Word Tracer iPad App Review

I am a full-blooded Singaporean. It means I learnt my mother-tongue along with English since a babe. In my case, it's Chinese Mandarin. I read/converse/write fluently. That is why I have a passion in teaching my children to converse/read/write in Chinese as well.

Word Tracer is a wonderful teaching aid in this process! Thank you, Nanaimo Studio, for the promo code for review!

After trying it out myself and with my children, here are my thoughts

Love: flexibility
You can have A LOT of options: to have the word there or not, to have sound or not, to have grid or not, to even add in your custom list of words to learn.

Love: A VERY good guide
The star and numbers to lead in the writing of the words are PERFECT for little children (in my case, this is a 6 year old who has written SOME Chinese words already). The word is big, and it's rather forgiving. The last app I tried needs you to be exactly in the right spot, which is real hard for kids. My child used the guides without the word behind and he had such a kick guessing what word it was.

Love: MANY words
Yeah. It's A LOT. =) We're taking it lesson by lesson but it is good to know this will take me a long time

I then asked my child to write it on paper...guess it translates quite well. =)

Even my 4 year old, who doesn't write Chinese at all yet, uses the app really well.

What I wished it had......

Traditional Chinese. I really do want my children to learn that, even though it's harder.

Phrases. (辭彙) and not just single words. There is a function on phrases (for conversations) but single words have more meaning when they are in phrases.

Some of the English explanations are a little bit off, in my view, like "eight" (八) one of the meaning is "all around"...I get it...四方八面...but that only make sense in the idiom...not alone...so...

Still, overall, I REALLY recommend this app for learning to write Chinese. Go get it now for $2.99. and the iPhone version is free!!

Comments

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