The ChinesePod Quick Review iPhone App

Praxis Language began work on this iPhone app back in 2008, and this week the ChinesePod Quick Review app finally appeared in the iTunes store. It’s a free app, but ChinesePod subscribers will definitely find it more useful. As one of the key designers of the app, I’m pleased to explain here a bit about how it works and how to get the most out of it.

Don’t think of it as a dictionary

ChinesePod has a vast archive of lessons (well over 1000), and every word of every lesson is annotated. The same is true of the expansion sentences (sample sentences) for the key vocab. We also have audio for all key vocabulary and dialogue/expansion sentences. That’s a lot of word data, all accessible through the Quick Review app.

Even with 1000 lessons, however, the ChinesePod lexicon does not cover every obscure word in the language as you would expect of a dictionary. Its focus is on the high-frequency language in everyday situations. You could think of it as a massive phrasebook. In addition, we are constantly editing our word data to make sure that our database is always improving, covering the most important vocabulary. As our word data improves, we will be updating the app so that its data improves as well. What’s more, the app also checks ChinesePod’s online glossary, letting you take immediate advantage of the latest word data from the newest ChinesePod lessons.

Sentence-jumping bliss

OK, now here is the real beauty of the app. Start by searching for a word. Any simple word… it doesn’t really matter. I’ll use “crazy.”

Now choose a definition of that word, and then click on “sample sentences.”

You can see a list of all the sentences in the ChinesePod database that feature the word. I’ll choose one.

I see the sentence I chose at the top. I can tap it to see the English translation. I can also look down below and scroll to see each individual word in the sentence, along with the pinyin. I can quiz myself: do I know every word in this sentence? If I want to check, I can press the “P->E” button at the bottom of the interface, which switches the pinyin to English.

I can also press the audio icon. The little “down” arrow indicates that the app will need to download the audio. Audio on demand saves a lot of space and load time. After the audio file downloads, you can see that the down arrow has disappeared, and I can play the audio.

Now, for the real discovery-based learning experience, I can tap any word in the sentence from the list below, which will then look up that word. After another couple taps, I have a new list of sample sentences featuring the new word, and the loop repeats.

This “sentence jumping” is an amazingly addictive way of exploring the language, and it’s only possible with a sufficiently large database of sentences and each sentence’s individual words. Fortunately, ChinesePod has that in spades, and you know the sentences are modern usage, always relevant and useful.

Flashcard sync and review

ChinesePod subscribers can also make use of the Quick Review app’s flashcard feature. After entering in your ChinesePod login details, the app will sync your personal vocabulary list. It has immediate access to any lesson vocabulary you’ve ever saved, and it also keeps your vocabulary organized using the same labels you use in ChinesePod.com’s vocabulary manager.

The Quick Review app makes good use of the iPhone interface. First, to flip a card, instead of using the “flip” button, you’ll likely prefer to just double-tap it. Then to go to the next card, just slide your finger across the screen. You’ll find the same audio playback for the key vocabulary words you’ve saved. Notice that you also have a shuffle option, and even an “auto” review option, with customizable delay.

We hope you enjoy the app [iTunes download link], and that it enables you to study more and learn more. We have plans to continue to update the app and to expand on functionality. The same is true for the Google Android version.

Finally, I’d like to thank our CEO, Hank Horkoff, for the passion and persistence it has taken to actually get the app in the iTunes store, the lead programmer of the app, Sean Fannan, as well as John Biesnecker, who contributed ideas during the design process.

Update: Version 1.2.1 is out

Tagged as: app, Chinese, ChinesePod, iPhone, iTunes, Learning, mobile