Launched this week
Zhong Chinese
Traditional Chinese for Serious Learners. No Subscriptions.
9 followers
Traditional Chinese for Serious Learners. No Subscriptions.
9 followers
Zhong Chinese is the first language learning app that focuses exclusively on Traditional Chinese Mandarin as it is spoken and used in Taiwan. Through the use of leading technology such as FSRS to schedule tailored workloads for every user, along with reading and writing practice, Zhong offers a complete learning platform with a simple, pay once price tag. No subscriptions, no dopamine hooks, just well-built, serious tools for serious learners.
Having learned Chinese in Taipei for over a year, it occurred to me that there wasn't a great companion to learning the "classical" variant of Chinese. Every app seemed to focus on a specific area of - mostly - simplified Chinese. Those that did support traditional simply supported it as a switch; Mainland Chinese, just with Traditional Characters.
Anyone who has learned Chinese in Taiwan knows that the two are not the same, and in some cases, not even intercompatible. Taiwanese use different words, different phrases, and sometimes the same phrases mean something completely different.
Armed with a year's worth of notes, I decided to build what me and my classmates had been missing. First used in the classrooms of the Mandarin Training Center of the National Taiwan Normal University, this eventually evolved into Zhong Chinese: a complete learning platform specifically for Traditional Chinese as it is spoken in Taiwan. Complete with flashcards, reading, writing and fully compatible with A Course in Contemporary Chinese, the gold standard course taught by virtually every language school in Taiwan.
Love the FSRS scheduling and pay once model, super refreshing compared to the usual subscription traps. One thing that would really help learners like me is adding a stroke order animation or writing practice with finger/stylus input for traditional characters, since handwriting is genuinely hard to pick up from static images alone.
@ayferbesir3488 Thanks, the decision to go pay once was made very early on. I strongly believe that learning a language is a dedication for years, and Zhong is built from the ground up to support that. The same way you should be able to grab your book to continue learning, so too should you be able to grab your phone and load up Zhong. No subscription anxiety, no risk of getting your progress locked behind a monthly payment. Glad to hear it resonates!
There is full support for finger and stylus stroke order practice, either guided, or in full recall mode where we show you a white canvas, and you have to recall the strokes from memory. Of course, if you get them wrong too many times, the app will nudge you in the right direction. Let me know how you like it!
Finally someone made an app for traditional mandarin as spoken in taiwan, honestly been waiting for this. The fsrs scheduling actually feels less overwhelming than other apps ive tried
@vedate5ps Glad to hear! One of the reasons people burn out on language learning is because of what's known as the review snowball: wake up one day after a vacation, see 500 cards ready for review, disheartedly give up. That's why the default setting in Zhong is rather easy going - there are options to speed it up by adding more cards per day, but research has proven that fewer cards over more days yield better results than cramming high volumes of cards every single day, so that's what we designed for.
Love the pay-once model and the FSRS scheduling, that's genuinely refreshing for this kind of app. One thing I'd love to see is built-in audio from native Taiwanese speakers for the listening and speaking exercises, since pronunciation and tone sandhi patterns can really differ from mainland Mandarin and right now it's hard to find that elsewhere.
@sunakphh Thanks, that's something I'm working on getting done with local Taiwanese teachers. All of the reading exercises will be accompanied by actual native speaker audio - no AI. Pronunciation is meaningfully different from Mainland China, and this is something Zhong is committed to reflect accurately.
The FSRS scheduling alone is worth the price for anyone who's bounced between apps that space reviews all wrong. Really respect the no-subscription model too, feels like the team actually trusts their product to hold up.
@emrah1377719 We do! From the outset, the goal was to build a product that will be around for many years to come, and that respects our customer's wallets and time.
love the pay once model and the taiwan focus is super refreshing, basically exactly what i needed when i was studying. one thing that would be huge is adding some kind of tone pair drills or minimal pair listening practice since thats where most learners really struggle and itd make zhong stand out even more.