What Would Your Ideal Chinese Character App Look Like?

[alpine blade]

大家好
I’m currently working on an app for learning Chinese characters, and I’d love to get some real feedback from people who are actually learning Mandarin, Cantonese or even Japanese.
I’m trying to understand what really helps, what sucks, and what’s missing out there. If you have a minute, I’d really appreciate your thoughts.
Feel free to answer as much or as little as you want as even short or messy answers help a lot
Thank you in advance!

1. What do you dislike the most about learning Chinese characters?

2. How do you currently study characters? (apps, textbooks, Anki, writing by hand, just reading, etc.)

3. Do you mostly recognize and read characters, or do you also try to write them from memory?

4. What do you think about writing characters as a learning method? Helpful, boring, overrated?

5. Do you feel like existing apps/resources are missing something important? Or on the other hand, do they have too many unnecessary or distracting features?

6. When learning characters, what do you wish you could see or do more easily?

7. Do you need any kind of setup to study characters? (tablet + stylus, notebook, specific app, desktop only, etc.)

8. Do you think Chinese characters are a core/essential part of learning Mandarin/Cantonese, or more of a “nice to have”?

What Would Your Ideal Chinese Character App Look Like?

[crystal glacier]

1. If you don’t know what sound the word makes, you don’t know what the word is at all
2. Personally because I’m a partial native, I don’t really study characters for a few reasons. Reading helps though.
3. Recognize and read. I can read more characters than I can write
4. Extremely tedious but also extremely needed
5. I don’t use any apps
6. Memorize how to write them, honestly. I forget how to write them often but when I see it, I’m still like, “oh! I know this word!”
7. I think notebooks are enough for most learners
8. Essential for sure

Hope this helps :)