MyMandarin vs ScriptPad
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
MyMandarin
Master Mandarin Chinese with personalized daily sessions that adapt to your learning style. Practice speaking with an AI coach, read engaging stories, and improve writing skills with interactive feedback. Save and review vocabulary using spaced repetition to build fluency.
- Personalized daily learning sessions
- AI-powered speaking practice with feedback
- Interactive writing and character stroke practice
- Graded reading stories with tap-to-define
- Adaptive spaced repetition for vocabulary
- HSK-aligned learning paths
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Master Mandarin Chinese Your Way with MyMandarin — your daily companion for building real fluency through active practice, not passive memorization. LEARN MANDARIN YOUR WAY Personalized daily sessions adapt to your level, goals, and focus. Mix vocabulary, reading, writing, and speaking in a balanced flow that fits how you actually want to learn — whether that's a structured HSK path, freestyle exploration, or anything in between. COLLECT, GROW, AND REMEMBER WORDS Save words from anywhere — translations, stories, the dictionary, or your own typing. Our adaptive spaced repetition system schedules each word at the optimal moment so you actually remember what you learn. Watch every word progress from new to mastered, and browse your full collection any time. SPEAK MANDARIN WITH AN AI COACH Practice producing Mandarin with translation drills, Q&A conversations, and free-form responses. Speak naturally with built-in voice recognition and get instant AI-powered feedback on grammar, accuracy, and naturalness. READ REAL MANDARIN STORIES Engaging stories graded by HSK level, with tap-to-define lookups and pinyin on demand. Save unfamiliar words to your collection in one tap, and listen to native-quality audio for any sentence. MASTER THE ART OF WRITING Learn character strokes with interactive, real-time feedback on stroke order and accuracy. Track your mastery character by character. TRANSLATE ANY CHINESE INSTANTLY Smart translation, full dictionary search, and voice input in one place. Look up thousands of words and characters with definitions, pinyin, examples, and HSK levels — and save anything useful straight to your collection. DAILY PRACTICE Build a habit with personalized daily sessions, streak tracking, and XP. A balanced mix of new words, reviews, reading, writing, and speaking keeps your practice engaging. STRUCTURED LEARNING PATHS Follow HSK-aligned learning paths that guide you through themed lessons in a proven sequence: recognition, recall, reading, writing, speaking, and assessment. FEATURES AT A GLANCE - Adaptive spaced repetition - Graded reading with word lookup - Stroke-by-stroke writing practice - Voice input with speech recognition - AI-scored speaking exercises - Daily practice with streaks and XP - HSK 1–6 vocabulary coverage - Native-quality text-to-speech - Themed lessons with phased learning - Personal collections and group sharing Free to start. Upgrade for higher daily limits on speaking, translations, and word saves, unlimited collections, the full Pro story library, and faster access to new lessons. SUBSCRIPTION DETAILS MyMandarin Pro: $19.99/month or $149.99/year. MyMandarin Max: $29.99/month or $199.99/year. Payment is charged to your Apple ID at confirmation of purchase. Subscriptions auto-renew unless canceled at least 24 hours before the end of the current period. Manage or cancel anytime in your Apple ID account settings. Terms of Use: https://mymandarin.org/terms Privacy Policy: https://mymandarin.org/privacy
ScriptPad
Master Chinese writing with animated stroke guides, interactive practice, and pronunciation comparison. Learn vocabulary through structured lessons and engaging games, all available offline. Create custom lessons from any text.
- Animated stroke-order guides
- Interactive writing canvas
- Pronunciation practice with recording
- Structured vocabulary lessons
- Gamified learning activities
- Custom lesson creation
- Offline functionality
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ScriptPad: Chinese Writing helps you learn to read, write, type, and speak Chinese from scratch. Start with Chinese Basics, learn essential strokes, radicals, and your first characters with animated stroke-order guides that show you exactly how to write each one. Practice on an interactive drawing canvas and build real muscle memory as you trace each stroke. Move beyond the basics into structured vocabulary lessons across 6 units and 130+ lessons. Every word comes with audio so you can hear and practice correct pronunciation as you learn. Write by Hand: A full drawing canvas for every word, practice writing Chinese characters with your finger or stylus. The character outlines guide your strokes, and stroke-order animations show you exactly how each character is written. Speak & Compare: Record yourself saying each word and compare your pronunciation side by side. Instant playback lets you hear exactly where to improve. Type Mode: Learn how to type Chinese words. Instant feedback shows you what you got right and what to review. Create Your Own Lessons: Paste any Chinese text, vocabulary lists, song lyrics, textbook sentences, and turn it into a writing lesson with audio. Play & Practice: Reinforce every lesson with hands on activities that make vocabulary stick. Match words to pictures, build words by connecting their characters, listen for a word and slice it before it lands, mark your card in a listen and win bingo against the computer, fit word blocks together to clear the board, and blast word aliens out of the sky. Each activity plays the word's audio as you go, so you're always hearing the Chinese as you learn it. Word Meanings in Your Language: See each word's meaning in English, Japanese, or Korean, switch the translation language anytime. Features: 2,000+ vocabulary learn and write words with audio across 6 structured units 10,000+ HSK words and sentences Stroke-order animations for every Chinese character Pinyin shown for every word Interactive drawing canvas with character guides Speak & Compare pronunciation practice with recording Type mode for Chinese keyboard practice Playful practice activities: picture matching, character building, audio slicing, bingo, word blocks, and word invaders Traditional mode, toggle between Simplified and Traditional characters for every word Create custom lessons from any Chinese text Word meanings in multiple languages iPad Writing Mode, multi-card writing grid with stroke animations 14 page themes for a comfortable study environment Works beautifully on iPhone and iPad Fully offline, no internet required Interface available in English, Chinese, Spanish, French, Japanese, Korean, and Russian One-time purchase, no subscription Whether you are a complete beginner or brushing up on your Chinese writing skills, ScriptPad gives you the tools to practice at your own pace. Download ScriptPad and start writing Chinese today.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is rating: MyMandarin at 4.4 against ScriptPad's 3.0. MyMandarin also leads on update cadence (every 3 days vs monthly) and ratings volume (15 vs 1). ScriptPad's advantage is monetization model (free vs freemium). 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
Both are free to download. MyMandarin sells 4 in-app purchases, starting at $12.99 per month and ScriptPad sells 1 one-off in-app purchase. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.
MyMandarin holds the better App Store score, 4.4 against 3.0. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: MyMandarin has 15 ratings behind it against 1, so its average is the more settled of the two.
MyMandarin ships an update every 3 days, ScriptPad monthly. The most recent releases landed on October 31, 2026 and November 5, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | MyMandarin | ScriptPad |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.4 (15 ratings) — better | 3.0 (1 ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 100.0% of reviews | — |
| Number of ratings | 15 — better | 1 |
| Update frequency | Every 3 days — better | Monthly |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | Yes |
| Monetization | Freemium | Free — better |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod | iPhone, iPad, iPod |
| Requires iOS | 15.1 | 15.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 177 MB | 406 MB |
| Age rating | +4 | 4+ |
| Developer | MyMandarin LLC | Hugo Alberto Garza Jr |
Customer experience
MyMandarin
ScriptPad
In-app purchases
MyMandarin
- MyMandarin Pro$12.991 Month
- Dragon Monthly Subscription$19.991 Month
- Bamboo Annual Subscription$119.991 Year
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- Dragon Annual Subscription3 Days trial$179.991 Year
ScriptPad
- Premium Unlock$4.99








