Comparison

Learn Russian (Beginners) vs Mandarin Flashcards

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

Learn Russian (Beginners)

This app offers a comprehensive Russian language course designed for beginners. It covers the alphabet, vocabulary, reading, writing, and listening skills with native audio. Learn independently at your own pace, with offline access and interactive exercises.

Highlights
  • Learn alphabet, vocabulary, reading, writing, and listening
  • Native audio recordings with adjustable speed
  • Offline course access
  • Interactive exercises with images
  • Review mode for reinforcement
  • Weekly user rankings
Features
Read full description

Want to learn Russian in an easy and flexible way? With over 30 million downloads worldwide, the BNR Languages apps help you study Russian in a practical, simple, and independent way. The complete course allows you to start from scratch, learn the alphabet, build your vocabulary, and practice reading, writing, and listening with native audio recordings. Study on your own, at your own pace, with no daily limits, and use the review mode to reinforce everything you've already learned. Perfect for anyone who wants to learn Russian quickly — whether for travel, study, work, or to communicate better with family and friends. Find out why our app is the ideal choice to study anytime, anywhere: - Offline Russian course — from beginner to advanced levels. - Study independently, at your own pace, without the need for teachers. - No time limits or daily activity restrictions. - Interactive exercises with images that make learning easier. - Review mode to practice and refresh the content. - Native audio recordings with adjustable playback speed. - Different types of exercises: reading, writing, and listening. - Intuitive and easy-to-use interface for all ages. - Join the weekly ranking and compete with other users. - The app works completely offline — no internet connection needed. - All content is available for free. Download now and start learning Russian in a simple, practical, and flexible way — at your own pace! Terms of use: https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/

About

Mandarin Flashcards

Features
Read full description

A flashcard app specifically designed for the complexities of Mandarin! Switch between Hanzi (characters), Pinyin (the sounds) and English meaning to learn all three aspects of Mandarin. Enhanced difficulty algorithms can be adjusted based on your appetite for challenge and personal progression. My goal in creating this app was to make flashcards fun, and make it more difficult to just "guess" the word like so many other apps allow. Four directions, tracked separately. See a character and pick the sound, see the sound and pick the character, or start from the English and go either way. Each direction keeps its own score and its own difficulty, so a word you can read isn't assumed to be a word you can say. Wrong answers are picked to be genuinely hard. Distractors are scored on the initial and final pairs learners actually confuse (zh/z, ang/an) and on characters that share a radical, a component or a shape, including 740 hand-checked lookalike pairs. Four difficulty levels decide how many of the close ones you face. Cards start at two choices and climb one at a time to fourteen as you get them right; miss one and it steps back down and comes round again sooner. Start with the words that matter most. The Frequency deck orders the language by how common each word is: 250 units of 20 words, with unit 1 the 20 most frequent words in Mandarin. Practice the vocabulary that carries the most conversations first, and work your way down to the rarer stuff. Prefer a syllabus? The full HSK 3.0 word lists (levels 1 to 9) are built in as decks too, and you can import your own units. New: practice whole phrases. 2,430 conversational phrases across 18 topics, from ordering food to asking for help. One word is blanked and you fill the gap, in either direction. Once a phrase is familiar it comes back as shuffled tiles for you to put back in order. Watch the characters get written. Every Hanzi prompt is painted stroke by stroke, in proper stroke order, so the shape sinks in while you answer. Pick your brush speed, or switch the animation off. Tones are colored as you practice. Pinyin is tinted syllable by syllable, and every character takes the color of its own tone, so you start recognizing tones by sight instead of hunting for the little mark. There is a legend in Settings and a separate switch for each. On Hanzi and Pinyin rounds the tint fades once you have leveled a card past ten choices, so the colors can never hand you the answer. Hunt bounty cards for gold. Decks mark one card in every 25 as a bounty. Level it up to 14 choices and it deals a special 15 choice gold round, and getting that one right turns the card gold. All four practice directions are hunted separately, so every card has four golds to win, each with its own trophy ladder in the Trophy Room. Short term or long term, your choice. Short term keeps your active deck moving so nothing waits much more than two weeks. Long term follows a real forgetting curve across your whole card pool: every correct answer multiplies a card's rest by 2.5, out to a year. Both are tracked at the same time, so you can switch whenever you like without losing anything. Add a daily goal and a day streak, and separate profiles that keep separate progress. Everything runs offline. All 14,443 cards are built into the app, so there is nothing to download and no account to create. If you create custom cards with new characters, the strokes data will be auto downloaded, which does require a connection. This app pairs perfectly with whatever Mandarin course or app you're learning with. Reinforce what you're learning with flashcards in parallel! Terms of Use (EULA): https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/

Screenshots

Learn Russian (Beginners)4 screens
Mandarin Flashcards4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is update cadence: Mandarin Flashcards at every 2 days against Learn Russian (Beginners)'s monthly. Learn Russian (Beginners)'s advantage is iOS requirement (15.0 vs 17.6). On price, ads, in-app purchases and device support 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

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Both are free to download. Learn Russian (Beginners) sells 8 in-app purchases, starting at $1.99 per month and Mandarin Flashcards sells 1 in-app purchase, starting at $0.99 per month. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Learn Russian (Beginners) ships an update monthly, Mandarin Flashcards every 2 days. The most recent releases landed on November 3, 2026 and October 25, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard2 real differences · 8 level
Learn Russian (Beginners) versus Mandarin Flashcards: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterLearn Russian (Beginners)Mandarin Flashcards
PriceFreeFree
Rating4.7 (133 ratings) — better—
Positive reviews81.7% of reviews—
Number of ratings133 — better—
Update frequencyMonthlyEvery 2 days — better
AdsYesYes
In-app purchasesYesYes
MonetizationFree with in-app purchases—
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPod — betteriPhone, iPad
Requires iOS15.0 — better17.6
Further details — not scored
Size170 MB24 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperBNR LANGUAGES INC.JAMES ROBERT THIESSEN

In-app purchases

8 purchases

Learn Russian (Beginners)

Subscriptions6
  • Premium$1.991 Month
  • Unlock all categories$3.991 Month
  • Unlock all categories$5.991 Month
Show 3 more
  • Premium$19.991 Year
  • Unlock all categories$24.991 Year
  • Unlock all categories$44.991 Year
One-time2
  • Unlock categories - lifetime$59.99
  • Unlock categories - lifetime$69.99
1 purchases

Mandarin Flashcards

Subscriptions1
  • Remove Ads$0.991 Month

Questions

Is Learn Russian (Beginners) free?
Learn Russian (Beginners) is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is Mandarin Flashcards free?
Mandarin Flashcards is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Do Learn Russian (Beginners) or Mandarin Flashcards have ads?
Both Learn Russian (Beginners) and Mandarin Flashcards show ads.
Which is updated more often, Learn Russian (Beginners) or Mandarin Flashcards?
Learn Russian (Beginners) ships an update monthly, and Mandarin Flashcards every 2 days. Most recently, Learn Russian (Beginners) was updated on November 3, 2026 and Mandarin Flashcards on October 25, 2026.

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