Pleco Chinese Dictionary App Reviews

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First In-App Purchase. Wow! In over a decade, I have never purchased anything on Apple’s App Store until today. But this dictionary is just amazing! The free features are so thoughtful and easy to use, I had to see what else is on offer. I think the most useful feature is probably the “reader.” It has a browser in it. Go to any Chinese webpage, and it turns all the words on the page to links that you can click on to get a pop-up definition! Such a useful learning tool!

Incredibly wonderful!. You may find it hard to believe all the five star ratings, but I don't! I've been using Pleco for a few years now and it is not only by far the best app for learning Chinese, but also the best of the hundreds of mobile apps I've ever used. I've purchased everything Pleco offers and have no regrets whatsoever. I may have spent more money on this one app than all the others combined, and I still feel grateful and honored to be a supporter of the developer, who incidentally has personally answered my questions and seems to have an infinite capacity to understand and serve the needs of Pleco users both in the programming and follow up.

BEST DICTIONARY APP EVER. Pleco is ABSOLUTELY ESSENTIAL for anyone taking on serious Chinese study. I use it constantly, and even paid the extra $20 to get the extra features, because they are ridiculously useful. I’ve used various dictionary apps for various languages, and Pleco trumps them all - it has a super usable interface, a bookmark system, helpful definitions and tons of examples for most words, extra info like radicals and components, and just pretty much anything you could possibly want from a dictionary app. It doesn’t had an auto-translator, but it can totally help you understand how a word functions so you can use it properly. Pleco 我爱你！

Superb. Within the testing feature it would awesome to be able to select stroke order in “prompt for” and “show”. That way a mandarin learner could see the character being written as they hear it and are prompted to select the pronunciation and definition. That being said, I'm still finding features on this app that make it more and more convenient. For example, if you press and hold on a bookmark in your category view you can hear the pronunciation without opening the entry itself. It allows category as well as subcategories, and you can place an entry into multiple categories. I would recommend this to anyone learning mandarin, simply passing through a mandarin speaking country, and even native speakers who want a handy dictionary with highly personalized features.

Life saver. This is an amazing app! Especially if you are trying to learn Chinese!!! Not only does it understand simplified and traditional characters, it also understands any Chinese slang and idioms and translated in English for you. They provide voice of how to say the word, sample sentences and any phrases that the one character may also be contained it. I also purchased the reader extension and I use it all the time to read Chinese novels from the web. I can pull up any novel and hit the characters I don't recognize and it'll pop up the English translations. My Chinese would not be as good as it is now without this app!! Thank you developers for all your hard work!!!! 🙏❤️

Suggestion. Can you add back the testing feature that lets the button for “Reveal Entire Card” and “Mark Correct // Mark Incorrect” react at a millisecond’s pace? Before, I could very rapidly speed through reviewing the flashcards but now you can’t tap twice consecutively, there has to be two separate taps for the button to register. (You have to pause an extra millisecond or two). I know this isn’t an important feature. Just missing it badly haha

The best. A must-have for the Sino学生. I give this 10,000 stars. I began using the paid version of Pleco in college on a Palm Pilot over 15 years ago, just about as long as the app has been available, and I still study the language and continue to use this app. This app changes how quickly you can look up words, reducing the (sometimes futile) 10-minutes-long ordeal of looking up a single character in a paper dictionary, to instants. That function alone makes the app invaluable. Being able to see the radicals and their respective meanings is also supremely useful. Everything that has been added since is bonus — the reader, the etymology, the flashcards. Throughout the years I’ve encountered remarkably few bugs, and I have always been easily able to transfer my Pleco registration to every platform/smartphone I have used.

The ultimate Chinese reference. Pleco was perfect for my first Chinese classes in high school, it was perfect when I was a Chinese language major, it was perfect when I went to university in China, and it’s still perfect now that I’m a translator. Pleco really does it all. Once recommended to me by my teacher, I now recommend it to my own students. I’ve been using this app for a decade and it has never once let me down. The free version is more than enough to meet your needs, but the add-ons (by this point I’ve purchased nearly all of them!) are absolutely worth every penny. I would never have survived as a student without this app! I’ve studied nearly a dozen languages and have never found another reference app even a fraction as comprehensive or as useful as Pleco is. In a perfect world, there would be an app like this for every language!

Excellent DICTIONARY for learners!. First and foremost, Pleco isn’t meant to be a translation app. It’s a dictionary. I’ve seen one star reviews complaining about how rubbish a translation app it is, and that’s true entirely because it totally isn’t even a translation app. It’s a dictionary/character resource, and I love it! I have been using Pleco for a good five years already. It definitely has made learning Chinese a lot easier, being able to look up the individual meanings of characters has made my understanding of how this language works much better. I use the handwriting function the most, and it’s super useful. I owe my survival in China almost entirely to this app.

Indispensable tool for learning Manarin or Cantonese. This suite of study tools is so much more than just a dictionary, it has everything you need to make sense of oceans of Chinese. And they keep making it better and better! The suite of available dictionaries keeps growing and growing, and I just love the text reader and the live augmented reality dictionary where you point your phone’s camera at something around you and get the definition on the screen like magic is amazing. Recently I’ve started using the flash card functionality and it’s also great. Some of the add ons are not cheap, but for me it’s all money well spent! I’ve been using Pleco for years now and it just keeps getting better and better! Kudos to the development team. If you want to seriously study any flavor of Chinese, you NEED this suite of study tools!

¡¡¡BEST DICTIONARY EVER!!!. This is an amazing app with a variety of search options and countless text settings so that you can learn Chinese in any form in the way that is easiest for you! This includes Zhuyin, Pinyin, Traditional, and Simplified Chinese in dictionary entries. You can also type in any sound and dozens of entries will appear in order of their relevance. Each of these entries has accurate, in-depth definition(s) that help you understand the full meaning or meanings of the word. I highly suggest this app to any English-speaker who wants to study Chinese languages!

Unfreaking believable!. I’ve hit the “contact support” button on many of my other apps to solve problems. With those apps it’s taken 5-7 business days to resolve the issue (that’s if they even respond). Pleco support services on the other hand are top tier my folks. I had a problem with a flash card set not loading their support tech replied and fixed my problem within a few hours!! Not only is Pleco an amazing app to help you with your Chinese it’s also got some amazing people there to help you should you have any problems. If you don’t download this app then you’re missing out!

Best Chinese dictionary app!!!. This is the best Chinese dictionary app I’ve found. I used it when I was studying Chinese in college and now to communicate with my Chinese relatives. The clipboard reader is very helpful. I had been using the demo version of the OCR and just bought the basic bundle with includes the full version OCR. I’m happy that I have access to the full version OCR now (plus the other tools that came with the bundle) and I’m happy to support the developers of such a useful and amazing app! Thank you and keep up the good work!!

Best app I’ve ever purchased. I bought the Basic Add-on Bundle about 3 years ago. I bought it while in China purely for the OCR reader, and didn’t give much thought to the other add-one. Since then, I’ve continued learning Mandarin in my free time and I’ve come to realize one thing; when I’m studying, this app is absolutely irreplaceable. Even when I’m studying using a completely different resource, I always have this app pulled up. Even when I’m not studying, I find myself pulling up the app at least a couple times per day. I have got so much use out of it that I have no doubt in mind that it was money well spent. I’ve used it for hours upon hours, for years, and for what? For a ONE TIME payment of like $30 or w/e? Wish I didn’t buy it just so I could go buy it again lol (jk, to be clear) I could go on and on about the numerous sweet functions, but I don’t want to write a novel. I do have to give the flash card add-on a special shout out, though. It’s much better than ANY dedicated flash card app (yes, including anki!) If you’re even remotely considering buying the full version of this, DO IT. I 100% guarantee you won’t regret it.

Absolutely Amazing. I've been using this app extremely often, and it is just overall an extremely solid dictionary. A massive collection of words, definitions from multiple dictionaries, stroke order diagrams for essentially all of the relevant and common characters (28k diagrams, 5-6k or so common use characters), and a great character search feature. Perfect for learning how to read and write Chinese, my biggest problem area as a heritage Chinese speaker.

A must-have Chinese dictionary. This app has been immensely useful for learning mandarin. It’s easy to navigate since you can access the features within a single page. The definitions are simple and easy to understand, especially with the examples offered. The function for animated stroke order is especially helpful for writing practices. Additionally, the option for the Cantonese pronunciation is another handy feature for those looking to learn the dialect. All in all, this app is a great language learning resource.

Hard to praise enough. I first started using Pleco back when I had a palm pilot! I used that almost every day for studying Chinese for many years. It is beyond awesome. I finally upgraded and bought it for my iPhone & it’s exceeds expectations of course. Again, I use it for hours every day for translating and for my language study. I say thank you to the awesome developers in my mind regularly, so now I’m making it public. As an added benefit, their response to questions, problems is outstanding! Thank you developers!

Indispensable. Pleco is largely up to date with modern words and the app makes it very easy to navigate to the definitions of related characters in several ways and across different dictionaries within the app. They have been very receptive to feedback about missing entries. All in all a great app. I also like being able to add words to the user define dictionary when I don't find them in the provided dictionaries, such as with slang words. It would be nice if more such vocabulary were already included. A minor change more recently (as of Feb 2021) is a bit distracting. When I open the all, my whole iPhone screen dims to black then fades in to show the app. It didn't use to so that. The first time I opened the app after updating, I thought there was something wrong with my phone.

Amazing!!! Cross platform purchases included ❤. Let me start out by saying that this is the most useful app ever if you are starting out to learn Chinese. After I used this app for a while I decided that it was worth the money to spend on to unlock some of its more advanced features. One of the concerns I had however was that I use both my Samsung phone and iPad constantly in school. But I decided to buy for my phone. After a bit more exploration in the app I found out you can bring your purchase over!

It’s honelstly good and I’ve been using it for a year. No doubt the best Chinese dictionary on the App Store, but I believe that there should be some more features added. First there should be a handwritten method to enter a character built into the interface. Secondly the interface itself is a bit too formally structured. It’s hard to jump from entry to entry without a lot of screen digging. Plus I’m personally not a fan of the dictionary’s aesthetics and I think a the new interface should have a new design that better fits the logo. Finally, an addition where there is a way to discover new random characters. Basically having a section similar to renzo inc.’s Japanese dictionary that sends you a sea of Japanese characters to study and I think a similar idea could be well implemented into this great app. Besides these little critiques, I’m all for this dictionary

Best Dictionary App Ever, Will Die on This Hill, & + Book Plug. I can’t believe I forgot to review them, but Pleco made my Hanzi (character) studies possible, including a Mediæval Chinese dictionary and historical dictionaries featuring seal script and even oracle bone images, esp. reading works on ancient Chinese writing which I’m really into—I’m starting Dr. Paola Demattè’s awesome new book, Origins of Chinese Writing. (Hope book plugs are allowed, I wasn’t reimbursed!) Also helpful just for using handwriting recognition to quickly look up a character(s)/word and copy it, then enter it elsewhere, like to look it up on a website. And for calligraphic references, lots of fonts to play with. I can’t speak it at all or read it beyond maybe 150 characters I’ve learned, but I love the writing, start to finish.

I can't imagine how I ever did without it. The unbelievably excellent dictionary app that keeps getting better. Basic dictionary is superb--- add-on dictionaries cover the needs of both basic students and seasoned Sinologists. It Handles simplified and traditional character sets; you can search with either set. And you can lookup anything you find within a definition -- (almost) universal hyperlinks. If time would take me back 45 years ago (when I began studying Chinese), I would take Pleco with me. It is my “essential” iPhone app.

Best dictionary app ever. I have a BA in Chinese Language and this app has always been a huge part of my study and language training since I started learning. The inclusion of major dictionaries like the 漢語大詞典 or Paul Kroll’s Student Dictionary of Classical and Medieval Chinese are what set this app apart from anything I have ever used. From the sample sentences, to the character breakdown and stroke order guide, this app is truly one of the most powerful learning tools for Chinese ever made. There are some things that I think could improve the app: grammar drills and a dictionary for 閩南語 and other dialects of China and the Chinese Diaspora.

Incredible App - One bug to report. I love Pleco and have bought basically all the add ons. It is incredible. I use it often on an M1 iPad connected to a monitor. When using it this way, however, upon marking (correct/incorrect) the final card of a round of spaced-repetition flash cards, nothing happens. I need to close the app, re-open it on my iPad, mark the final card of the set, and only then can I reopen it on my monitor to go through the second round of the flashcards. Just wanted to put this here so that perhaps it may be resolved. Regardless, the app is amazing, I use it more than any other app by far.

If serious, get it, give them your money. I studied in China for a year, at this point I think I’m almost at an HSK 5 level (out of 6), and honestly I think I owe that to Pleco. I don’t know where I would be without this thing. I bought the professional bundle, it’s super easy to look up words and get a bunch of examples, add to Flashcards and test yourself in a variety of different ways, they even have a BUILT IN WEB BROWSER where I can find any Chinese article I want, tap on words I don’t know, and immediately it pulls up a little definition of it on the web page. And then I can add it to my Flashcards from there. It’s AWESOME. Also they have a ton of short stories (“graded readers”) and abridged Chinese classics fit to different levels of students (500 words, 1000 words, etc.) to help your reading comprehension. If you’re serious about studying Chinese, you are making your life significantly harder by not getting this app. I just wish they had an equivalent for other languages 😢

The best Mandarin dictionary app EVER made. The fact that this app is free is insane. It is SO WELL DEVELOPED. It loads up super quick unlike the crappy, clunky, bloated NAVER Korean dictionary and lets you quickly look up words you want to say. This is super indispensable when watching a Chinese drama or when talking with a friend and you need to look something up - I don’t want to wait 5 second for an app to load. The app has a great design and clean, intuitive UI. Top notch HSK reference. Another thing that’s amazing is that it has the voice recording for each word so you can practice reading the pinyin.

Best Chinese Dictionary App. I have searched through dozens of apps to aid me in learning Mandarin. I have ended up using this app more than any other. In my opinion, it is the most comprehensive and well designed dictionary app I’ve been able to find. Three of my favorite features are, 1: The multiple explanations and definitions for each word, 2: The clipboard reader, where I can easily look up words in a long paragraph, 3: The add-on for character stroke order. Keep it up Pleco! Note to developer: For the most part I really like the design of the app. However, one thought I’d like to mention is that sometimes all the definitions for a word start to run together. Myself and others have noted that it could be helpful to have a graphical design hierarchy that makes it easier to differentiate the various definitions, especially when there are many. Thanks for the app!

Love this app!. I’ve been using this app for years now, and I absolutely love it. The app is an amazing Chinese dictionary with simplified and traditional characters. You have the option of typing the pinyin, writing out the character, or even voice search to find your definitions! I also like the little things like being able to look over your history of searches and saving favorite words (which can come in handy when listing ideas for Chinese baby names). PLUS, in all these years I haven’t seen a single ad, and the features I’ve described are all free! Update: Freezing issues are gone. Thank you! :)

A must for learners. This app is so helpful for Chinese learners. It provides a multitude of pssoble terms you may be searching for, parts of speech, example sentences for use, and all possible definitions/uses of a particular term or character... all for free! My only complaint would be that the voice that reads it aloud is somewhat robotic, and does not do 儿化音 correctly (点儿 should be pronounced diǎr, not diǎn er, etc). However, this is a very, very minor issue in a great app. If you are learning Chinese, you MUST get this app. It is a necessity.

Wonderful learning tool at an amazing price.. I started with the free version of this app and then added on the flash cards ($10) and then loving that, went ahead and got the professional bundle ($60). First off, I love the fact that you can get these tools permanently for a one time payment (versus subscription pricing). If you want to learn Mandarin, I would not hesitate to recommend you go ahead and buy the professional bundle. I am only currently using a fraction of the functions it provides and think it is already well worth the $60. The one thing I would note is that if you want to get the most out of this app, you should look up online how to use and customize the features. For example, the flash card system is highly (and usefully) customizable but it is not immediately obvious how to customize them without an additional online resource walking you through it. Overall, great app, great price!

The Gold Standard for all levels of students of Chinese. I have been using this app for 5 years now. Pleco is one of the "root-level must-have" apps to help you study Chinese, Traditional or Simplified, Taiwanese, Cantonese, etc. Hakka notations, Graded Readers, additional dictionaries, expressions, text captures from street signs etc. are part of the embedded options that make PLECO the outstanding tool that it is. I'd be remiss if I didn't send a big THANK YOU to the admin and developers teams who constantly update and improve the app.

What are your language goals?. This is for anyone who really wants to learn Chinese. If you are truly interested in mastering a language then usually you cannot rely on one app alone; You need all sorts of learning material, however, this app is so useful that one who takes advantage of the flash cards and dictionaries will be on their way to fluency. I am glad I can review this app again. It is an excellent application. Very efficient, very diverse and super broad with the ability it has and the definitions it has. I'm very pleased and recommend this to anyone. I first used the free version and it was fantastic, now I have all the upgrades and it was worth the cost. Thank you

The only app I need--one request!!. I've tried all of the other Chinese dictionaries and flashcard apps, and this one is the best and most comprehensive. I recommend buying the add-ons, especially the outlier dictionary. Super interesting to see the origins of characters. The prices are fair and one-time, which I really appreciate in a world of subscriptions. One request: please make an instruction manual or something for the settings! There are so many settings and features, which is great, but no explanations of what they do and difficult to find how to use them online. I've been experimenting and realizing how much potential is in the flashcard system, but it's a very high learning curve to utilize it. Otherwise, perfect app don't waste time/money on others!

ABSOLUTELY ESSENTIAL FOR CHINESE. If you already speak Mandarin or Cantonese or would even like to start learning, this is HANDS DOWN, THE most powerful tool you will EVER find in helping you improve. I have spent countless hours downloading many, many other Chinese learning apps and tools and this is by FAR the best, and the amazing people at Pleco aren’t slowing down in their drive to continually improve the apps tools and dictionaries available. Don’t waste your time looking at other Chinese learning or dictionary apps, you absolutely will not regret getting Pleco.

Top notch dictionary for the aspiring Chinese learner. This dictionary is easily the best dictionary to have in hand when studying Chinese. I used the basic free version for 2 years as my constant reference for both summers in spent traveling in China and for language studies while on the bus, in a coffee shop, or listening to podcasts in Chinese. After adding the basic paid features package, I get even more out of Pleco. Particularly the document reader and flash card system are my most frequently used add-ons. It's great to just snap a picture and have instant access to just tap on a character and see the translation. Great for help with restaurant menus, short articles, and signage. It made 上海博物館 much more enjoyable. Finally, I'll add that I love that the Pleco team is constantly improving their app. The singular complaint that had sent me to other sources in the past was the lack of parts of speech, and the occasional lack of example sentences for some less common words; making it hard to understand without the sufficient context. With the newest update of the freely provided dictionary, parts of speech are being added with further example sentences! Pleco is easily the first choice of Chinese -English dictionary for any user at any price point. About me: Intermediate Chinese Level Primarily a self-studied learner with the great help of podcasts and apps like Pleco! Pleco user for more than 3 years (I think?)

Must have. Pleco is the single best language learning tool I have ever used, after 10 years of Japanese ands 5 in Spanish. It’s not an a exaggeration to say that if it weren’t for Pleco, I wouldn’t bother trying to learn Mandarin. The ease in buying and reviewing multiple dictionaries, drilling into character components and viewing related characters, creating and reviewing flash cards, reading with lookups, I can no longer live without. It’s a tight and beautiful ecosystem that’s extraordinarily functional in a way that most modern apps aren’t. I love you Pleco dev(s). If I had a feature request…. and I’m on one knee here, if y’all ever add a way to get modern AI TTS voices into the reader, my heart and my wallet are both open.

Used Pleco in China. I took a trip to China. I know basic Chinese but not nearly enough to be fluent, just enough that my knowledge and dictionary aid would get me to not be completely lost if I were to travel there alone. Pleco was that dictionary aid. Completely offline, my phone in airplane mode for most of the trip, both I and the Chinese people I talked to who couldn’t speak English used this dictionary in order to conversation back and forth. It was the best dictionary aid I could ask for, absolutely spectacular. I will say that a few times I would type a (advanced) word in and show it to a native Chinese speaker and they would still be confused. I will chalk that up to language nuance between a rigid dictionary and someone who casually speaks the language. And I’ve learned so many words that I could conveniently bookmark to memorize later! This app has it all. Zero complaints. If I get into more advanced studies of Chinese I will buy an add-on or two.

A polyglot's Gold standard. For context-driven Chinese language dictionaries this should be the gold standard. Clear exposition but what really sets this app apart is the minimalist user friendly interface. By letting every word be a navigation to more learning that makes you want to discover more. Only on the free base dictionary now but considering purchasing additional as I am so impressed. I wish there were clearer ways to save lists, ie if you were assembling a list of proverbs that all mimic a language pattern you should be able to tell Pleco to selectively save and annotate. Still a 5/5 app

Always the best. Always the best, I just wish they would update more often or finally come out with version 4 that they’ve been talking about for ten years now. A lot of features I’ve asked for have been put into this mythical beast, and I’m ready for them. With that said, don’t even download other Chinese apps. This one is the best. It’s a dictionary, a flash card manager, an ebook reader, and more. You won’t regret your free download, and you won’t regret the paid addons!

The best app as you learn Chinese. Pleco is the best set of dictionaries for learning Chinese (which is a never-ending process). It has helped me with everything from reading signs to learning how to write characters to remembering 成语Chinese proverbs. Flash cards are easy to add and the range of choices for how to review them makes them effective. At the beginning and right through advanced level, Pleco has been a godsend! I hear people going for other Chinese dictionaries and translation apps, mostly because they’re free or cheaper. Overall I believe every some are improving but honestly, if you’re learning the language, don’t even bother with them. I recently looked at one, and they didn’t even know that the example they posted was incorrect. Plus you may have to use multiple apps to cobble together a decent review system, and the support can’t compare. Pleco gets so many 5 star reviews because it’s excellent. If you have any questions or problems, their help is fast and real. Just get it.

An Honest App Who Does More Than Advertised. So often in the Apple store, I’m asked to buy subscriptions to things that may or may not work. Or, I buy something that is no longer supported, and yet it appears again as a similar App with a slightly different name for which I have the “opportunity” to buy again. Not so with Pleco. I’ve had this app for years, and it’s always been updated. I purchased the modules that I purchased, and they haven’t rung more money for me. They’ve made improvements to the software during this time without complaint or blush. They are what an app should be in the App Store but so often is not. If you want to learn Chinese, you need this app, Period.

Revolutionized my study of Chinese…again. I read a lot of obscure texts, and Pleco makes all the difference. It helps me look up words fast, then quickly create flashcards to build new words into my vocabulary. The one thing I regret is that for the past few years I cheaped out on dictionaries, and didn’t buy many of them. My reasoning was that since I had paper versions of them, why buy the electronic versions? Big mistake. This month I bought the Grand Ricci, the Hanyu Da Cidian, the Chengyu dictionary—well, basically all of the big ones. I’m really glad I did. When you read a text, it finds complex compounds that you would never think to look up in a bigger dictionary. So, if you use Chinese in your profession, get Pleco and buy those dictionaries. Oh, here’s some dictionaries I wish it had: Hucker, A Dictionary of Official Titles; Brunnert and Hagelstrom, Present Day Political Organization of China. Update: still love it like crazy. I really also would still very much like to see Brunnert and Hagelstrom (which is in the public domain) and Hucker. Lately I've really gotten into working systematically with flash cards. It's a great feature!

Excellent for all levels. I have been using Pleco for over 10 years. At first, I thought of it as a novelty, but when I bought the Hanyu Da Cidian, everything changed. No longer did I have to mess with the index volume, then find the proper volume for the entry, then thumb through to find the entry, by which time, I had forgotten what I was reading. Pleco provides multiple dictionary entries on one screen. An added benefit is that the cost of Pleco versions of the HYDCD, and other dictionaries, is a small fraction of the hard copies. The interface is also very sophisticated.

Don’t know how I did before I had Pleco. I barely remember the days when I had shoe boxes full of flash file cards. Now it is a lot easier to cram in more characters while at the coffee table, the doctor, the super market check out...Also I can now read novels on a level that would have taxed my patience looking up unknown characters in paper dictionaries. Also it is great to have not only Mandarin but also Kun and On readings. As of yet there are no Japanese, Korean, etc dictionaries but I dare to hope... This app is a boon, thanks for having it made that good!

Best app & suggestion. This is the best app for language learning. One suggestion. For those who learn Japanese, the “imiwa?” app will automatically translate copied text. Let’s say I used Google translate for a sentence, then wanted to confirm the correctness of the words. I copy the Japanese sentences and when I open “imiwa?” it displays the sentences up top and below the entries for each of the words. Pleco does this if you paste the sentences in the top search. But to have it like “imiwa?” automatically get my clipboard copy and display when opening up would be nice.

You NEED this app for chinese.. The free version gives you a very good dictionary wrapped in a perfect, customizable interface (with dark mode!). This is better than any physical or online dictionary, since it's right there on your phone / tablet. The paid dictionaries can be purchased separately from the bundles and add much more to the app's content, but although I would highly recommend purchasing them (with the professional bundle; it saves you hundreds of dollars), the built-in dictionary is already great.

Pleco is unbelievably useful for studying Chinese. This application is insanely great, and the developers behind it have incredible integrity. If you’re serious about speaking Mandarin, you’ll want Pleco. After 2 1/2 years of intensely studying Mandarin, I can say without hesitation that it is the single most important tool in my toolbox. Beyond all of the amazing features and functions of this app, there’s another feature that isn’t apparent: Plecoworks perfectly anywhere in the world. E.e.,I am a westerner who has traveled to China twice for language study. As many of you already know, most of the learning tools we use in the Western world, like Google translate, do not work in mainland China. However Pleco has been flawless.

Best virtual English-Chinese dictionary for me so far :). User interface is easy to use and adapt. If you remember the pinyin but forgot how to write it in Simplified/ Traditional chinese, just put it in and boom, come a list of results with similar pinyin and their respective meaning. I also usually find myself stumble upon sentences with weird sentences structure, looking up separate chunks of word, each with example sentences, greatly help in unclogging the sentence meaning. I have come a long way in my Chinese learning process thanks to this app, thank you developers :)

An Absolute Essential. I have been learning Chinese for almost three years and am currently a graduate student in Nanjing China. Pleco has been the single most important learning tool throughout my entire time learning Chinese, I owe SO much to this beautiful little app because the journey to while I am now (hsk6) would have been so so so so so much more difficult without Pleco. It's not even a question, YES YOU NEED THIS APP. And get some add ons if you're serious, I guarantee you if this app cost $200 it will still be worth every penny for people who are really serious about studying and improving their Chinese. Thank you Pleco, so much.

Top must have if learning Mandarin!. This app is an absolute essential for anyone learning Mandarin. I cannot tell you how many times a day I’ve used it over the last 10 or so years of learning Mandarin and living in China. Comprehensive dictionary with audio in make and female voices, example sentences, a nice library of dictionaries to download, stroke order demo and practice, and so much more! After all these years my only complaint is that I often run across British English expressions in the definition or example sentences that leaves this American needing another dictionary to translate! Ex. “chop and change”. Huh??

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Hands down Best app for learning Chinese!. Do you want to learn, improve on, or perfect your Chinese/Mandarin/Cantonese? This app is unparalleled and is essential for anyone bilingual in Chinese and English. Hands down you will not regret getting Pleco and making any purchases for the in app premium dictionaries.

good and safe for the past two days I’ve got you all your thoughts about the things. No

excellent dictionary. I started using this on the recommendation of other students in my Chinese class and have since purchased two things : stroke order diagrams; and OCR. The extensive sentence usage examples are great and the live OCR is so handy I've stopped using iPhone's handwriting feature when looking up Chinese characters. If you are not keen on paying for the add-ons, just download the free dictionary packs - but not all are relevant and not all have pinyin so read the description first.

nice. Really is fantastic, but would be even better with a text box at the bottom so you can compose text, instead of having to search in pleco and then having to cut and paste into another app. I know this just a dictionary, but feel it would be so much more useful if I were able to search for the word I want at the top, and then be able to compose text (letters or messages) at the bottom. Even just a button on the bottom left that launches a 'notepad' or something like that. A dictionary is useful but when you're trying to compose free text it is very limited, searching for a character, select and cut the character (or remember the pinyin and general shape of the character), then open a text based app, paste the character (or hope you have remembered the pinyin correctly AND select the correct character), then compose some more before getting stuck again, then having to exit the app, go back into pleco and do it again and again. Just wish there was a way to compose and search at the same time in this one app, would be a lot better. Anyway, that's my feedback, thanks.

BEST APP EVER. this is the best app ever! it is so helpful and shows stroke order, pronunciation and example sentences. you can search for words in chinese and english. great for beginner chinese students

Superb app. Great app, great dictionary. Sometimes the cited meanings are quite old fashioned

So expensive. Everything there is so expensive so i only try the demo

Your best fiend for learning Chinese. I have been studying Chinese for 18 months now and every step of the way Pleco has been an invaluable aid. I have bought most of the add-ons overtime and they were worth every cent. Once you move into grammar when acronyms like S.V. (Stative verbs) become meaningful the explanations given in Pleco are a lot more enlightening than my teachers' (e.g. now I understand when to drop 'is' in a sentence). Thank you for such a superb app!

Download with confidence 👍. When I studied and learnt Mandarin, late 80’s, there were no apps. Internet? What’s that? (we had no internet back then. wow!) If I’d had this app back then, it would be my *go to* reference. This app will : ✅ save countless hours ✅ make the whole process much faster ✅ vastly improve comprehension ✅ vastly improve understanding ✅ vastly improve character learning and meanings Even now I use it to look up unfamiliar words or expressions; breakdown the characters and their meanings; PLUS I get to hear them, see the stroke order, see the radical and it’s meaning...all at the touch of a button. Absolutely brilliant app that’s been researched and developed to perfection 👍👍👍👍👍 To the few who give bad reviews, try looking up a character using a traditional Chinese dictionary, a dictionary with paper pages. What radical is it? How many strokes? This app makes characters a breeze. All we had was “top to bottom, left to right, closing stroke last”. Brilliant. I’d give it 10 stars if I could. This is one of the most professionally designed apps available (I used to be a programmer, so I do know, and, kudos to the coders) It’s brilliant, and far ahead of anything else. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Very smooth interface , comprehensive. Great app. Highly recommended. Would be great if you could input notes on dictionary entries, especially because sometimes there aren’t many example sentences

Flashcards and stroke order diagrams are great!. I purchased the basic bundle addon, and received flashcards, stroke order animations as well as a bunch of other stuff. Flashcards are excellent, and you can easily import files from the Pleco forums as well as other sources (or u can create ur own). Stroke order animations support both traditional AND simplified! Support was excellent: I sent an email and posted on forums, and got a response 10 minutes later!!! WOW!!! Very pleased with Pleco, and the in-app purchases are well worth it, if a little dear in comparison to other iPhone app prices. Quality stuff.

THE BEST. This app is the single main factor to me not failing chinese

The OCR is great fun. I've just started using the OCR to read the instructions on my kid's Kindy homework. The OCR setting can automatically 'snap' the words it recognises into a flash card bank. Review on the train without any extra setup. It's SO efficient. I love it. (Next... Cantonese!) **I wrote this review 6 years ago and Pleco is STILL my most used app. My 'Kindy kid' is now starting P6 in a CMI school and his sibling is starting P1. She's lucky to be BORN into a world with a Pleco App that now has Cantonese. Even though not designed for kids, they love the character order quiz. The traditional radical system dictionary option is great for reinforcing new words. I just love this app. It has quite the fan base in our FB parents group for non canto kids in canto schools.

Best Mandarin App. Love this app if you are learning mandarin it’s a must

Incomparable. The best app of its kind. I use it daily, from flash cards during my commute, to decoding newspaper headlines. A must for any student of Chinese.

Amazingly comprehensive Chinese learning app. This app is the single most useful app for anyone learning Mandarin, whether at beginner or advanced level. It includes Chinese handwriting recognition; Chinese optical character recognition; all sorts of add-on specialist dictionaries including business, medical, French, German & historical; a variety of available fonts including cursive fonts; the most customisable flash card system for many different learning styles; support for both simplified and traditional characters; pinyin & zhuyin; a variety of voices enunciating characters and phrases including both male and female voices; Cantonese romanisation allowing different styles which can be displayed in a dictionary entry in addition to the pinyin; and much more including stroke-order and component information. This app could also be used by Mandarin-speaking students learning English and/or Cantonese and Cantonese speakers learning Mandarin &/or English.

Very useful app. Awesome app! One question: I just got a new phone and downloaded the app. Because I bought the basic bundle package on my last phone is there a way to get it on my new phone or do I have to buy it again?

Must have - be kind to yourself and buy the whole pack!. this is an incredible app. I have been studying Mandarin for three years now. When I started, I looked for a good dictionary. Having learnt other languages in the past, I knew a really good dictionary saves hours and hours of study. I took the plunge and paid for the top package of Pleco and have never regretted it. Highly functional, fast, the sound files are great; the example sentences are incredibly useful; the OCR features are awesome and unbelievably useful; the description of the characters is fantastic; being able to import characters in many ways is incredibly useful; and I could go on and on. I can’t tell you highly enough how good this is. When you think I might have spent on language lessons, this is a small amount of money and will save you so much time. Be kind to yourself, and you will not regret it. Pay for the top package. Go on - do it!!

Superb app!. I’m an intermittent Mandarin learner and this is my indispensable assistant when studying, browsing or travelling in China. It is reliable , comprehensive, packed with useful features and I just couldn’t do without it.

Christmas day is Confucius' birthday??! WHAT?!. I checked the dictionary the word Christmas in Chinese language. It says birthday of Jesus, and down below it says birthday of Confucius!!! What on earth??!! you guys better change this, very very wrong!

Very good dictionary. I haven’t purchased any add ons so I’m just using it as it is. You can type the word in English you want the definition for and it will also have audio for it in Mandarin and Cantonese! You can also enable Cantonese voice input translate and gives you the word. I had to go to Settings>Audio and under speech recognition. Very useful app to learn Cantonese/Mandarin!

High-quality software. It is a real pleasure to use software that is this well designed. Such clever user interfaces and a user experience that shows the designers have put in a lot of time and effort to understand what the user needs.

A Really Excellent Dictionary. Using just one search bar, you can either type English or Chinese, and it will find the translation in the other language in no time. It also has a large database of Chinese phrases. So, you can type multiple words in Chinese, and if they form a phrase, it will tell you the meaning. If not, it will tell you the individual meaning of each word on the same page. Really awesome! One REALLY nice feature is the 英/中 button in the app, and when that button displays 中, it allows you to type in Chinese WITHOUT having to switch your keyboard language! One drawback I’ve found is that it very rarely is not able to find some phrases. Hence, the less than perfect score.

Par excellence. Pleco is the best. Checking on meaning of words by stroke count or root tables was a horror. In pleco even when one has written a character inaccurately it provides versions of the character that is similar to the one you have wrongly wrote. Best dictionary as well.

Very useful. Used this app on recent visit to China. Best feature is doesn’t cost anything and can use off line. Worked a treat for me.

More than a dictionary. I have used Pleco for many years and it is simply wonderful. The increasing support for Cantonese has been incredibly helpful, as this is what I have switched my study focus to. The handwriting lookup makes searching for characters super fast, and the voice recognition works surprisingly well. The development team are constantly putting out updates to improve the app and add features. They seem to genuinely care about user experience and never include ads or nag screens to encourage you to purchase add-ons. It should be noted, however, that the add-ons are well worth the money.

Flash cards are a joke. I am trying to explore pleco flash cards to anki and when I export them, I want 3 categories-Hanzi, Pinyin and the English translation. However when I do this, the English translation section always includes paragraphs of 'example sentences' which I cannot seem to separate. Not only does this make it difficult to read the flash cards, but it basically reveals the answer when I am doing an English-Chinese review, which defeats the entire point of doing the exercise in the first place. How can I separate a simple English words from the mountains of example sentences in the flash cards? This should be much more intuitive.

Best app for Mandarin learning by far. I’ve been using this app way before the iPhone. Love it. Thanks very much for your continued effort.

Download this app. Amazing and makes me confident

The Best. I've been learning Chinese for 8 years. I've tried many other dictionaries but Pleco is THE ONLY ONE worth using. My favourite feature is the large characters you can learn to copy their stroke order if you're learning how to write. FANTASTIC! And their backup service is the best. And they just keep making it better n better. Thank u Pleco.

best money i have ever spent on an app. the free version is very good, especially on ios, but it’s worth upgrading to paid. it’s just so refreshing to see an app that doesn’t run on the subscription model — the one-off price is such a reasonable price for what you get. pleco just works. it’s functional. you can do everything you need to do and nothing you can’t. you pay for it and then you get to keep it and transfer the data to other software. it’s not always intuitive or gamified or animated or whatever but the FAQ is clear comprehensive. you can buy further expansions but they’re not advertised in-app. it’s such an old school approach. we didn’t know how good we had it back in them days thank you pleco i’m crying now hope you’re happy

Best Chinese Dictionary. Been using this app for several years and it rarely lets me down. It’s a no brainer honestly. I do have one critique though, and that is there should be a way to filter by word class. It’s really frustrating sometimes, especially when results are swamped by words that are included in the english definition.

Excellent!. An incredible tool for serious learners and scholars of Chinese. Yes, some of the add-ons are expensive, but it’s worth it for this much reference material and learning assistance in your pocket.

Chinese dictionary. Could you please add a Chinese definition dictionary. Like not just the English translation and definition but also Chinese definitions as well. Thanks

Essential for the Chinese learner. Although it may be called the Pleco Chinese Dictionary, this app is so much more than simply a dictionary, especially if you buy the paid add-ons. In my opinion, the most valuable of these are handwriting recognition, which makes looking up unknown characters a breeze, and audio pronunciation, something a paper dictionary doesn't have, and other apps or web based Chinese dictionaries tend to be quite clumsy about. And recently got the Chinese-Chinese Guifan dictionary add-on, well worth it.

The best Chinese learning app available. Best Chinese learning app going. Optical character recognition, superb handwriting recognition, flashcards, the works. It transformed my learning. The after-sales support is excellent, too – Mike Love, the developer, responds quickly to all enquiries. I cannot speak highly enough of Pleco.

Truely the best dictionary app out there. ^^^

Just get this. Definitely the best one out there for any students learning Mandarin. I use this several times a day. Now it looks more beautiful with the recent revamp. I got the paid upgrade, which seemed to be pricey at first but proved to be extremely useful; almost always using the stroke order, characters info (radical + compounds) and sample sentences. But the live OCR isn't exactly usable and the setting/customisation can be a pain; you have no idea what most options are for. Sometimes there's the indication of regional usage but most commonly used words aren't noted so sometimes I end up using words that are only appear in newspaper. I found the Chinese-French dictionary to be particularly useful, it has a lot of slang words/expressions. Even sometimes has the Chinese names for brands and stores.

Powerful but flash cards update?. A very useful app that I’ve bought multiple add ons for and feel like I got my money’s worth in both dictionary (great already when free and very slightly improved with add ons) and flash cards (purchase only), and the integration between the two helps. Lots of customisation, which I tend to hope for (eg. I love black screens, prefer smaller font sizes, and have preferred colours for each of the four tones - all of which I was able to get to just my preference with Pleco. There’s much more than this, of course). As for flash cards, what makes it awesome is the combo of varied options for learning patterns (eg. you get to customise the spaced repetition or even whether spaced repetition is used at all) and the types of task you do (from traditional flash cards to multi choice and gapfills, from reading based to listening based, with a focus on characters or a focus on pinyin or both, etc). Why only three stars then? A few things could greatly improve the app: Most of all - a massive flashcard update has been touted for years and never come. I put extra money into just hoping it’d encourage them to get there quicker and thinking it’d pay off in the end. Almost 4 years later and the idea seems to have been dropped. :( The UI is a bit chaotic in its organisation. A lot could be done to make all the options more user friendly and accessible, and some terminology could be better clarified. The only way to install publicly produced flash cards is through a complicated: download on a PC, then drag and drop in through iTunes, then unpackage in the app. It’d be nice to be able to either browse and download in Pleco itself (ideal) or at least through a browser on your phone/tablet straight to Pleco.

Extremely useful language tool. As a native English speaker, this tool is absolutely fantastic with helping to learn Chinese. Couldn’t recommend more strongly!

Great dictionary. Would suggest revising the current listings for character components as some are actually incorrect despite appearance (e.g. 容 has nothing to do with 谷, and 刮 has nothing to do with 舌). The compounds section should be split so that one list is for associated characters through semantic means (e.g. 金 in 銅) and the other through phonetic (e.g. 同 in 銅). Character breakdown and analysis would also be helpful (this can be found on Wiktionary). Not deducting a star since some of this info is little-known, but otherwise, this dictionary is fantastic.

Pleico. Use it all the time. Fantastic app that is chock full of great Mandarin information.

Most useful learning tool I know. I use Pleco for studying Mandarin. The range of tools available in this app enhance my learning no end. To identify a character simply by drawing it, then it not only defines it but teaches stroke order and radical, both traditional and simplified versions, and how it is used in the lingo. A bilingual dictionary as comprehensive as Pleco's would be much too heavy to carry around. I combine it with the Chinesepod app, which is a comprehensive series of audio lessons, I cross-reference the dialogue in the audio with the definitions and characters in Pleco and learn heaps. I thoroughly recommend both of these apps to any student.

Exceptionally functional. Pleco is almost perfect. Personally I would love a tab that shows which lists a word or phrase is a member of in addition to the sentences the subject appears in and its decomposition.

Absolutely useless app. This app simply can't translate simple sentences like "which way is bus stop or train station". Why develop an app which can't do simple functions like this? This must be the most expensive and ripoff app in App Store. No speech recognition function at all. There are better apps cheaper and more functions than this. Google translator is free but does similar function. App is not user friendly at all.

Pleco is great. This app is so good I know refer to other apps as 'Japanese Pleco', 'Korean Pleco' and so on. Unfortunately no app can compare to this in complexity and all-around consistency in the final product. Try this app and be amazed: it's great stuff.

Amazing. This is the best Chinese-English dictionary, learning with strokes, words I’ve ever seen 11/10-IGN (FAKE!)

great. hmm just like a 2nd google dictionary, it can understand and give you result of word in both Chinese and English.

Qual. Quality app, all round excellent. Everyone uses this. Now has // marker for separable verb-obj constructions. Sadly doesn’t seem to be explained anywhere, but you work it out. Also now has graded readers for the 4 classic novels (advanced learners only). One problem: they say the vocab for the readers is a maximum of hsk 5. This appears to be false - I’ve see hsk 6 words. (update: see developer’s response - thanks)

the most useful app on my phone. seriously, this app is fantastic. an absolute essential if you’re learning Chinese

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The Best There Is!. The most satisfying software purchase I have ever made. In terms of features, usefulness, upgrades, and support, the software developer all others should aspire to. Thank you Michael Love for 10+ years of awesome product delivery!!

Invaluable app. Certainly one of the most useful apps of its kind. Has everything and then some. When I travelled in China, everyone at the hostels had this app. The reader with pop-up definitions is so helpful. Flashcards that can be customized any way you want to learn. Very well thought out.

Best place for personal development of Chinese. Great for exploring Chinese and seeing the relatedness of words. Essential.

Most-used app on my phone. My favourite tool is breaking down the hanzi. Made Chinese characters so much easier, and fun to think up little stories. My chinese friends have no idea why I find 统 so funny. But beyond that, Pleco does everything you want, better than the alternatives, and it's so quick and easy to bounce between tasks. Example - going through my new flashcards category. 阿萨姆... no idea. Flip to the dictionary, ah, place in India (was on my fav milk tea drink, thanks Pleco OCR). Look at 姆, flip to stroke order, not what I expected. Break it down into 女,母. Check out some interesting sentences with 母, add a couple new flashcards. Back to 阿萨姆, I listen to the pronunciation, doesn't even interrupt my streaming radio. And pick up where I left off with my flashcards. Amazing. How long would that take bouncing between different apps? x hundreds (eventually) of hanzi? Half of that required buying the basic add-in package, but worth every penny.

Handy little app. Been using this app for years and it’s super handy.

Six stars. 謝謝🙏

ESSENTIAL Chinese Dictionary!. This app has to be one of my largest investments ever and I am proud to say it was, and still is the best Chinese learning app ever. The customizations are endless, the words and internal dictionaries are stocked FULL of words, even new idioms and internet slang. Props to the developers: you guys really knew what people wanted. Excellent job guys!! 多谢你呀！！

Best Chinese dictionary app, hands down. I've relied on it for almost a decade.

A VERY UNIQUE APP THAT HAS HELPED ME IMMENSELY TO LEARN MANDARIN CHINESE!. I HAVE USED GOODREADER FOR QUITE A LONG TIME NOW AND I CAN SAY THAT IT IS A PURE MARVEL. IT IS WORTH EVERY PENNY YOU INVEST INTO IT! IT IS NOT ONLY AN ABSOLUTE MUST TO STUDY CHINESE, BUT ALSO TO WATCH MOVIES OR VIDEOS DIRECTLY WITHIN THE APP ITSELF AND SINCE YOU CAN SPLIT THE SCREEN INTO TWO WINDOWS , STUDYING WITH GOODREADER MAKES YOUR STUDIES A SHEER PLEASURE! I HAVE LOST ALL MY APPS AND WAS VERY UNHAPPY TO HAVE LOST THIS ONE, BUT THE DEVELOPPER WAS KIND ENOUGH TO SEND ME BACK MY REGISTRATION ID, IN ORDER TO RECOVER ALL MY PURCHASES. I CANNOT THANK HIM ENOUGH! BUY THIS APP…YOU WON’T REGRET IT PLUS IT WILL MAKE YOUR LIFE SO MUCH EASIER, NOT ONLY TO STUDY, BUT ALSO TO READ AND CARRY YOUR BOOKS AND DOCUMENTS ALONG EVERYWHERE YOU GO!

Wonderful app. A must have to learn Chinese. Wish that all dictionaries could be as well made. I used the free version for years and it was very useful and complete. I really appreciated the free version, paid options are hidden and you don't feel as if you miss part of the app. Also, there is no publicity at all. Lately, I got the paid bundle and it is quite amazing. Totally worth it even if the basic version makes quite a good dictionary. I wish I could give a six stars rating and, even then, I'm not sure it would be enough.

Indispensable app for translation. I use this often to help me communicate with my mom or translate Chinese menu items. The Chinese input works really well for looking up words.

Exceptional Chinese dictionary software for serious Mandarin learners. 6 years of using this software my original review below still holds true. The best investment you can make for learning mandarin if you take the time to setup Pleco to match your leaning style: I've been meaning to write a review of Pleco for awhile. After a year of use I feel like I've attained the status of an "advanced" user of this software and can write a meaningful review. 1st off, if you're travelling in China and are looking for something to help you with getting around this is probably not what you are looking for, as there are cheaper options out there. However, if you are a serious Mandarin learner, than apart from having a native speaker follow you around Pleco is probably going to be the most useful tool you can invest in to gain fluency. A couple of the standout features include: Multiple dictionaries with Chinese-English, English Chinese support, including the ability to import custom dictionaries of your making or language (as long as you can format them correctly) Character info: Stroke order, pronunciation, radical index etc. for most characters THE BEST Flashcard system for Character learning I have ever used. This includes multiple online websites, and standalone PC programs. You can easily import custom lists, either by fileserver or even with Dropbox support. The settings and options you can quiz yourself on are great. Customize quiz prompt by listening, by pronounciation or character. Then customize your answer prompt to multiple choice, review or even fill in the blanks by character or pinyin. So it's quite easy to set up a quiz where you have to write the characters on the phone screen, which is an amazingly convenient way to improve your writing recall of characters. I still feel like I'm only scratching the surface on what can be done with the flashcard system. Great support. Since buying this program, optical character recognition has been added, new dictionaries and countless UI improvements and bug fixes. Not only that, but I happen to use a less popular form of romanization to study with called GR, and complained on the forums that I was having trouble making flashcards with this system. A dev responded quickly with a workaround and a few software updates later, custom romanization support was added!! The Optical Character Recognition is a bit pricey at first, but now I can read menus in China so it was worth the upgrade. The whole system can feel a bit pricey when you add all the necessary add ons, and it is by far the most expensive iPhone app I've bought (over $50+ now). But even with that price tag it has been the best app for value that I own. Other students I've shown this too have considered buying an iPhone just to get this software. I haven't even mentioned the pasteboard reader (great for reading SMS from Chinese friends), web reader, tons of features included with the OCR (like flashcard creation and OCR on pictures), the list goes on, and Apple says these reviews must be to the point so I'll leave it there. If you have an iPhone, and are learning Mandarin, invest and support this great software, you won't regret it!

Nothing better. I used to carry around bulky dictionaries. Then I discovered Pleco. I often amaze Chinese people with my ability to find obscure words and phrases using this app. I use it almost everyday here in China, and wouldn't leave home without it.

BEST Chinese English dictionary. HIGHLY RECOMMEND!!!! I’ve been using app for YEARS and cannot imagine getting by without it. It has features that I wouldn’t even think of but are sooo handy, like the search function where you can select the radicals, it shows you the stroke order to write characters. Includes colloquial usage, very helpful example sentences, idioms, dialects. Dare I say it’s the perfect pocket dictionary? Because IT IS and nothing comes close. Amazing work, can’t thank you enough!

best of em all. i lived in China 7 years. Tried all the apps. This one is king by far.

It’s great, but why is it even expensive?. Pleco has been my sidekick throughout my Chinese learning journey, but one of the things that bother me is the fact that so many feature are either not there or you have to buy it. For example, only few characters have stroke order animations. What’s the point of that if I could just use an online website like YellowDictionary.com to look it up? It would also be nice if there was a feature were you copy pasted a Chinese text and it added pinyin or Zhuyin Fuhao above it. Other than that, I don’t see why the app’s features should be so expensive.

best app. The best free app to learn chinese!!!

A must have. This is simply the best Chinese-English dictionary available. It’s very practical and handy for daily life in China. The basic bundle add-on also includes handy features like flash cards for study and review.

been using for 4 years. Forgot to give my rating

Best app. Best app to learn Chinese Kudos to those who made it happen

Excellent resource!. While traveling Taiwan, Pleco was outstanding tool to help me communicate in Mandarin. It helped me compose phrases and the OCR allowed me to read signs. Very flexible learning tool that helped me very much.

Incredible resource!. Easily the Chinese language app I use the most while studying, and I keep finding new amazing things the more I use it! The basic dictionary capability is unmatched and is incredibly useful if you need to quickly look something up in either English or Chinese. The flashcard function is *incredible* - much more powerful than anything else I have used. It’s super easy and fast to create decks from anything in the dictionary and generate endless tests for yourself to test your recall of the definition, characters, audio, tones - basically anything in the entry you can test on. This app is like a Chinese language Swiss Army knife. Amazing tools for a wide range of Chinese language needs, and a well built user interface that is a pleasure to use!

Amazing. It is very to use to help you pronounce the words right 很好

No automatic or cloud backup. First off, I absolutely adore this app. But right now, I am very angry at a critical feature that is missing - automatic cloud backup. I just switched phones and it was a hurried affair because I had to trade in my old one. Apparently, iCloud does not backup and restore Pleco's database. I was shocked to learn that Pleco only has manual backup options. It's 2024 - this is unacceptable. I just lost 3 years worth of history and can never get it back.

Amazing app for learning Chinese. The most useful features are: - When you search up a character in the dictionary, you can see all the words that that character is apart of. This allows you to quickly master all the common uses of a particular character - Flashcard system is amazing. 1. It allows you to keep track of how many characters/words you know, which is nice. 2. It allows you to maintain all the characters/words you learn Highly recommend for all Chinese language learners

The best... but.... I use Pleco from the beginning and I love it, but I’ve notice the recognition is not good as the beginning. When I wrote a character, I have to write it a few time and often he don’t recognize it! Exemple “paizhao” (taking pictures), Pleco refuse to recognize the first character ... a bug ? (I’m using an “iPhone 8 Plus” with last iOS 13.2.3)

Best Dictionary Available!. The update has completely revolutionized the app, it’s really an amazing resource to search Chinese characters or English definitions and I’m really glad I downloaded it!

The best. Still cannot believe to this day that this app is free

Handwriting. It was great when handwriting was included with the free app. Though advertised as free it is not available anymore!! Why should I have to pay $13.99 to hand write when I have had this app for years!? Not happy

Needs Less Translations. Great app, love it, but sometimes I get confused as to which translation to use. Maybe try to separate the more common phrases and characters to the more literary, less used ones. This will facilitate the choice of characters and I would appreciate it a lot! Thanks!

Essential chinese app. The app for any serious chinese language student. Has it all and amazing support as well. Flashcard section indispensable. New natural voices to model after. Easily best app for learning Chinese, but also one of the best apps out there.

Love it. Very easy to use. Love that they give you the demo version of some add-ons to try. Just bought the fullscreen handwriting input. Now I can look up words a lot faster and more accurate.

Best Chinese dictionary app so far. Easy to look up components of a word , examples of how to use that word , list of double-character words using a certain character that you look up , all that with simple clics , best dictionary app so far

Best App. This is the best APP that would give you the exact meaning of word wether in Chinese or English I highly recommend it

Best 中文 dictionary out there.. I have used this app for over a decade now. Always appreciate the helpful and prompt user support.

Good, but can be even better .... Very friendly developer support. The current UI has some getting used to. It took me a while to find the things I wanted, with developer’s help. The dictionaries and pop-ups are so helpful, I wanted to do all my Chinese readings and writing (yes, writing) inside the app. Thank you for the wonderful app. Wish list - readers (web/document reader) that can translate Chinese chars to all SC/TC depends on user preference. - a writer that we can write Chinese in & have access to all the dictionaries/pop up to make sure we are using the right words/phrases. - more intuitive UI would be an added bonus.

The best ever. I’ve used this dictionary every day since it was released. What a gem!

Great help in learning Mandarin. No matter what tool I am using to learn Mandarin on my phone, I always check Pleco, as well. I use Pleco several times a week.

Essential. Simply essential for all Mandarin learners at any level, and for China travellers.

Excellent. This was worth the wait and is indispensable for anybody serious about studying Chinese. I didn't think I would need a document reader on my iphone until I discovered that I can copy and paste Chinese text messages or emails into the reader window. I can also read through a story or a website and get pinyin/English pop-ups along the way. The dictionary itself is fantastic and has every feature and function you could want. All in all, this is a very smooth application that will not only help me everyday but will also add a new level of motivation to my study.

Essential. Brilliant app. Can’t imagine life in China or work in Chinese without it. Great responsive support. Best thing on my device.

Great App.. Best app I’ve found for looking up characters.

Most useful learning aid!. The flashcards component of this fantastically well-made application is just the best. I am using it alongside an in-class course; being able to create your own cards means you don't lose yourself in the massive Chinese vocabulary, which can be discouraging. Learning this language is a long-term endeavour any way you look at it, so it's great to have a tool that can adjust to my level. The dictionary is extraordinary as well!

Incredible tool and resource. As a learner of Chinese (both Mandarin and Cantonese), I think this is the absolute BEST learning resource and tool. The add-ons are worth buying too. Thank you Pleco team for making these one-time purchases instead of subscriptions! The flashcards are awesome (I downloaded all of the pre-made HSK levels and created additional ones of my own). The built in reader/browser is also super helpful for reading web novels - I no longer need to put down my book every time I need to look something up. This app has basically replaced my entire collection of dictionaries and reference books!

Must have app if learning Chinese!!!. This app has saved me so many times! I recently moved to china without knowing any Chinese and with Plecos help have gotten through many challenges in my day to day life. It may be expensive initially but gives you back ten fold on the investment. So 谢谢 Pleco you guys are awesome!

awful. took away handwriting recognition and made it a paid feature and replaced it with stroke lookup. totally useless now!

Best learning app. A must have app for anyone learning chinese, it is incredible useful and very well designed. I have learned a lot from this app.

Revolutionary.. This app has saved my life. It is not only a language learning tool but an essential app to have. It helps study, recognize, and learn new words and find anything you need. Where do I begin? The thorough definitions, slang, bookmarks, HSK words, Cantonese included, everything is fantastic and highly recommended for anyone learning Chinese, foreigners in China, or even just bilinguals. For those who are willing to spend, the plug-ins are extremely useful. The program layout is simple and pleasing to look at. It has helped me with recognizing common slang, connections between Cantonese and Mandarin, grammar rules, and much more. There is not one day I go without using it at least once.

The best I can find, well worth the money. It has both simplified and traditional Chinese, proper pronunciation (nice lady’s voice), translation, plus more. One of my most often used apps.

Indispensable for learning Chinese. Pleco is easy to use, especially the document view where I can just tap on words that I don't know. It is feature-rich, including a live OCR feature, stroke order animations, and a wide selection of dictionaries. Most apps focus exclusively on Mandarin; with Pleco you can enable Cantonese support too!

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Changed my relationship with grandparents. This app has changed and improved my relationship with my grandparents so much. They only speak Mandarin Chinese, and I can use this app to translate on-the-fly when I visit them or call them on the phone. This app has enriched our conversations and relationship for the better. I am 100% grateful for the creators and maintainers of this wonderful tool!

Second only to dating a native speaker. As a dictionary it's quite good, as a Chinese study companion it's indispensable. I've used this app on and off for almost a decade now and the quality has been phenomenal the whole time. If you're serious about Chinese buy the professional bundle. Flashcards, extended audio, more dictionaries and stroke order are wonderful addons. The flashcards are especially indispensable for retaining what you've already studied.

can't connect to give feedback. I use and enjoy this resource a lot, and would love to help out with occasional errors I encounter in entries etc., however, the app only allows feedback from me using Mail app, and I don't use it. Therefore, I'm unable to contact Pleco! Please fix this by expanding how one can reach out to you.

Best Chinese/English Dictionary Ever. Best Chinese/English Dictionary Ever Pleco has saved me and my classmates countless times. It is the single most helpful tool for my Chinese language learning. I cannot stress enough how crucial it is for any English speaker to use it when learning Chinese. If you want to learn Chinese, you must use Pleco. You will understand once you start using it

This app is absolutely the best. I’ve studied Chinese for 3 months, and I would consider myself as a beginner. This app helps me a lot on searching vocabulary that I do not know. I like the clipboard reader feature the most. The writing tool allows me to search the word that I do not know how to read it.

Mandarin Companion Add-on. I am interested in purchasing your Mandarin Companion Add-on. Can you give me some info regarding this product? How do the books interface with the user, how does one have access to them, do the have audio? Do they include English translation?

Really helpful. I just studied abroad in China learning Mandarin, and I don’t think I could have survived homework and even daily life without this dictionary. There were so many times I had to look words up to communicate, get around/travel, and complete classwork and homework. It was even nice to change the colors on it so that the screen didn’t hurt my eyes during late night studying.

The best. Dictionary for any language. The whole package of multiple dictionaries, integrated reader, flashcards, purchasable content like stories and news articles, and more. I wish they supported languages like German and Spanish, and had a larger selection of content to purchase! My Chinese wouldn't be where it is today without Pleco.

完美. The ONLY app I have ever spent money on. The ONLY app I have ever taken the time to leave a review for. The ONLY app I have actually bought a new iPhone for. The ONLY app where the owner of the company personally helped me when I had ONE issue with it in almost TEN YEARS of using it. If you’re learning how to use Chinese, you’ll be learning how to use Pleco as well. 十全十美！

Pleco is great.. I usually don’t write reviews for apps but this really deserves one. I use this every single day and I find it extremely helpful (even though the bundles are a tad pricey). There is very little that needs to be done to improve Pleco except maybe adding a few more sentence examples since some characters don’t have them. I was serious about the pricing though- it is a bit much for most people. Either way I have to commend the Pleco team for making such a helpful and robust app. 4.5/5

Best of the Best. I’ve used this for 6+ years now, and I love it. I slowly added features and dictionaries. The flash cards are very helpful, and the live optical recognition is handy. Early on I bought the ABC Chinese-English dictionary, and last year I purchased the Oxford Chinese Dictionary, which has good example sentences. I’m quite content with this app.

Best Chinese dictionary ever. I’ve used Pleco for over 7 years now and after experimenting with other electronic dictionaries, I can confidently say this is the best one available. If you’re like me and frequently use Pleco, then do yourself a favor and purchase their add-on packs. Thank you Pleco developers for creating the most comprehensive and accessible Chinese-English and English-Chinese dictionary out there!

Helped me pass HSK 6. Downloaded this app for the first time 2 years ago when I started studying Chinese. Less than 2 months ago I passed the HSK 6 in China. This app was with me every single step of the way and made up a significant portion of my study and reference material. If you’re studying Chinese and are looking for an app to help your studies there’s simply no alternative.

Great for all skill levels. I’m an advanced learner. But this app offers a wide range of tools for all skill levels, the clipboard and flash cards being particularly useful, and the ease of use is outstanding. Thus I’ve found that this app has been more useful in my language development than any of the other services I’ve found combined.

Absolute necessity for all Chinese learners. I have been learning Chinese for 10 years, and have lived in China for 3. Pleco has been by and large the most essential tool for me along the way. You can tell the team behind Pleco is very passionate about what they do, as there are constantly improvements being made. I have recommended this app to dozens of friends and will continue to do so. Thanks Pleco team!

Priciest app I own, but worth it!. This is the priciest app I own. But for me, it's worth it. It's the most serious Chinese app I've seen yet. Today I went to request a feature (automatically importing and searching for items on the clipboard). I quickly searched through the settings, and the feature was already there. I turned that feature on, and it works great. This app has everything.

Wow!. I am a beginning student studying Chinese on my own and just found this app today after reading reviews online. I have barely been able to put it down since downloading it. So many words! I love that you can search by multiple language methods. There is also information about the characters that go into the words. I look forward to learning more about all that is available.

Thank you for this app!. Pleco is the best app for anybody who is learning Chinese. When I lived in China for college this app let Chinese people give me directions when I got lost, if I didn’t understand what they were saying this app was the mediator, and I got a perfect translation every time. Thank you so much for your hard work in designing this app.

Incredible. I honestly can’t say enough good things about this app. Incredible, absolutely amazing, best purchase I’ve ever made in my language career. Learning Chinese can be very, very hard, sometimes so hard you want to give up, and this app has saved me so many times from that feeling. A must have for anyone learning Chinese!!! And the add-ons seem somewhat expensive at first but they are more than worth it!!

Issues. I first started using the app about a a few years ago and really thrived using it. I loved having it and needed it all the time. But for some time now, every time I open up the app it freezes on the registration page and can’t even use it. I’m not sure for how many people this has been happening to but if you’re going to invest money on a product then it should function without having to delete & redownload the app. Several times in less than 5 minutes. They really need to fix these issues.

HandsDOWN THE BEST ZH-E dictionary. It is not absolutely perfect; some definitions are not perfect. That being said, this is the BEST Chinese dictionary for phones PERIOD. Flash cards, OCR reader, etc with a few extra bucks. It’s is FILLED with extra features. Even when you simply use it for free WELL WORTH THE DOWNLOAD. If you’re learning Chinese or Cantonese DOWNLOAD THIS APP!!!!

Pleco is mandatory. If you’re learning Chinese, buy the professional version of Pleco. Not having it as a resource would be like working as an investment banker without a computer. I can’t imagine learning Chinese without it. What’s even more impressive is the developer’s commitment to updating the platform and adding new features, continuing to make an already excellent platform better.

Best app for learning Chinese. Nothing compares with Pleco for learning Chinese. Looking up words has never been more interesting. I can get lost in this app for hours. I take a simple WeChat message, look up a new word, learn how to write it, save it to flash cards, look up related words. Time passes quickly and I learn more than I thought I could. I know of no other dictionary that is so much fun to use!

The best!. Best dictionary around for both mandarin and Cantonese. I love how I can see traditional mandarin and Cantonese at the same time and be able to communicate and look up words to use with family that speak both languages. Amazing! Apps like these will help preserve Cantonese from dying at the hands of the chinese communist party!

Great app. Love the app...there seems to be a bug though. I keep deleting my history - dictionary and search, but if you close the app and open it back up the history results return. Edit: bug resolved itself. My history is clear now. It wasn't clearing search results from 2 days ago but clearing any new searches. It finally cleared the 2 day old searches.

Saved my life for 5+ semesters of Mandarin study!!. Pleco is such an intuitive, simple, amazingly powerful app. It was recommended to me by my aunt (who is a native Taiwanese speaker) and it has been my saving grace throughout an entire Mandarin minor. I highly recommend it to anyone at least relatively interested in Chinese, and it is invaluable to those who are serious about studying it.

Essential for learners. Dictionary alone is great but the flash card utility is invaluable. Best and simplest compared to the alternatives. I just wish it were easier to sync between different iOS devices, or that there were a PC version of the app. Regardless, definitely the best value per dollar for any learning material if you choose to pay for this one.

Greatest online Chinese dictionary in the world. I have used Pleco for almost 10 years now on a daily basis. It is an incredible resource. Constantly improving, an amazing set of dictionaries for all purposes and levels along with features to support using the dictionaries. Can’t say enough good things about this app and the company that supports it.

A "must have" Chinese dictionary. This mobile version works better than many of the online desktop dictionaries I have used. If you are trying to learn Chinese, you need this. The free version is a lifesaver, but it becomes an even more powerful tool with the basic bundle. I use the flash card function, still OCR, web and clipboard reader functions every day.

Please update orc program. Pleco is an amazing program and I love it. It has helped me improve my Chinese reading so much. However, their orc is lacking. It was one of the first of its kind many many years ago. We just need a live screen orc that reads images more accurately. The one that Pleco has embedded is very old and doesn’t work very well. I don’t mind paying for the orc update.

Excellent App - some regional differences at advanced levels. Excellent App. A small caution, even throw the app supports traditional characters, the pronunciations are generally only given for Mainland China. If you are trying to use the App for Taiwan and maybe Singapore or US based Chinese speaking communities, you may see some differences . However there aren’t too many words with this problem- so this will only be evident on a pretty advanced level.

The premier Chinese language tool and reference. I have used Pleco for over 10 years on various platforms—it is indispensable both for its dictionary and other study aids. When students begin studying Chinese and ask what they should do, I tell them that the first thing they need to do is get Pleco. Required for English speakers studying Chinese.

Very Good but can be better. I enjoy using it for years. I hope it can be a learning tool as well. I added a few extras such as ChengYu, Proverbs, but they only appear when you searched. If it can automatically show as a daily learner in the notification(level graded), they can greatly extend the value. 期待“每日一词/语”

5 years and counting. I’ve been using Pleco as my primary study tool for five years now. Working on a Chinese-taught Master degree and still rely depend on it for looking up words and studying vocabulary. I would still recommend downloading the free version at least and buying the professional pack if you plan on studying beyond beginner level. Everyone should buy and learn to use the notecard system (unless you’re rocking Anki already). Make sure to turn on Spaced Repetition and include reviews for cards you don’t know until you get it right twice. The setting can be (are) confusing but merit thirty minutes exploring fully. If you are going for 古代汉语, you best download the 古代汉语大词典. For beginners, Pleco’s free dictionary is plenty but for advanced learners, stop using English and move over to a CH to CH dictionary. I like 现代汉语规范词典.

Best app in the App Store. No question.. The title says everything that needs to be said. This app is a model for how every app should function. It’s perfect. No complaints whatsoever, and yet always getting better. Absolutely incredible app. The creators should be proud of themselves. Thank you for all your hard work. Thank you SO much.

Excellent App!!. I’ve had Pleco since it’s earlier days on an old Windows based mobile phone. Have been using Pleco on iOS iPhone for many years since. Pleco was one of a kind dictionary back in the days and have evolved with time and have become even better and more adept as a dictionary, Chinese learning tool, etc. Michael Love’s Pleco is an exceptional product. Thumbs up!!

Incredible app. I use this app daily for my (lifelong) study of Standard Chinese. It does everything. Allows me to copy text from the web and translate words I miss. It allows me to point at characters in a book. And it has multiple dictionaries so I can always find the best meaning even if that’s not the most common one. It’s easy to understand and use. I wouldn’t be without it.

Search no more…. This one stop Chinese learning dictionary has been used by the expat community in China for over a decade. It was the reason I upgraded my flip phone to a smartphone back in 2007 and is still one of the top apps used on my phone to date. Also, I paid once in 2007 and Pleco hasn’t asked for a dime since! Buying the way buying should be… Thanks Pleco! #lifetimefan

After 10 years still the best. I first got Pleco when I lived and taught English in China 10 years ago. I stopped practicing and recently started again. After trying several other language learning programs, I came back to Pleco and it’s hands down better than all the others. Thank you for the great tool!

Best Chinese dictionary I’ve ever used. Honestly an awesome dictionary. I love the variety of settings you can change to display both traditional and simplified, and the inclusion of jyutping for Cantonese. Even without purchasing anything there is already plenty of info-rich entries in the dictionary. Get this app if you’re studying Chinese!!!

iPhones and Flashcards. My friends with androids are able to easily use the flashcards. But the people with iPhones are not able to access that amazing feature. I'm bummed out. Please change it, I can't keep borrowing their phones 😅 All in all this is an absolutely amazing app. Sorry for the 4/5 stars, I just wish the feature worked so that everyone with the app could learn with Pleco.

Perhaps the least problematic app I've ever used. After several years of using this app, I can recall it having only one glitch where the app had to be deleted and reinstalled. Very reliable app in terms of ease of use, and I like the options. There used to be more available "font" options, but times indeed do change.

Best thing ever. This app is fantastic and gets better and better. I use it constantly. If I had one wish, it would be that the word usages of a particular character were listed in order of how common they are used and not alphabetically (pinyin). If I’m Looking something up by radical, I don’t likely know it’s pronunciation. Also a dictionary search function just by stroke count alone would be nice. Regardless, this app is indespensible for a student of Chinese.

Remarkably Good!. This app is one of the quickest and most convenient ways to look up a word in English, pin yin or a Chinese character. I love that you can select each character in a word or phrase to get its unique meaning. A must have app for anyone learning Chinese, highly recommended!

Would hate to be without it!. Although my knowledge of Chinese is far greater than when I began to use Pleco, I still depend upon it on a regular basis. I also use the dictionary entries and their respective example sentences as a reader. I’ve found this to be a good way to fix meanings and syntactic patterns in my mind, to build vocabulary, to learn semantic nuances, etc..

Only choice for Chinese dictionary. This app does what it’s job better than anything on my phone. Chinese is beautiful and I can go as deep as I want into any character or word and see all the components that make it up and everything it is a part of. Really helps me understand Chinese at a deeper level than just trying to memorize things. Learning Spanish, I need to write my own entries in Anki, switching back and forth with google translate.. feels primitive after using Pleco

Essential for learners at any level. I have only studied Chinese for 32 years, so I am only intermediate :), but I have used Pleco since it was offered on the Palm Pilot (google that :). I evaluate the new apps that emerge, which do fine at quick translations, but nothing matches the comprehensive tools in Pleco. You are not a serious learner without this in your quiver.

So helpful. This is the best app for Chinese-English translations. I use it almost daily to learn and study more Chinese and everything it has is very helpful. I love that it lets you write in the character as well so if you don’t know the pinyin, you can still search it without having to search the character online. You can search almost any Chinese character or phrase in the app.

Best Chinese dictionary app. Let me tell you it’s the best Chinese dictionary. Totally worth the investment. You can even have someone draw Chinese characters on your phone and it will translate to English and pinyin. I have been using this app for over 10 years. I started using it on the palm treo. Now the iPhone 11 Pro Max

Insanely useful - the most important Chinese app. Pleco is the most important app for a native English speaker to learn Chinese. It is wildly fast, useful, and utilitarian. It also has a great user flow to mine words and turn them into flash cards in a spaced repetition system. In addition it has other tools to help you learn Chinese: - reader tool for websites - paid graded readers - OCR for scanning words and adding them to Flashcards - characters color coded by tones for better memorization - multiple paid dictionaries and audio options for enhanced learning Highly recommend!!!