Stroke order for Android

[xyz123abc]

晚安！你好吗？

 

I lost two hours this afternoon looking for an app which can produce character animations in a pretty font.

 

 

So far, I found some choices. None of them sattisfies me, though:

 

Pleco addon won't do because the output is UGLY! My calligraphy is being developed from this, and I don't want it to look listless as that.

 

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.nowpro.nar04_f

   This one looks aweasome, but probably licensing issues, or country issues, won't let me install on my device. It might display traditional chinese only, since it is for japanese public.

 

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.audreyt.dict.moe

   This one is pretty good. I am currently using it. Unfortunately, it only displays traditional character animations.

 

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=hk.com.eon.eStroke&hl=en

    I suppose this is the most widely known in this part of the world. I am afraid about the non portability. If I were to lose my phone tomorrow, or update its rom (again), I would have to pay for it AGAIN.

 

 

If you find these ones useful, cheers! If you can help me find an app that

-Displays character stroke animations in an stylish font

-Uses simplified characters for animations

-is either free or paid for android

-Stores the content offline

 

Please let me know

 

 

 

The absolute best in my oppinion is http://www.archchinese.com/mobile

It simply rocks. Unfortunately it requires wlan.

 

 

多谢！

 

[Hofmann]

Why?

[TheBigZaboon]

Why what? If I may be so bold...

[Hofmann]

It seems the OP wants to develop his/her calligraphy by using an android application that writes Simplified Chinese in a "pretty" font. If you're writing Simplified Chinese, why do you even care about stroke order?

[TheBigZaboon]

Come on, loosen up...

 

This isn't the first OP to come with (at least what I feel, as you too seem to feel) are unreasonable demands to have things just the way they might want them. But this OP has given links to what seems to be three apps for others to use and evaluate. That's more than most other OPs do.

 

It's summer, I know it's hot, and I know tempers are short, but loosen up...

[Hofmann]

OK...*inhale* *exhale*...Didn't work. I'm still me. If we only knew why the OP wanted it, further than "My calligraphy is being developed from this," then perhaps we could more effectively address his/her needs.

[oceancalligraphy]

Hi @xyz123abc  

 

I'm a bit confused by what you mean by calligraphy. Do you mean

1) the art of writing Chinese, with brush and ink, and on rice paper

or

2) writing characters with pen or pencil

 

If it's #1, we learn by copying famous works by masters, which are printed in books. It really helps to have a teacher. It's an art form, so the characters do not necessarily follow stroke order, which is what Hofmann was saying.

 

If it's #2, there should be programs out there for simplified characters. I think a lot of people like Skritter (http://www.skritter.com/), but I do not use it myself, so I do not know if it has what you need.

 

To distinguish #1 from #2, I would call #1 calligraphy and #2 handwriting.  

 

Hopefully this helps, I was guessing that the confusion might be from calligraphy (caligrafía in Spanish?), which is handwriting, and not calligraphy as we think of in Chinese art.

[Demonic_Duck]

@OP: kinda off-topic comment, but your greeting isn't fit for purpose. “晚安” means “goodnight”, and as such can't be used as a greeting. “你好吗？”, on the other hand, is a question which roughly means “are you well?”, but can only be used for a single person, rather than a crowd of strangers such as you might find on an internet forum. The best greeting for your situation here would be “大家好”, which roughly means “hi everyone”.

 

Also, I believe “多谢” as an expression of thanks is much more common in Cantonese than Mandarin. In Mandarin Chinese you'd normally simply use “谢谢”.

[Shelley]

I agree with others that you need to explain the use you want to put this app to.

 

1) If you want to learn Chinese characters and their correct stoke order then there are loads to choose from and you need to narrow down your requirements.

 

2) If you want improve your handwritten skills then you need to take pen to paper and practice till your hands bleed (a bit of an exaggeration but you get the drift)

 

3) if you want learn calligraphy then you will need to learn to use the 文房四宝 4 treasures, ink, stone, paper and brush. To do this properly you will need to complete steps 1 and 2 first.

 

I understand from a purist point of view why doing all this with simplified characters as apposed to full form is somewhat frowned upon, but I believe it is still a valid exercise, but to get the best from it I would suggest full form.

 

There are no shortcuts, it takes time and effort.

[xyz123abc]

Thanks DemonicDuck. I won't forget your advice.

 

By calligraphy I don't mean I intend to cultivate my painting skills until attaining the art of inspiring awe and reverence by swiping forth the brush on paper, as the masters of yesteryear did.

 

 I just want to build up a legible enough, and visually acceptable, font in my right hand. Whenever I find a new character, which currently happens half the time I see a character, I practice writing that character according to animated directions that looks like this one: (animated)

My desire is practicing writing on a practice sheet, by following something like this on android, offline database. Simplified characters.

 

 

1) If you want to learn Chinese characters and their correct stoke order then there are loads to choose from and you need to narrow down your requirements.

 

 I'll love to see a list of those loads!

 

and I did write my requirements in the first post:

 

-Displays character stroke animations in an stylish font

-Uses simplified characters for animations

-is either free or paid for android

-Stores the content offline

 

谢谢你！

[Shelley]

When i typed character practice/ stroke order into Google play there were loads to choose from, I have looked at some of them but I am using skritter at the moment so i did not install any of them.

 

Do you have access to the playstore?

[xyz123abc]

I lost two hours this afternoon looking for an app which can produce character animations in a pretty font.

 

 

 

If you find these ones useful, cheers! If you can help me find an app that

-Displays character stroke animations in an stylish font

-Uses simplified characters for animations

-is either free or paid for android

-Stores the content offline

 

Please let me know

 

Thanks for mentioning you use skritter. Unfortunately, as I understand it, the serious skritter app is for iphone, and skritter is a subscription service. I will at most make a one time payment for this one feature, all my money goes to CLO already.

[Shelley]

Well if I could only have one Chinese app it would be without a doubt Pleco, it has stroke order animation and i don't think its horrible looking.

 

What is the one you are using as an example in your post #10, why can't you use that one, it looks ok.

 

i am enjoying a summer of free Skritter but I won't be able afford to continue with it, but I will always have Pleco so i will use that.

[xyz123abc]

That example comes from www.chineselearnonline.com (not an android app as I want) Once you get used to how that site works, it is easy to find the stroke animations for the characters introduced in any lesson. I simply love them, I even add the most tricky ones to my anki flashcards (yes, anki supports animated pictures) I can´t find the youtube video with the pleco character stroke animation, so everybody else could compare! Pleco strokes look rather unnatural in my opinion!

 

I pay for CLO because of the structured lessons, but anybody can access nice stroke animations for free in http://www.archchinese.com/chinese_english_dictionary.html

The  archchinese website is rather clean, compared to the ad-bloated yellowbridge site.

 

e-stroke would be the perfect android app! only.... if you have to reinstall the program, you have to pay again :/ They are very inflexible.

[Guest q3mi4]

have exactly the same question. 

eStroke is very limited in the free version, I already know/tried to use some characters beyond free evaluation version, and I've only been learning Chinese for 1 month. "pay again for each phone" (or even for re-installing on the same phone) is killing all the fun, otherwise I might consider paying the money. the characters look nice enough to me. 

Pleco is ugly, I must agree. I tried the demo version of 'stroke order diagrams', it doesn't even let me test the interface of choosing the character I need - only 'random character', this is even more unwelcoming. 

will try your third link, but I suppose traditional characters is not what I need right now, either.

I've tried 'Monkey Write', but it has even less characters in the free version and you must pay bit by bit for each set of 10-20 more characters (workbook), and even after you've paid for all of those it's not nearly as many as you need.

[Shelley]

The only real option is Skritter, the android version is now as polished as the iOS version.

 

You get what you pay for,  for free you don't get much, if you pay for Skritter you will get the best character practice app around.

 

IMHO though skritter is really about memorising and learning characters, if you want to improve your handwriting you will need to get to work with paper and pen and practice and practice, for this I would recommend Hanzi Grids here http://www.hanzigrids.com/

this is very reasonably priced,  I use these for practicing my writing.

 

I use Pleco all the time and yes the stroke order add on is not very attractive but it is functional and combined with Hanzi Grids I learn the correct order.

 

Pleco is worth having, I don't think any student of Chinese should be without it. The full version is reasonably priced and has been indispensable for my studies.

[mikelove]

Un-pretty stroke order is something we're working on. However, we'd really like to do it without making people who've already bought our stroke order add-on buy it again (having already done that once when we made the Palm/WM -> iOS/Android transition), and that means either a) improving the data we already licensed (doable, but then we're investing money in something we don't own / still have to pay royalties on), b) developing totally new data ourselves (more expensive, but saves a lot of money in the long run, and allows us to ease up on our current demo version restrictions), or c) licensing new data from somebody under a royalty model that makes it possible for us to give it to our (very large number of) previous purchasers for free. None of which are easy or cheap options.

 

Since a bunch of people interested in stroke order are following this thread, a question: how many characters do you need stroke order for? Is this something particular to your current stage of Chinese learning, so that once you get past (say) 2000 characters you're probably not going to need it anymore since you'll know the rules so well, or is stroke order integral enough to your understanding / appreciation of a character that you're going to want it for every character you ever encounter?

[Shelley]

For the first say 2000 characters it would be nice to have a "prettier format" for the stroke order, after that I think I should have it sorted but there is no certainty with that and if I had to use the "old " stroke order format for ones beyond the first 2000 it would be good enough at that stage just to confirm I had got it right.

 

I don't think the appearance of the ones in Pleco is that bad, its not there for looks, it is there for information and for that it is good enough. Yes it would be nice if it was a pretty font but to me not important.

 

What would make a lot more difference to me would be the ability to write characters fully when doing the stroke order test, even with the existing font it would feel more like I was learning to write.So it would be the same as it is now but you could write the whole stroke. If you try to do this now it can get confused as you inadvertently trigger other strokes.

[xyz123abc]

2000 for the pleco addon will get me to pay whatever price estroke is charging for their full android software.

 

short answer: 2000 is enough for me.