CS Xiezi - Chinese Character Trainer

CS Xiezi tests you on writing characters with the proper stroke order note that it does not teach you the basic rules of stroke order You can only use the characters included in the app you cannot customize it with vocabulary from a textbook or class There are three modes In all modes you receive a prompt in pinyin with or without English definition and then you try to write the character with or without a background grid Otherwise the modes differ as follows Train In this mode you can choose whether or not to have a grey outline of the character displayed so you can practice your knowledge of the stroke order by tracing separately from your recall of the character itself Various forms of help are available tapping 全 draws the entire character at once Tapping 一 draws the next single stroke Tapping gives you a hint how to start the next stroke Drill There is no help and no mercy in this mode As soon as you make a wrong stroke it shows you the rest and then automatically moves on to the next character Missed characters recur at random points until you get them all right Test Same as the Drill mode except that missed characters are not repeated Pros Choice to have the tracing outline on or off in good but only an option in the Train mode Visual and aural feedback Choice of animation speed Cons At the end of the test the app does not tell you the specific characters that you missed Keep track as you go if you want to review them later It does not keep scores from previous sessions for tracking progress No way to add to the included characters Once youve learned the 79 characters thats it unless the developers add more           Decent functionality limited character set

All around great application for learning Chinese characters You cant go wrong with this in fact its much better than most other programs out there Strongly recommended very solid                 Great App

I am a beginner and looking to practice my writing I enjoyed practicing on this app I just hope I can have more words to practice or download or buy them It helps me to recognize writing faster I hope to pick up more Thank you                 Very Helpful

It would be a good app but has way too few characters for the price Also it only gives you simplified characters Inadequate for anyone even half serious about learning Chinese I DO NOT recommend this app at this time If they increase the number of characters to 200 or more and add a traditional option then it will be worth the price These improvements plus a radical option would earn it 4 stars        Lacking

The methodology is good the drill and test is a good way to manage the process and the interface is good though this kind of app is more suited to the iPad not the iPhone so should have been written as an app for both from the get go The problem I found is that when you drill for lesson three it mixes in characters from lesson four which havent been learned yet Also why even roll something like this out if you only have such a small number of characters Basic rollout should include at least 500 characters And some of the ones used even in lesson three are rarely used for example zhao alternative to zao for early and mu for evening There are hundreds of basic characters that are far more useful and prevalent than these           Good Try

This is by far the most attractive Chinese character drawing app out there and its free The app checks every stroke as you draw it so you learn to draw the characters correctly every time The characters look good too so it almost feels like youre doing calligraphy I hope theyll continue adding more characters in future versions                 Great concept

I am a beginner and this little app has been a revelation One particular advantage is the use of a grid in which each of the usual quadrants is further divided by a diagonal It helps a LOT in the effort to place strokes correctly and in the right order I hope they will have more characters available soon I think this beginning set of 24 is very well chosen because the characters allow a beginner such as me to start seeing patterns and motifs I also have the full Clavis Sinica program on my computer and swear by it So Clavis please keep the software coming                 Very useful

Great companion to their CS Zika app I find it very helpful to switch back and forth between the two because its good to learn characters by recognition CS Zika and then learn by actually writing the character Xiezi                 Really helpful

The app teaches 48 characters by having you trace them then later write them on a grid that you can turn off if you want to totally freehand as both drills for learning and tests I really learned these characters well in a short amount of time BUt you will get even more out of it if you go to their website and practice reading the passages that use only characters theyve taught you Great way to practice if you do both reading and writing I hope they release more characters soon The website has stories that teach you the most common 300 characters if they releast all of them in this app too that would be truly stellar But the app is great for what it is today I highly recommend You can practice anytime you have your phone and a few spare minutes                 Great way to learn