Highly recommend you try Skritter in addition to Mandarin Tap. No affiliation, just completely and utterly blown away by how much faster I could study Chinese during a year long intensive immersion course solely by using Skritter (threw away my notecards).
From experience, Skritter can reduce your weekly study requirements from hours of painful rote memorization to "roll out of bed at 9:30, study 20 minutes before weekly quiz and ace it every time". It's fun and enjoyable to use, and furthermore you can load vocab lists from textbooks, and work through them in the proper order. This means building your vocabulary in logical ways while also learning how to write Chinese.
I wish I had Mandarin Tap too though. In Skritter you can load from textbooks and customize long sentences, but I like how Mandarin Tap gives you neat categories from which to pick. This can be more expedient than working through a textbook, though working through the textbook can still be irreplaceable.
TLDR; get skritter too, it's truly an amazing piece of software. Wouldn't be surprised if the founders are on HN. It's also $10/mo recurring whereas this is $3.
[feedback after purchasing and using Mandarin Tap]
- The app's title on iPhone 4S is "LearnFastIOS", not Mandarin Tap. You can do better on the icon.
- The app doesn't scroll smoothly on iPhone 4S
- Interface is really lacking
I'm really busy today, but I may come back to Mandarin Tap when I'm more focused on refreshing my Chinese. I'm overall not impressed, for $3 I want an interface better than a poorly scrolling big long list.
I'll second Skritter if you're trying to practice character writing (which Mandarin Tap doesn't cover). They use spaced repetition and import vocab lists from textbooks, if you're using one. I picked up a cheap drawing tablet and it really helped.
I have recommended skitter in the past and received a lot of positive feedback from hn. Their mobile app is top notch. Plus they integrate with many other Chinese and Japanese learning tools so you get a good experience.
From experience, Skritter can reduce your weekly study requirements from hours of painful rote memorization to "roll out of bed at 9:30, study 20 minutes before weekly quiz and ace it every time". It's fun and enjoyable to use, and furthermore you can load vocab lists from textbooks, and work through them in the proper order. This means building your vocabulary in logical ways while also learning how to write Chinese.
I wish I had Mandarin Tap too though. In Skritter you can load from textbooks and customize long sentences, but I like how Mandarin Tap gives you neat categories from which to pick. This can be more expedient than working through a textbook, though working through the textbook can still be irreplaceable.
TLDR; get skritter too, it's truly an amazing piece of software. Wouldn't be surprised if the founders are on HN. It's also $10/mo recurring whereas this is $3.
[feedback after purchasing and using Mandarin Tap]
- The app's title on iPhone 4S is "LearnFastIOS", not Mandarin Tap. You can do better on the icon.
- The app doesn't scroll smoothly on iPhone 4S
- Interface is really lacking
I'm really busy today, but I may come back to Mandarin Tap when I'm more focused on refreshing my Chinese. I'm overall not impressed, for $3 I want an interface better than a poorly scrolling big long list.