Chinese Deciphered

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In-app purchases

About this app

Chinese Deciphered is a quick reference for understanding Chinese characters and words.

The app uniquely deconstructs Chinese characters and words down to their simplest components, providing a clear link between each component, with memory aids provided for every word and character.

The app includes:
★ Chinese character etymology – character history shown by tracing each character's origin, development and relationships.
★ Character mnemonics – character learning memory aids.
★ Word and character decomposition – words and characters are dissected down to their simplest components.
★ Simplified and traditional Chinese – familiarity with traditional Chinese is essential for proper understanding of simplified characters.
★ Ancient forms of characters – this helps in following the original thinking.
★ Chinese history and culture, where this relates to understanding words and characters.
★ Stroke order – the correct way to write each character.
★ Phonetic inheritance – how characters inherit their sounds from their components.

The app:
★ Is unique – it is the result of more than seven years of ongoing research.
★ Is concise, yet comprehensive – it is designed as a quick reference tool.
★ Is continuously updated and improved.
★ Works offline.

The free version:
★ Contains 933 entries, including all of the HSK level 1 vocabulary (HSK v2.0 and v3.0, simplified and traditional Chinese).

The premium version:
★ Currently contains 7719 entries, with more words and characters added on a continual basis.
★ Includes extensive additional information.
★ Proceeds from the upgrade fund our ongoing research on Chinese etymology.

Ratings and reviews

Great up! I decided to to buy the full version because it's worth it - very didactic - the method and associations are great. I just took one star because I see it hasn't received any updates since 2024 and I'm reaching a point of learning that I constantly bump into characters that are not listed even in the full version.

I really live this app and use it often. I use free version now and it still is great. I'll switch to paid one probably later, after progressing more with my chinese. The only option I'm missing is some way to use this app not only as a dictionary, but also word list, so for example I could create collections of words there to come back later, or have list to choose from such as HSK1 word list to learn from. Really nice job anyway, thank you for this tool. :]

This app is amazing. You can break down each character to its most basic components and trace the history and pictographs, many with the explanation and character overlays for a much better understanding of the meaning of the character. I wish it had a Cantonese pronunciation added, but it does at least show both traditional and simplified, so it is still a gem of an app. Extremely easy to use.

What’s new

Added 150 more words and characters.