eStroke (易笔) App Reviews

Nice, but this app got an excellent competitor: Pleco Chinese Dictionary. Until some time ago eStroke was my favorite among the E-C dictionaries. Extremely helpful for learners like me. Esp. all features which help to find characters, like stroke order, radicals etc. are included in a clever system. What I miss are several features as used in Pleco app, eg: - more dictionaries, which can be used parallel - excellent wildcard search - switching easily between traditional and simplified Hanzi by pressing a button any time one wants - in pleco all characters and words even of a pretty long Chinese compound word are shown in a list with all translations, in eStroke one has to search for each character by itself. :( For exercising how to write eStroke is still my preferred app. it also uses more colors. I hope that the masters of eStroke will improve this app soon and add some additional features. Otherwise the price of over 5 EUR IMHO is no longer justified. :)))

With solid and frequent updates, I have been thoroughly impressed with the quality of this application. Its helped me greatly in my Chinese studies and has become a constant companion both inside and outside the house. Finding out what new words mean has never been easier, and with built in flashcards, history, and all the other bells and whistles Im surprised that this application is only a mere $5. By far one of the best applications Ive ever purchased!

This is flat-out one of the best applications Ive ever paid for. In terms of Mandarin reference tools, not only do I consider this the best app out there, but I still havent even found a website on the whole INTERNET that Ive found to be more useful than eStroke. The stroke order feature is the reason I bought it (stroke order is the key, for me at least, to learning how to write characters), but beyond that, there is a great dictionary feature, as well as many many ways to customize the app to suit your learning style. It has never crashed once, and even without iOS4 (i have the 1st gen touch), music can be played while using it! To anybody serious about learning how to write in Chinese, this app is an absolute must-buy. Thank you!

This is the most complete app i have found to assist me in learning mandarin. It shows characters used in words, organizes words in order of how children at school would learn them and has stroke order for all characters the only thing they are missing is pronounciationof characters. Adding this would make the app worth much more than $7. But even without the pronounciation, this is the best app in the app store for learning mandarin.

I was initially excited about this app, but was quickly disappointed to find how many characters are mis-rendered. As a result, I cant in good conscience recommend this to my Chinese students or anyone learning Chinese, for that matter. Despite emailing them with a thorough bug report, they didnt seem to take the mistakes seriously. Its now been over half a year since any updates to the app have been made. Its a shame, because with more attention to detail and a better customer orientation, this could actually be a decent app. 只能在此表示遗憾。

No voice/ sound on the iphone6s , please fix

I tried almost all the Chinese teaching application. Before I used plenty different applications for different aspects of study, but estroke replaced almost all of them. And the best thing about it is I now have all functions in one application! First time UI seemed to be complicated, but after few hours you just get comfortable with it. Also this is the only one application my Chinese teacher recommended. Some features I wish wish estroke would have: - test for meaning/hanzi by using touch input. I believe this force to remember the character better. - pinyin tone test, as this is the common mistake made by students - dictation test. This will make relationship between characters and sound stronger. Just a should file for word played and application allow to answer then check if answer is correct. but anyway this application is the best I ever used even on computer. Thank you for estroke!

This is the best self learning tool Ive encountered in the entire store! Great app, and with frequent useful updates!

I LOVE eStroke on my Mac and have been waiting for the iPhone version. It provides the proper stroke order and allows you to search phrases. Perfect for doing Chinese homework with my kids. My biggest gripe about the iPhone version is that the character is displayed on a smallish corner of the screen (less than 1/4 of the screen). Also, it is difficult to scroll through the phrases without using a stylus as the characters are packed tightly together. Nevertheless, I would still highly recommend this for the $4.99 price.

For a year, I studied Simplified Mandarin. I learned vocabulary and speaking skills using great programs like Rosetta Stone. Using the the international character palettes that are already included in the Mac OS, I learned to type using the pinyin system that translates Roman characters into Chinese characters. However, there was no useful tool to learn correct stroke order of Chinese characters until eStroke came along. Without the ability to write the strokes within the character in the correct order the input device on the iPhone (and apparently soon the trackpad in Snow Leopard) cannot recognize what you are writing. There is a definite internal structure to each character that must be followed. In my humble experience, there are no other products that are as simple to use as this one. Now I can speak, listen, recognize characters...and also write Chinese without relying on software interpretation programs. Thank you EON Media. You are the best.

Its a nice app, when writing characters it is essential to know the stroke order. The only problem I have with it is the lag. It also bothers me how you canseats pinyin to search for characters in the search engines. Another thing I dont like is the phrases in the main screen, they are really small. Enough being negative, it does exactly what it says. Really nice app to have when you are learning Chinese. If you need s dictionary is suggest using Qing Wen.

This app is especially good for me because I study Chinese (Mandarin and Cantonese) and Japanese. I find this app very useful. I hope they improve this app and add More updates and ancient Chinese characters and if possible make tge dictionary more better and fullnof more vocabulary. Also it would be great if they had the furigana for the characters too. Heck, if they had sound for each character in each language that is used it would turn this app into a super app. But the app is very good now but I really looking foward to more extras for this app.

As a busy student of Chinese in Taipei, I use this program every day. It is helpful and easy to use. Taking time out of my schedule to review this application is proof that it is worth at least the five dollars I paid.

At $5 you cant go wrong with this priceless tool.

OVERALL: The latest update(s) have really improved this app, and Im bumping up my rating. This is a really good dictionary for studying. CON: This app is still never my first choice for conversation or translation. The buttons are confusing. And it doesnt return anything for partial matches. I vastly prefer DianHuas search engine, as it is very forgiving and thus more informative. PRO: This dictionary is great for mastering individual characters. You can explore how theyre used in (many) compound words. Also, when you find compound words in the dictionary, it breaks them down and gives you the meaning for each character.

I use eStroke every day. I bought the PC version about a year ago and was very satisfied. Now that its available on the iPhone/iPod Touch it is much more handy and convenient to use. I recently updated to the new version and have noticed that the strokes are much FASTER than the last version. One thing this dictionary has that the PC version didnt is the dictionary. Its not a bad dictionary but be careful using it. Now, what this version seems to lack is the kanji on/kun reading that the PC version has. It would be nice if it came with it. That being said, eStoke is by far the BEST tool out there for learning chinese characters and for a real, real good price. [UPDATE] Thank you for providing measure words and for the improved word functionality. Im especially thankful for your adding of the kun/on Japanese readings! The makers of this app are so awesome for listening to their customers and improving their product!

The thing that always amazes me about most of these Chinese learning programs is that none of them ever have detailed instructions as to how to use them. This program is the worse when it comes to this. I still cant even figure out how to write a character or to just type in a simple english word for that matter. I can only type in one letter at a time... A lot good that does me ???????......What a total waste of money....and the worst part is that when you go their website its just as bad because they tell you this program can do this and that but they dont explain how to use it step by step......

It could potentially be a great Ap, but the program lacks manual :-/ How do you skip such a large basic tool?!

This is the most outstanding learning tool for Chinese available. I have most of the Chinese dictionaries, training apps, etc, and this is by far the best. I hesitate to call this a "dictionary" as it has tremendous facilities for reviewing 100, 200, 300, 500, 1000, etc, frequently used characters, plus complete 4 level HSK. This is amazing. You can view how characters are written while you are reviewing (your choice). You dont need to learn writing to use this tool, as full pinyin is provided. The developers update this tool on a regular basis, enhancing the tool and correcting minor errors. Other Chinese apps I have almost never improve their products. One provide of tools (no name mentioned) has the most apps for studying Chinese, and I have most of them. They are of limited use and they NEVER update them. eStroke has no audio, but audio is only helpful for single characters, as all the apps I have that have audio for compounds and sentences just stitch individual character sounds together with a very unnatural result. I have other dictionaries for single character sound. This "dictionary" is my main go-to studying tool. I look forward to even MORE enhancements, though it is so good, I wonder what they can do!

I purchased estroke at first version and Ive really enjoyed its continued improvement. Lots of interface tweaking, additions of various ways to categorize and save stroke examples. The dictionary input and showcasing seem faster now. This seems to be a developer who is willing to keep at it, and keep improving. This is not your first choice if you are trying to learn the language (check out Plecos excellent app), but if you are looking for a good way to study calligraphy with a cross-reference to standard Mandarin traditional and simplified characters, this is very very good. I have this open on my iPod Touch when I sit at my calligraphy table!