Comparison

trainchinese vs Marukun

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

Marukun

This Russian-Japanese dictionary app offers over 90,000 Japanese words with example sentences for daily use. It includes a favorites feature to create custom word lists and works offline without ads.

Highlights
  • 90,000+ Japanese words
  • Example sentences
  • Favorites list
  • Offline functionality
  • Ad-free experience
Read full description

Marukun — простой русско-японский и японско-русский словарь, который не требует подключения к интернету. В словаре более 90 000 статей. Вы можете искать японские слова и русские значения, просматривать переводы и примеры употребления, а нужные слова сохранять в избранное для быстрого доступа. • Более 90 000 словарных статей. • Поиск на японском и русском языках. • Примеры употребления слов. • Избранное и пользовательские списки. • Работа без подключения к интернету. • Без рекламы.

Screenshots

trainchinese4 screens
Marukun4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is ads: Marukun at none against trainchinese's shown. Marukun also leads on monetization model (free vs free with in-app purchases). trainchinese's advantage is update cadence (fortnightly vs every 5 weeks) and review sentiment (76% vs 67%). On price, in-app purchases, 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

Both are free to download. trainchinese sells 13 one-off in-app purchases and Marukun sells 1 one-off in-app purchase. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

trainchinese ships an update fortnightly, Marukun every 5 weeks. The most recent releases landed on October 27, 2026 and October 13, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard4 real differences · 6 level
trainchinese versus Marukun: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParametertrainchineseMarukun
PriceFreeFree
Rating4.7 (2.4K ratings) — better—
Positive reviews76.0% of reviews — better66.7% of reviews
Number of ratings2.4K — better—
Update frequencyFortnightly — betterEvery 5 weeks
AdsYesNo — better
In-app purchasesYesYes
MonetizationFree with in-app purchasesFree — better
DevicesiPhone, iPadiPhone, iPod
Requires iOS16.615.6 — better
Further details — not scored
Size328 MB147 MB
Age rating4+4+
Developertrainchinese B.V.Dimitriy Grigoriev

Customer experience

trainchinese

All ratings2,269 ratings
Positive92.6%
Neutral3.7%
Negative3.7%
Written reviews221 reviews
Positive76.0%
Neutral7.7%
Negative16.3%

Marukun

Written reviews6 reviews
Positive66.7%
Neutral16.7%
Negative16.7%

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

Marukun

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
1 purchases

Marukun

One-time1
  • Full version$0.99

Questions

Is trainchinese free?
trainchinese is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is Marukun free?
Marukun is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Do trainchinese or Marukun have ads?
trainchinese shows ads; Marukun does not.
Which is updated more often, trainchinese or Marukun?
trainchinese ships an update fortnightly, and Marukun every 5 weeks. Most recently, trainchinese was updated on October 27, 2026 and Marukun on October 13, 2026.

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