better | Yes |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Free — better | Ad-supported |
| Devices | iPhone, iPod | iPhone, iPad, iPod, Mac — better |
| Requires iOS | 10.0 — better | 15.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 102 MB | 35 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Xiaolong Tang | Jianfeng Wu |
Customer experience
HANZI
Han4ABC
In-app purchases
HANZI
No in-app purchases
Han4ABC
No in-app purchases









