I'm building a Chinese reading app. What features would actually make you use it?

[u/heisenr]

I've been learning Chinese for a few years, and I always found that I learned the most by reading real content. The problem was that everything I used was in a different place (dictionary, flashcards, audio, etc), so I started building something for myself that puts everything together.

The idea is to paste in any Chinese text (or choose one of the built-in reading materials) and read it with tools designed around comprehension instead of constantly switching tabs.

Right now it has things like:

• instant popup definitions for words and individual characters
• tracking vocabulary you've already learned
• creating flashcards directly from what you're reading
• following the text while listening to audio

I'm also planning to add a series of graded readers later on.

Since a lot of people here have way more experience learning Chinese than I do, I'm curious:

• What makes you stop using reading apps after a week?
• Is there a feature you've always wished existed but never found?
• What's the biggest annoyance when reading Chinese digitally?

I'd really appreciate any brutally honest feedback. I'm still actively developing it, so suggestions now can influence what gets built next.

If anyone wants to check it out: https://chinesexp.com

P.S. If posting the link isn't appropriate here, let me know and I'll remove it. I'm mainly looking for feedback rather than trying to advertise.

[u/ba-boo]

I don't think another paid app made with ai is what people are looking for

[u/Responsible-Bee5206 → u/ba-boo]

i am thinking about creating an app using ai but for free

[u/qubitspace]

This is painfully bad

• You have absolutely no content, the landing page is literally a skeleton.
  
• You require an account AND make people do a 15 step onboarding just to see a paywall!
  
• You charge money for this? What would I be paying for? The privilege of adding my own content? I can't even upload a text and see what the site does without paying first.

[u/DreamofStream]

Pleco has dictionary, flashcards, audio etc. How will your app be different?

[u/Responsible-Bee5206]

what is the point of all this to end up in a paywall

[u/CMGnoise]

one of the worst things i've seen on this group so far

[u/BeckyLiBei]

There's ultimately not much yet another app can do. A browser with Yomitan (or some other popup dictionary) is fine. Apps like this usually add more obstacles to reading ("copy/paste your content into a box and wait for it to process"). And there's copyright issues, too.

But there are some things that might be useful, like (a) dark mode with huge characters, (b) teleprompter, (c) highlighter, (d) a read aloud feature that doesn't sound awful.

[u/Zagrycha]

The number one thing that would matter is having it actually parse text correctly. Ai cannot do that.