Pleco Chinese Dictionary App Reviews

Finally something with Mandarin and Cantonese! My Cantonese self is happy! :)

Every student of Chinese needs this app !

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!

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!!

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.

I’m married to a Chinese woman. We both speak English, but, there are some boundaries in our communication that were only sorted out with this app! Thanks a bunch!

Way too expensive

Can’t live without Pleco

I got this app years ago when I started learning chinese and to this day I use this app more than I do Facebook. I got a ton of the upgrades like flash card, text reader, OCR, text to speech voices, and I seriously use it all the time when doing business in China. Great for reading contracts in the app, or books, scripts, etc etc!

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 stated using it in the palm treo. Now the iPhone X

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.

As I’m self-studying Chinese I face problems with valid and trusted dictionary (and a free one) I never thought that my blind searching would lead me to know the best English-Chinese Dictionary EVER It help me train my listening ability and my mandarin language Thanks

Easy to look things up in English, Chinese characters, or Pinyin. Supports traditional characters. The free version has been totally adequate for me.

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.

This app is indispensable if you’re trying to learn Chinese. Many apps will support both traditional and simplified characters, and I especially love that it the Cantonese pronunciations in addition to the Mandarin. Lots of great features and extensive dictionaries. Well worth the price.

Hey Pleco! Amazing app! 🙂 Truth or dare??!! (RESPOND your answer) If you chose truth answer this question (reply to me)- How do you spilt your money you make from this app? Does it just go to one person and the workers get paid? 🧐💸💸 If you chose dare I DARE YOU!!!!! Make all of your in app purchase bundles FREE!!!! 😈😈😈👍👍👍 Ok thanks pleco RESPOND YOUR ANSWER!!

Indispensable

I am studying for my HSK and this app is amazing. I bought the whole package plus the history book. You have put all the tools i need at my fingertips, even when I’m offline. I really appreciate the details you’ve put in, from the change in icon to indicate which characters have been made into flashcards to alternating male and female voices to being able to color code the tones and having a night mode for the display. Thank you so much to your team. You have an amazing product here and I would HIGHLY RECOMMEND TO EVERYONE.

Absolutely essential for Chinese language study - I use this app daily to look up words, ‘read‘ articles and increase my vocabulary.

Wonderful program, essential to teaching myself to read. Live OCR is wonderful, and having old-form characters helps me link to Japanese forms, which I read freely. (There’s nothing even slightly approaching Pleco for Japanese.) I can now get through material on the auto industry. Thanks!

I've been using Pleco since before the iPhone was invented. (I used to have it on my Palm Treo.) Anyone who studies Chinese needs this essential app. Nothing else like it. Fantastic support from the dedicated developers as well. I wish I could give it more stars...

I've been studying Chinese for about six years now, and my language level wouldn't be where it is today without the help of Pleco. Thank you all for your hard work and dedication to the development of this fantastic educational tool.

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.

I spend about 50% of my time in China (Shenzhen) so I use Pleco all the time. I’m often amazed at how complete this dictionary is. Rarely if ever do I come across something that I can’t find immediately on my phone. Wouldn’t do without it. Bravo Pleco!

Pleco is the best Chinese aid available. BUT I am sick of them claiming to have OCR when it never works! Fix it or admit defeat.

I have been studying Chinese for many years and haven't found a more practical and complete Chinese dictionary anywhere.

Awesome Application and stuff like that!!!! Keep up the Awesome work guys. And Thank you.

I keep on using it after 2014. And simply love it, totally recommended. The best it’s that you pay once and enjoy all the features even years later.

I've been studying Chinese for 32 years and am a professional translator, and this is still my go-to app for quick lookups.

I've been using Pleco since it was on the Palm Pilot. Consistently great product and conscientious customer service. You cannot go wrong with this. Well worth the cost. I started Mandarin in the 70s, speak it fluently, and still find this very useful.

I use it everyday and my Chinese has improved beyond my expectations.

I’ve been using Pleco for about 16 years now (Palm Pilot, Windows Mobile, Android, and now iOS). It’s a lifesaver in Chinese study. The dictionary purchases and feature add ons are well worth the investment. Can’t recommend this enough.

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!

Made my study of Chinese possible. The most high-powered dictionary app I’ve ever seen, and very needed for learning this language. Multiple dictionaries and fonts and stroke animations and a fairly easy to use handwriting input. I use this app all the time, especially the feature where it opens with the selected text already in the definition field, and off you go, saving lots of cut-&-paste clicks. If you try to learn to read and write Chinese you’ll be doing that over and over.

A truly useful and easy to use dictionary. Support is fantastic. The inclusion of graded readers for use in the excellent reader is a welcome addition.

I wish there was an app this comprehensive and well built for every language I’ve studied. MUST HAVE.

Only essential Chinese translate app, from beginners to near fluent

even bare bones pleco is a great tool for learning. looking up words will net several listings but the sentence usage helps me figure out which listing is the most appropriate for my composition usage needs. love that it has cantonese and it has, so far, the best capability to recognize handwritten characters (even better than mdbg altho i love mdbg as well esp now that it has translation) cuz sometimes i can't figure out the teacher's handwritten characters when she corrects my homework but most of the time when i mimic her scribbles, pleco finds the right chacter. pleco is the best flavored lifesaver!

You can’t find another app like Pleco, period.

The app is easy to use and helpful, and I only have one problem with it. I can’t seem to find it how to search up characters with handwriting, at least on iPhones. I have tried using the app on an Android, and it’s easy to use the handwriting to text option. I’m wondering if it’s just me that can’t figure it out or if you have to pay for that feature on iPhones?

Amazingly useful, feature-rich, and well-supported. If you're a serious student of Chinese, get this app and consider purchasing some of the many fantastic add-ons.

This needs to be addressed or the app needs to be turned to 17+. I would prefer however the option to turn off the web access.

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!

Today’s new update makes the dictionary unable to add flash cards because there is no “+” button. Also when I try to start a test, it just says “loading database. This may take a few seconds” and never loads my cards. I also can’t access the organize cards section either. The app worked fine before this update, though.

I’ve been living in China 8 years and studied Chinese in a university here. This app was, and still is, in daily use by me! Easily the best.

best and most versatile chinese dictionary out there,, blows anything else out of the water

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

I love you

I’ve been studying and teaching Chinese for years. I’m constantly on the lookout for the best resources to help people learn Chinese and Pleco has no equal. No other resource even comes close. Worth every penny.

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!!

Ok so I’ve been using this app for soooo long, every year! I use it a lot each year and when I come back after a looooooong summer I’m like ok I got my first Chinese class of the year *opens up pleco* it’s just where I left off!!!! Even after all those months. This app means so much more! From my frustration of learning Chinese, my satisfaction of knowing an app that will always be there. 4 Stars because it helped my a lot but learning Chinese is soooo hard and I hate it so yeah I just can’t bring myself to give it 5 Stars it also because now there’s stuff you have to pay for???? And I hate paying for apps, 😤 but this one is still great! Ok that’s my review pleco please respond! ✍️

I can’t live without Pleco and I am glad I picked up the professional bundle. Looking forward to the update in the future!

It’s complex and not the prettiest app out there, but it packs an incredible set of features (via purchased bundles) that are all eventually useful.

This is the only one that my teacher approves of and actually works. It is way better than google translate and 100% worth downloading

Absolutely outstanding app, does everything I’ve ever wanted it to and more. Worth every penny.

I’ve never had a problem with this app. It does what it needs to do and the dev is active and responsive to changes required for it.

Functionally speaking, I highly recommend this app. However I sometimes suspect they put some old nostalgic red guards in charge of coming up with example sentences. There’s a lot of creepy pro-Mao and pro-Communist Party political slogans in there that can be rather off putting.

If you are learning Chinese at any level whether you’re a student or a self-study learner you need Pleco! It has definitely helped my understanding of words and how they can be used. Chinese is not a language to learn without a good dictionary and Pleco is the one you need.

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.

The best app for Chinese, it is useful for learning Chinese

This is hands down the best Chinese dictionary app out there. It is so comprehensive, it meets all our needs. Add-ons make it even more powerful. My kids and I have been using Pleco for years and never felt the need to look for another dictionary. 10 stars!!!

Dear developers, I really enjoy using Pleco and deeply impressed by your efforts to make it ever more accessible to people with disabilities. I'm writing this email to inquire the possibility to support Hokkien Dictionary in addition to Mandarin and Cantonese. I am native Mandarin speaker and currently preparing for Hokkien proficiency exam. Although there are many Hokkien-Mandarin dictionaries in print, few has digital version. Moreover, the most Hokkien dictionary app (such as 萌典) is issued from Taiwan, where the Hokkien pronounciation is slightly different from Mainland China and Singapore (both where Amoy accent is treated the standard). This situation makes Taiwanese Hokkien app essentially useless to me, as I am taking Hokkien proficiency exam administered from Mainland China. I wonder wouldn't it be wonderful for Pleco to incorporate Hokkien into your system? Thank you very much

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.

Best app ever

Indispensable, used for 10+ years, both in and out of China... nothing comes close to replacing this app for day to day Chinese reference!

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.

You get me through the day pleco. I love you. Never change.

I have used Pleco for several years and love this app. If you are learning Chinese this app is the best!

I'm glad Apple changed their policy.

Your app was suggested by our Chinese 老师 , now all the students are using it frequently, I say THANK YUO SO MUCH on behalf of many Chinese learners in our class!

Pleco is simply the best. I can lookup words while reading on the fly, copy and paste WeChat messages into the clip-reader, learn proper s***** order even for obscure characters, and add flash cards for chengyu. Terrific support from the company too.

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！

I take a Chinese class in school and this has been a super helpful app! One thing that I would like to have is an option to write characters out. My sister has the same app on her Android phone and it gives her that option, but on my apple phone it does not.

Worth the purchase for the self test system alone! Could use a few more of the open source dictionaries though. (Burnett would be fanstastic) Buy this APP if you’re study chinese!

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！

Great app, it's the best. I’ve been using this app for nearly 20 years an it only gets better. 最好的！ Best Chinese dictionary/reader/OCR available. 很棒！

Pleco Chinese dictionaries are easy to use, accurate, truly what you need no matter what stage you’re at in language learning. The basic dictionary is perfect. Until you get addicted to learning this language. At that point having dictionaries in Chinese helps you get the subtle nuances of meaning that straight Eng/Ch can’t give you. You can build the set that best suits your needs. I’ve been using Pleco for about 15 years now and it just keeps getting better. Other dictionaries simply can’t compare. (I got nothing for this review.)

This is the gold standard of Chinese language study apps, and an excellent example of just how much functionality an iPhone or iPad can deliver. I first began using this on a Palm Pilot, probably eight or nine years ago. It was good then, and has continued to improve. The many add-ons make it easy to start small, without spending much money, and add functionality later as you need it. If you are new to Chinese study, this is a must-have app.

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.

If you are serious about learning Chinese then this app is a must have. I have both bundles and they are worth every penny. I love having a central repository for all my dictionaries and characters. If have tried countless apps and this is one of the best and one of three I use constantly: * Plexo * HelloChinese * Google Translate

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.

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.

Hands down the best app that helps Chinese language learners.

The best app for Chinese

After nine years in China hiring the occasional tutor but not really caring or focusing on my Chinese, I finally got my act together and have regularly been studying 2-4 hours every day since 春节. Pleco has been invaluable in both the lazy times and the student grind times. 100% recommend.

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.

If you buy this on one platform, they'll try to make you buy it again if you switch to another. No thanks. You'll never see another dime from me.

It’s been 5 Stars for years but recently the app can’t bring up any of my flash cards and I can’t add words to my flash cards from the dictionary. The “+” symbol is gone and when I go to “organize cards,” it endlessly says “downloading”. I’ve tried deleting and redownloading the app as well as restarting my phone but neither help.

I love the live translation option! I use this app all the time. Thank you so much for such a great app.

I found it really useful when I lived in China!

Pleco has been serving me for a long time by now and I still use it today.

值得拥有的资源！

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

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 s***** count alone would be nice. Regardless, this app is indespensible for a student of Chinese.

I have used this app daily for about 6 years. It just keeps getting better. Love it. I use on my iPhones 4, 5, 6S and iPads. Truly the best APP for Chinese learners of every level.

I've been a daily pleco user for six years. It is my favorite app. Mike and the team are incredibly responsive. Get it if you are at all serious about learning Chinese.

So this app is cool you know it helped me with my Chinese homework and blablabla...... but it looks..... old school? I mean can’t you use better techno.

If I ever get an ipad, this app would also be the main reason for my purchase. I needed a dictionary that is stable and reliable, this app/dictionary has been around since the existence of the Palm Pilot before the year 2000, and purchases made then are still viable today. I have been through too many other apps where I pay money, only to find the developers phase out the app and make you pay a whole bunch of money all over again for the exact same dictionary. Not this one. The developer, Michael Love is the most responsive and helpful person I have ever known. Even in the rare instance I find a word that's not in there yet, or a small bug, he fixes it immediately. For anyone seriously interested in learning Chinese though, don't take my word for it, take it from the academic community. My Chinese culture and language professor from Sarah Lawrence college required me to purchase the in-app purchases for me to take his class, and to this day, I have graduated nearly 5 years now it is the only "textbook" I continuously use every day that I was required to buy for a college course. My Chinese friends all too often tell me that the phrase or word I just heard from them cannot be found in a dictionary. Pleco proves them wrong every time. My wife is Chinese and she uses this dictionary exclusively as well even for her to learn new Chinese words. The interface does have a lot of customizable settings that are worth learning, but it is time well-spent, and is surprisingly intuitive.

My college study of Mandarin and any proficiency I had was more than forty-five years ago. My mind and memory is a bundle of confused Wade-Giles, Yale & DeFrancis (all pre-Pinyin, I might add) and my character knowledge, or what’s left of it, was based all before simplified characters. But this app has allowed me to travel and be comfortable in China with my little and now ancient knowledge on five different trips in the last few years. The OCR and dictionary are almost magically efficient and the many other features are just wonderful. Thanks to all whose hard work make this app possible. I am going to three cities in May (Chengdu for the first time) and this app makes my stress in preparation diminish to mere dust. I cannot wait to see the next version! Is it even possible to be a better app than this is now?

I just started learning Chinese and this app has been a fantastic companion to my textbooks and lessons. It’s an easy-to-use all-in-one resource featuring: Tons of different definitions for characters Keyboard and s***** input for dictionary search Audio files to learn pronunciation Character s***** animation Flashcards and Bookmarks for study aids If you’re serious about learning Chinese invest $30 in the Pleco Basic Bundle for an incredible expansion of capabilities.

That sums it up.

I recently used this app to help me transcribe a Traditional Chinese paper document into Simplified. It’s also my go-to dictionary.

If you are new to Chinese studies, this is the standard. Everyone uses it. Download it and buy the New Century English Chinese dictionary. If you are good at Chinese, download it and buy the HanyuDacidian or the Paul Kroll. Another reviewer also made a good point. B&H “Present Day Organization of China” and Hucker’s Dictionary of Imperial Titles would just make this thing insanely good. I would buy both.

In the early days of 2007, as I prepared to spend a semester abroad at Peking University, I decided to buy an electronic Chinese dictionary. The biggest reason for this was handwriting recognition, which, as any student of 汉语 knows, is a life changing technology. Back then, the iPhone was nothing but a carefully choreographed Steve Jobs presentation, so I asked if I could have my dad’s old (even then!) Palm Pilot. I installed Pleco plus the ABC dictionary plug in (well worth the $90) and translating Chinese newspapers was as easy as ordering dumplings. Fast forward *11 years* and half-a-dozen iPhones (plus an ill fated Android experiment) and I’m still impressed with the quality of service and software Pleco provides. They’ve given me an increasingly sophisticated tool and I haven’t paid one dime since I loaded that original version onto a grayscale Palm device. You will not regret buying anything from these fine people!

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, even casually.

If you’ve ever used a find-a-character paper dictionary, you know how difficult that process can be. Pleco, which I utilize every day, makes looking up characters so much easier. I find the example sentences very useful. Since Pleco supports, for the most part, my reading of Chinese, I still appreciate having access to the audio files.

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.

I first purchased on a Palm Pilot in 2005. I’m still a loyal user today. This is a fantastic program that has such deep functionality that I am still discovering new and useful tools within it. Great work to the Pleco team. I can not recommend this app enough.

The versatility of Pleco is incredible. You can get lost in the innumerable characters. Break down a character by its radical and supporting characters and learn the deeper meaning of the character. 我爱Pleco.

It's really hard finding a English/Chinese dictionary for Cantonese. Most dictionaries are ONLY mandarin & this one does both dialects so I couldn't be happier!

The best Chinese language app out there. Comprehensive, easy to use, robust with great add-ob’s! Highly recommended!

Simply the best, period. But have been waiting for 4.0 for forever and the wait is killing me!

I have used this app daily for about 6 years. It just keeps getting better. Love it. I use on my iPhones 4, 6S and iPads. Truly the best APP for Chinese learners of every level.

Wonderful app for anyone wanting to study Chinese! Highly recommend for any serious student, or anyone who just wants to browse the entries.

I can’t imagine not having Pleco. It makes a language as intimidating as Chinese easier to learn. My Chinese would be so much worse without Pleco. It was my life line during my exchange year and is helping me continue learn once I went back to my home country. When ever I think about learning another language I just get sad knowing there isn’t a Pleco for that language. I would have never thought I would put so much money into an app before. You do *not* need to pay for the add ons to get great use out of Pleco, but the basic bundle was basically my best buy ever, and after taking a class that focused a lot on 成语 on of the specialized dictionaries for 成语 was a life saver (the other dictionaries do have idioms but the idiom specific one explains it in Chinese and that was way more helpful for my class where I had to explain them in Chinese on tests). Small suggestion: being able to add our own example sentences for words would be SUPER helpful. Also, have you guys thought about extending this format into different languages?

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!

There’s a few things that make Pleco great, but the things that stand out to me are the adaptability to real-life situations through things like the OCR and Character Handwriting Add-ons, not to mention the massive character dictionary. I really love this app!

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.

The gold standard Chinese dictionary app.

I’m an advanced Mandarin speaker/reader of over thirty years and I still use this app constantly. I’ve recommended it to countless other students who all love it. The clipboard reader function is invaluable. I love this app.

A must-have for everybody interested in Chinese.

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.

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.

If I could only have one app from the AppStore, I’d probably choose Pleco. It makes learning Chinese so much easier. I especially love the option to customize the colors. 謝謝！

I had purchased both the live handwriting and the live OCR capabilities on this app prior to my recent trip to China. The translations provided were unsatisfactory for any practical purposes; compared to the free Microsoft translation app and the translation feature on WeChat, what was provided here was often non-sensical and paled in comparison. While it might be useful for academic purposes, in real life it sorely lacked

Pleco is the most reliable Chinese dictionary around: I only wish it was on pc as well.

I’ve gotten so much utility since the days of PalmOS. And only paid for the application once. Support is superb and customer centric. New dictionaries and features are introduced all the time. Six stars if I could.

The gold standard in language learning apps. I've tried many different apps and they're usually quite undeveloped, unintuitive, expensive, and subscription based. Pleco gives incredible value to my studies. It's so feature rich, customisable, scalable, and not subscription based that those other apps could never hope to being me back.

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.

Pleco was the first app I purchased when I bought an iOS device. Over the years I’ve purchased dictionaries and other add ons. It’s the best electronic dictionary out there and constantly updated.

I am studying Chinese, and this app is an immense help!!!! I have had it for maybe a year now. I used it all the time during a visit to China. The definitions are very accurate, and it is very easy to search for a word. You can search pinyin-Chinese, Chinese-English, and English-Chinese very easily. Also, everything downloads onto your phone so you can access definitions instantly, wifi or not! I've bought the ancient small seal script. It's amazing! It's very accurate. The small seal script characters are from the Qin dynasty, when the first emperor standardised Chinese characters. They look just like traditional characters in use today!!! (In Taiwan) It's a great resource for studying ancient script, and it's only $5! I've also bought the entomology thingy. It's $30, but worth every cent! It's amazing!! It's has super detailed info on the histories of thousands of characters. One thing to note: If you have an iPhone, you don't have to buy a keyboard that allows you to draw characters. You can just turn the Chinese keyboard on in the settings. However, pleco's keyboard is full screen, and more accurate than iPhone's keyboard. I use the google translate app to take pictures of characters and translate them, but it does a pretty bad job. It takes quite a few minutes. Do you really think I'll believe there's clothes, sand, and glue in my milk ingredients list??? So if you need to take pictures of Chinese characters to translate, you should try Pleco's version. I've just tried the demo but it seems a LOT better. Thanks pleco!!!!! This app has made my Chinese-learning journey so much easier and enjoyable!

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! :)

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 is amazing! I love it! Well worth getting the pro add ons! The dictionaries are great. The web reader is a godsend. If you submit a question they get back to you very quickly. I couldn’t be happier with this app! It took me a while to figure out how to get the lyric reader to work because Apple Music doesn’t share the lyrics with Pleco and for what I’m sure are legal reasons Pleco can’t give much advice on how to get mp3s with embedded lyrics. So I’m going to share this with anyone who is interested. I found that if you can find the song you like on YouTube and put it in a “YouTube to mp3” converter (just google it). Drag the mp3 to iTunes. Google the song lyrics and copy them. Then go to the “song info” for the song in iTunes. Go to they lyrics tab. Click custom lyrics. Paste your lyrics and hit ok. Sync your phone to iTunes and voila! The lyrics show up in Pleco. There may be an easier and faster way, but this is what I’ve found so far. I hope it helps anyone else wishing to use the lyrics feature.

Good dictionary

Been using this since the days of the Palm Treo. Highly recommend this app. Worth the price as you will have this app for a long time and it is the best.

Live in China or study Chinese? This is the best tool. Use it all the time. I do wish there was a character writing pad built into the app. I don’t like to keep apples character recognition keyboard installed, but I would like it only in this app when I DON’T want to look something up by radical or pinyin or by taking a photo.

I love languages, and I love dictionaries. And pleco is the best. From the vast number of dictionaries all in one convenient place to the easy to use (and fast!) interface, it's the app I wish I had in every language.

This is a really good app, but the android version has a place where you can write down a character you don’t recognise and it will show up. Sadly the iOS version doesn’t have this, so please do something about it, cuz it is really helpful.

Learning Chinese on your own is hard. This app and its flash cards were amazing though. I memorized 20-100 words every day and the only possible way for me to do that was with his app. Two years later I'm fluent and getting jobs and degrees for what I've learned. Awesome app. Can't live without it

This app helps me in both speaking and writing. I can totally know how to pronounce words correctly and write them more beautifully on papers, lol ❤️ Thank you so much.

Being in China now for over eight years, this app has changed my life and deeply enhanced my ability to study Chinese language, history and culture. It is a truly excellent app and provides its user with a fantastic array of materials and resources with great efficiency.

The best tool for learning Chinese is Pleco, available for your mobile devices through the Apple App Store, and for Android devices from the Google Play Store. If you are learning Chinese, no matter which other apps, books, video files, video/audio files, teachers, private tutors, or what have you, the one essential tool that has no equal is Pleco. Right now, I am in China, studying at a language school. Everyone whom I have met who is studying/learning Mandarin Chinese (putonghua, Hanyu, Guoyu) uses Pleco. You’d be crazy not to.

UMMM PLECO WHY IS THERE NO TRANSLATION FOR “Ahem” LIKE WHAT IS THIS APP ?????????!!!!!!!!!!!👿👿👿👿👿 Everything else is amazing though so uh yeah keep up the good work 😻😻😽😽😽 BUT STILL. CONSIDER THE ABOVE!!!!!!!!😶😶😶

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!

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 s***** 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!

Gives detailed and multiple meanings of chinese characters, words and says. A must if you want to learn this language rather than just doing a Google or Bing translate!

When I first got this app, I was expecting a simple dictionary. But the OCR, paste board, and flashcard features make this so much better (OCR in particular blew my mind when I first learned about it through this app)

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!

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.

This software is simply the best Chinese dictionary and reading assist software out there. I first bought it on Palm OS - yeah it’s been around that long. I used it when living in China, and I use it with my students now in my US classroom teaching Chinese. Over the past ten years it has consistently been the best.

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!

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.

Pleco is very easy to use, covers a lot of terms, and is super useful! Definitely would recommend as a mobile dictionary.

Does one thing really well. The highest complement I can give an app.

This app is absolutely crucial to learning Chinese. Great UI and frequent updates makes this a pleasure to use. I cannot tell you how many times I use it in one day. Too many to count. Thanks developers!

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.

the reason why i am not failing my bilingual education. so grateful that it is fully functional even when offline

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.

If you are at all serious about learning Chinese you will be glad you download Pleco.

Epic

Shoutout to pleco for helping me and the six of us in my AP Chinese class, without it we'd be losttttt

I have used this app for years it is extremely convenient as a Chinese learner living in China.

This is for anyone who really wants to learn Chinese. If you are truly interested in mastering a language then you can’t just 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

It's just amazing, even has the names of Chinese villages

I tried to download this app but it just won’t load. Either the app is incompatible with apple products or the program is too complex to download.

Pleco is extremely useful for an intermediate Chinese speaker like me. I like the features, especially the Zhuyin, flashcards, and handwriting. It’s easy to use and understand with the audio and Pinyin. One suggestion I have is to add some Hokkien dictionaries and audio. I know that there are people who’ve been asking for that addiction since 2014, and it would be really helpful for some of us.

This app has helped me learn 70 words solidly, through Spaced Repetition, in 7 days. Worth it to buy the big bundle, especially for the Flashcards. Also love the s***** order and the native speakers, make and female to really hear how the words are pronounced. Thank you for an absolutely incredible app!!