Comparison

trainchinese vs NorRenArt

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

Head to head
About

trainchinese

Learn Chinese with a comprehensive dictionary, flashcards, and OCR. Access example sentences, audio, and character animations. Supports both Simplified and Traditional Chinese, with customizable phonetic input.

Highlights
  • Comprehensive Chinese dictionary
  • Optical Character Recognition (OCR)
  • Spaced Repetition flashcard system
  • Character animations and handwriting training
  • Support for Simplified and Traditional Chinese
  • Multiple phonetic input options (Pinyin, Zhuyin)
Features
Read full description

Learn Chinese with an amazing dictionary (plus OCR) and flash card system. trainchinese will teach you Chinese, with a free and complete dictionary, thousands of vocab lists, example sentences, audio recordings, measure words, character animations and Optical Character Recognition — not to mention a powerful flash card training system that even includes handwriting training! • Our dictionary prioritises commonly-used words and phrases above the obscure and obsolete, while example sentences and measure words (classifiers) provide crucial context to help you decide which Chinese word is the most appropriate translation. Other dictionaries just leave you guessing! • We've got Optical Character Recognition (OCR) too. Spotted some Chinese you can't read? Capture a photo of some Chinese text from a menu, book or sign, and the app identifies and translates the characters for you. • Search for words by part of speech • Mistyped a word? Helpful spelling suggestions get you to the right results fast. • Words feature both example sentences and measure words for nouns. It's time to move beyond "个"! And best of all it's all connected: tap examples and measure words to open them as full dictionary entries. • trainchinese is great for students: it includes more than a thousand vocabulary lists covering topics from International Relations to American Football Teams and more. Feel like something's missing? Users often get in touch to ask for lists on the topics they're studying, and we're happy to oblige! You'll also find lists containing HSK-level words (both old and new standards), plus TOCFL lists for students in Taiwan! • Highlight words with your finger for super-fast access to character animations, related searches and more! • Whether you're studying the Simplified (mainland China and Singapore) or Traditional (Hong Kong and Taiwan) variants, we've got you covered! Easily switch between them or choose to display both in dictionary results and on flash cards. Even better, you can use the phonetics you're comfortable with - choose from Pinyin with tone marks, Pinyin with tone numbers or even Zhuyin characters (from the BoPoMoFo system used in Taiwan). • Create flash cards with audio and animation from dictionary entries. Organise them into lists, and share them with friends (or students). • Our Spaced Repetition system ensures you'll memorize words for good. • Train your way: each card is available in four different modes to test different aspects of Chinese study. See Chinese, Pinyin or English and get tested on translation, and even compare your handwriting to a stroke-order animation side-by-side, synchronized! Or if you prefer, there's multiple choice training too (for a real challenge, try it in "Dictation" mode!). • Flash cards are saved on your device and synchronized with trainchinese.com, where you can also train with them and find more great content. • Add study notes to your flash cards - they're saved and backed up at trainchinese.com. Don't forget to check out our other apps (tap our company name in the App Store for more info): - Chinese Writer - Chinese Audio Trainer - Pinyin Trainer - Number Trainer - Chinese Challenges

About

NorRenArt

Features
Read full description

Get to know the works, and times of great Northern Renaissance artists, from Jan van Eyck to Hieronymus Bosch in this specially curated App. To know the artist is the first step towards appreciating any art painting. Once you get familiar with the paintings from a particular artist, you will start to identify his paintings. Game-based learning is the new revolution! Download NorRenArt today and become an Expert tomorrow.

Screenshots

trainchinese4 screens
NorRenArt4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is price: trainchinese at Free against NorRenArt's $2.99. trainchinese also leads on update cadence (fortnightly vs every 32 months). NorRenArt's advantage is in-app purchases (none vs 13) and ads (none vs shown). On device support and iOS requirement 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

trainchinese is free to download; NorRenArt costs $2.99 up front. trainchinese sells 13 one-off in-app purchases. NorRenArt asks for nothing beyond the download.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

trainchinese ships an update fortnightly, NorRenArt every 32 months. The most recent releases landed on September 23, 2026 and March 3, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard4 real differences · 6 level
trainchinese versus NorRenArt: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParametertrainchineseNorRenArt
PriceFree — better$2.99
Rating4.7 (2.3K ratings) — better—
Positive reviews75.8% of reviews—
Number of ratings2.3K — better—
Update frequencyFortnightly — betterEvery 32 months
AdsYesNo — better
In-app purchasesYesNo — better
MonetizationFree with in-app purchases—
DevicesiPhone, iPad — betteriPhone
Requires iOS16.6 — better17.2
Further details — not scored
Size328 MB283 MB
Age rating4+12+
Developertrainchinese B.V.AFB Group LLC

Bugs and requests

trainchinese

Reported bugs

4 issues
  • App crashes when trying to move or add words to lists
  • Audio playback not working for some words
  • Writing recognition feature is unreliable
  • Inconsistent behavior when switching between app and website

Requested features

4 requests
  • Add option to learn on multiple languages (e.g. English and Russian)
  • Improve organization and navigation of word lists
  • Implement more engaging learning games and activities
  • Allow users to easily add their own custom words and phrases

NorRenArt

Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.

In-app purchases

13 purchases

trainchinese

One-time13
  • OCR Feature$4.99
  • 10 lists$8.99
  • 3 months$11.99
Show 10 more
  • 3 months + 10 lists$15.99
  • 6 months$19.99
  • 30 lists$19.99
  • 6 months + 10 lists$23.99
  • 3 months + 30 lists$25.99
  • 12 months$34.99
  • 6 months + 30 lists$34.99
  • 12 months + 10 lists$37.99
  • 12 months + 30 lists$45.99
  • 12 months + 60 lists$54.99
None

NorRenArt

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is trainchinese free?
trainchinese is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is NorRenArt free?
NorRenArt costs $2.99, with no in-app purchases.
Do trainchinese or NorRenArt have ads?
trainchinese shows ads; NorRenArt does not.
Which is updated more often, trainchinese or NorRenArt?
trainchinese ships an update fortnightly, and NorRenArt every 32 months. Most recently, trainchinese was updated on September 23, 2026 and NorRenArt on March 3, 2026.

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