Laoshi vs Duory

Laoshi is a complete app for learning Mandarin Chinese: smart flashcards built for characters, tones and grammar, with real handwriting practice, pronunciation scored for sound and tone separately, and ready-made decks for every major Chinese textbook. Join 300,000+ learners who use Laoshi to build vocabulary, master grammar, prepare for the HSK exam and make progress every day. Laoshi is a Red Dot Design Award 2021 winner and a HICOOL 2025 winner. Chinese works differently. Understanding a character isn't enough — you have to memorise it and write it by hand, and it fades fast. That's why spaced repetition sits at the core of Laoshi: it brings a word back exactly when it starts slipping, and locks it in through writing. Tones need pronunciation training, grammar needs clear explanations. Laoshi brings all of it together in one focused app. Why learners choose Laoshi: • Real handwriting practice — Don't just read Chinese. Write it. Write characters with correct stroke order on your phone and strengthen recognition through active recall. • Pronunciation and tone scoring, character by character — Say a whole sentence and every character comes back with two scores: one for pronunciation, one for the tone. The slip is named in words — a syllable you dropped, a tone that shifts before the next word. Listen to the reference, then play back your own take. • Textbook decks, chapter by chapter — 4,300+ ready-made word lists covering 66 Chinese textbook series, including Standard Course HSK, Integrated Chinese, Developing Chinese, Boya Chinese, New Practical Chinese Textbook and Road to Success. Open your book, pick your chapter, start learning. • HSK 2.0 and HSK 3.0 coverage — Vocabulary and grammar aligned with both official exam standards, including the advanced 7–9 band. • Flashcards built for Chinese — Tones, pinyin, meanings, example sentences and character writing in one learning flow. • Complete Chinese grammar section — 756 grammar points with clear explanations and practical examples, from beginner to advanced. • Spaced repetition system (SRS) — Scientifically optimised review intervals help you retain vocabulary up to 3x longer. • 30,000+ word lists and thematic decks — HSK lists, textbook decks and topic-based vocabulary, including preparation for the CSCA, China's standardised admission exam for international students. • Import and create decks — Bring lists from Anki, Quizlet or Pleco, or create and share your own. • Stroke order worksheets — Print any deck as a handwriting worksheet in one click. • Progress tracking — Monitor your HSK level, daily goals and long-term growth. Whether you are preparing for the HSK exam, applying to study in China, or simply learning Chinese for yourself, Laoshi gives you structure, clarity and tools that make vocabulary, characters and grammar stick. What learners say in the App Store: "I find Chinese challenging and fascinating at the same time... The structure of presenting knowledge and the method applied are just great. If you're serious about learning, look no further than Laoshi." - Playfull Orca "Well designed and structured, helping students to build a solid foundation for later on write and speak Mandarin correctly... You can also practice pronunciation, which is a plus!" - estafada por rtve "I always struggled with learning how to write Chinese characters, this app helps so good, and u learn pronunciation and tones as well. I love the word lists by topic." - lisu-ka Start learning Chinese today — try your first 10 words now. To access all features of Laoshi, you will need to start a subscription after the free trial period. Questions or ideas? Email us at app@laoshi.io

Save time and stay focused—no more bouncing between translation apps, Google search and your notes. Study, practice, and reflect with dynamic language notes. Why Duory? • Duory is the smartest way to take language notes on your phone. • Duory lets you keep and organize notes for all your target languages in one place. • Save time and stay focused — no more bouncing between Google Search and your notes. • Practice hands-free while doing boring chores. • Improve your output by journaling in your target languages. • Capture interesting phrases from anywhere! • Browse vocabulary from your own notes in a focused, immersive way. • Add background images and videos to create personal connections with each word or phrase. • Make them stick with Home and Lock Screen widgets. • Vocab practice sessions, Playlists, and widgets are powered by FSRS-6.0, an advanced spaced repetition algorithm. • Duory supports 40 target languages. NOTES • Duory is designed to perform language tasks on-device thanks to Apple’s language APIs and other offline language tools. • To perform translations, iOS needs to download language dictionaries for each language pair. This only happens once for each pair. • Duory requires access to your microphone for you to record pronunciation of phrases and your camera for scanning text. FREE FOREVER Get started for free with these features: • Create notes and journals in one target language. • Enhance your language journals with Apple Journaling Suggestions. • Capture phrases from your physical textbooks, Duolingo sessions, images, or RTF/PDF documents. • Use a handy widget to reinforce recently learned words and phrases. • In-app translation and transliteration, including Hiragana and Pinyin. • Record and play back your phrases (no playlists on the free plan). • Access notes you create during your free trial or subscription – forever! Important: If you create notes in target languages outside of the initial language during an active subscription, they will become read-only when your subscription expires (the notes you create in your oldest target language will remain editable forever) DUORY PLUS PLANS Unlock the full power of Duory with a subscription: • Create notes and journals in multiple languages. • Turn your phrases into playlists for hands-free practice. • Control playback from your lock screen or Control Center. • Turn plain notes into memorable ones with stickers and pictures. • Sync your notes and journals to iCloud. Plans are available on a monthly or annual basis. Your payment is charged to your iTunes account. Subscriptions auto-renew unless canceled at least 24 hours before the end of the current period. You can turn off auto-renewal at any time by going to your Account Settings on the App Store after purchase. Start your journey with a 14-day free trial on annual plans—cancel anytime to avoid charges. You will always have permanent access to notes created during the trial period or while your subscription was active. However, an active subscription is required to create new notes or edit existing ones in languages other than the first target language you added in Duory. Notes created in the first target language you add to Duory remain editable forever with or without an active subscription. LANGUAGE TRANSLATION SUPPORT ** Duory uses Apple’s Translation API for on-device translation. Here’s the full list of supported languages: • Arabic • Chinese (Mandarin, Simplified) • Chinese (Mandarin, Traditional) • Dutch • English • French • German • Hindi • Indonesian • Italian • Japanese • Korean • Polish • Portuguese (Brazil) • Russian • Spanish (Spain) • Thai • Turkish • Ukrainian • Vietnamese PRIVACY Duory is designed with your privacy in mind. We don’t track your data or store your information. Privacy Policy: https://duory.alewa.co/privacy.html Terms of Service: https://duory.alewa.co/terms.html