Chinagram Pocket app for iPhone and iPad
4.8 (
2368 ratings )
Reference
Education
Developer:
Vallardi
1.99 USD
Current version:
1.5.0, last update: 6 years ago
First release : 24 Jan 2012
App size: 82.82 Mb
With Chinagram you can approach Chinese by discovering the meaning and origin of 240 of this languages most representative characters. Chinagram also includes a historical and a linguistic overview, which help you understand how Chinese writing has changed over the centuries and what its basic rules are today. With these pointers and the range of characters selected for the application, you can start building your vocabulary on solid grounds and really begin to discover Chinese and China.
Based on the book La scrittura cinese by Professor Yuan Huaqing, published in Italy by leading publishing house for languages, Vallardi, Chinagram offers you scrupulous content through an innovative graphic approach and the instant usability of the iPhone.
With Chinagram you can:
- Get an overview of the fascinating history of Chinese writing, from its origins 3,600 years ago to modern day
- Understand the logic behind the way Chinese characters are pronounced, written, composed and classified.
- Learn to recognize and read 240 characters.
- Practice writing each character by tracing it on the screen of your iPhone.
- Discover the ideas that gave rise to the original characters and see their evolution over the centuries, through six successive historical periods.
- Listen to the correct pronunciation of each character.
- See each characters phonetic Pinyin transcription.
- Easily save and recall your favorite characters.
- Learn more about Chinese culture and language, with examples of how each word in used in idioms and everyday conversation.
As the new millennium sees China as one of the fastest-changing countries in the world, an understanding of Chinese writing can give you deep insight into the roots of this emerging power. In fact, each ideogram is not only an example of calligraphic art, but also a distillation of the countrys ancient values and traditional culture.
The application tells the story of Chinese writing, explaining its rationale and showing its beauty, sign after sign. Try your hand at ideograms and learn more about one of the great cultures of the Orient.
Pros and cons of Chinagram Pocket app for iPhone and iPad
Chinagram Pocket app good for
Love this app! I learned mandarin for 2 years and I try to refresh it every now and then. I was looking for an app like this. My Chinese colleagues thinks it is very good too! Thanks for the great work!
please add real brushes as it is done in Zen brush application,
please translate your app into Russian. I can provide help.
Good app! Perfect if youre curious to learn more about chinese.
this app is simply perfect as chinagram for iPad. beautiful design, interesting content, Id like to go to China now!
thank you!!!
Some bad moments
The app that i had always sought for is now a reality... Simply Awesome...
Great app, but graphics for "fu+phonetic=ba" in History section are same as for "ri+yue=ming"
Also, tends to crash if I put my phone on standby, bring it out of standby, switch to another app, put it on standby again, bring it out of standby again, then attempt to switch to Chinagram. At this point, instead of restoring itself with the last character I was on, Chinagram closes completely, and when I start it up again, I get a brand-new home screen and I have to navigate back to the character I was on again.
Its a wonderful app to learn and practice the Chinese lenguage!
This app, while elegant, presents Simplified characters as plain fact when, in fact, it is not universally accepted. (See the Wikipedia entry on the debate on Traditional and Simplified Chinese characters.)
Unlike other apps (such as certain Chinese-English dictionaries), this app does not give the user the option to hide Simplified characters.
This app is totally cool for someone who is studying Chinese to see where the characters came from. My teacher might say "oh that radical on the left means ox," and I just have to believe her. But this app really shows you how that character evolved to what it is now. It uses awesome historical examples and largely displayed (which is so important) older characters. I would recommend this to anyone learning Chinese. Im a second year college student and I wish I had it sooner!
Only thing more I would want: the traditional characters in the timeline. Not as dramatic of a jump but I do think just putting "actual character" as the final time description is ignoring traditional too much.
The idea is great, but no pronunciation or its just not working.
