November 2024 Update
Just wanna try out the new features?
Go straight to the Android
app
/ web app.
We only had one goal this month: Bringing the Chill Chinese app to Android. And we did it! But not only that, we also added English-to-Chinese full-text translation, example sentences for HSK 1 - 4, and more dictionary entries. Let's dive right in!
The Android app is out 🎉
As promised since the Chill Chinese app went live as a web app, we have been working on bringing it to Android. Now the app is available on the Google Play Store! Give it a spin, leave a review, and let us know what you think 🚀
The Android app has all the features of the web app, including the dictionary, full-text translation, example sentences, and stroke order diagrams.
The basic search functionality works offline, but the detailed dictionary entries currently require an internet connection. Don't worry though, we are working on making the whole app offline capable.
English-to-Chinese full-text translation
After introducing full-text translation from Chinese to English in October, the next logical step was to add full-text translation from English to Chinese. Simply type whatever you want to translate into the search box, select the English search results, and you will see a button to translate the text. Of course, the translation is shown as an interactive reader, so you can tap on any word to see its definition. The translation uses simplified or traditional characters depending on the preference you set in the app.
By the way, the AI used for the translation is only instructed to translate whatever you typed in the search box into Mandarin. That means the text you enter does not have to be English.
Example sentences for HSK 1 - 4
This month we increased the number of examples sentences from 2,000 to over 6,000! 🤯
All the words from HSK 1 - 4 now have example sentences. Every word has at least three example sentences but we went the extra mile and added an average of five sentences per word. Our focus is on providing straight-forward sentences that highlight different meanings of a word. So if a word has multiple meanings, you will see example sentences for each of them.
The HSK vocabulary doubles with each level, so covering all of HSK 5 is going to take a while, but we are on it!
New dictionary entries
We have added new entries for over 7,000 characters to the dictionary. This brings the total number of entries in the dictionary to over 130,000! Looking up and not finding a character should become a real challenge now 😄
New collaboration
The Chill Chinese app got mentioned on the Explore Chinese blog. If you are looking for more resources to learn Chinese, make sure to check out their website!
What's next?
The past months brought a lot of new features to the Chill Chinese app. As we are approaching the end of the year, we are planning to take it a bit slower in December.
The main focus will be on improving the existing features and making sure that the Android app is rock solid. It is really important to get feedback from our users, so if you find anything that doesn't work as expected or if you have any suggestions, please let us know!
If you celebrate Christmas, we wish you a great time with your loved ones 🎄
