Hanzi Ben — a handwriting-first Chinese character practice app.
Getting started — pick a curriculum chip: HSK 3.0 Writing (2021 official handwriting standard), HSK 3.0 Vocab (official vocabulary), Hanzi Ben (2,443 cards / 2,283 unique, thematic chapters), Radical Ben (100 radical families), or My Hanzi (your list). Choose books and chapters, then tap Begin Practice. Quick Access also has Continue, Radicals (100 basic radicals — a separate free deck, not Radical Ben), and the Survival Kit (159 connecting words from Hanzi Ben).
My Hanzi — type Hanzi, English or Pinyin, separated by spaces, commas or semicolons. Compounds like sui ran match as one word; if a group is not a compound, each part becomes its own card. Quotes force a combined card. Unmatched tokens are listed under the box. Free practice uses the first 10 matched cards.
Free vs Pro — free to download. The free version unlocks the first 2 chapters of Foundation, Everyday Life and Survival Kit; the first 2 Radical Ben families; HSK 3.0 Vocab (HSK 1 ch. 1–2) and HSK 3.0 Writing (Elementary ch. 1–2); the 100-card Radicals deck; and up to 10 cards in My Hanzi. A one-time Pro purchase unlocks every curriculum, book, chapter, search of locked cards, and drawing — including future content. Daily dictionary look-up and phrase translation stay free. Locked items show 🔒. Restore a purchase from the Pro screen or Settings.
Practising a card — write on the canvas with finger or stylus. Strokes animates stroke order; Ghost shows a faint guide; Check scores your handwriting on the device and marks Learned if correct. Undo and Clear sit beside the canvas. Flip shows Pinyin, stroke count, a memory tip, and a mini dictionary with 2–3 meanings and sample sentences. Composition (next to Pinyin) shows how the character is built. History (on the Pinyin row) shows Seal Script, simplification and frequency rank.
Search — find a word by English, Pinyin, Hanzi, by drawing it, or by speaking (mic on Android and iOS). A phrase that is not one dictionary word lists each word so you can open it, plus an on-device translation. You can edit the recognised original if speech misheard a word. (There may also be a small surprise hidden in the search bar for the curious.)
Progress & Streak — the ✓ checkbox (manual or via Check) tracks learned cards; bars show completion per book and chapter. Blindspots keeps only what you have not learned. A 🔥 streak tracks daily practice, with a one-day grace period and milestone celebrations. Finishing a deck can continue into the next chapter.
Works offline — recognition, phrase translation and voice search run on your device (Android: once English and Chinese offline voice packs are installed; iOS: once the SenseVoice model is available via prefetch or download). The app may go online the first time to download the handwriting model, the Chinese translation model (about 30 MB), Android voice packs or the iOS SenseVoice model if needed, and for the store to handle Pro purchase or restore.
Backups — Export / Import progress in Settings saves or restores all local data as JSON.
Support — for questions, feedback or bug reports, email support@hanziben.com or visit www.hanziben.com.
Built with HanziWriter · Make Me a Hanzi · AR PL KaitiM GB · ML Kit · CC-CEDICT