Pleco Chinese Dictionary

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 😢

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.

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!