Laowai Chinese Dictionary5.3.8 - App Store

Learn Chinese through HSK courses, your own word lists, and the things you want to read.

Laowai brings an offline Chinese-English dictionary together with HSK 3.0 courses, adaptive practice, and a reader with pinyin above individual words.

HSK 3.0 COURSES, LEVELS 1-4

. Follow lessons that connect vocabulary, grammar, listening, and speaking.
. Review difficult activities from across your course in a shared review round.
. Carry word progress between course lessons and your own practice.
. Continue your course or your latest word list from the Learn screen.

A FREE OFFLINE DICTIONARY

. Search 124,000+ Chinese-English entries by characters, pinyin, or English.
. Explore 106,000+ Chinese-English example sentences.
. Hear pronunciation and look up related words, grammar, and stroke order.
. Save useful words and examples for later.

PRACTICE YOUR WORDS

. Use HSK collections, themed lists, favorites, history, or personal lists.
. Practice listening, speaking, meaning, tones, sentences, and character writing.
. Choose a character-writing-only round when you want to focus on handwriting.
. Review words and grammar patterns as they become due.
. Check your progress and choose the words your next round will use.

READ AND LISTEN

. Explore recorded dialogues, guided readers, stories, and Chinese classics.
. Import EPUB, TXT, and FB2 books and texts.
. Read with pinyin above individual words and look up a word or phrase in place.
. Keep your position as you move between chapters.
. Follow speech highlighting and control playback speed.

KEEP CHINESE CLOSE

. Review from Home Screen widgets, Live Activities, and Apple Watch.
. Bring forgotten words back sooner with Remember / Forgot controls.
. Open the right word list from study reminders.
. Sync lists, texts, reading position, and learning progress with optional iCloud sync.

LAOWAI PRO

Dictionary search stays free. Laowai Pro unlocks unlimited practice, unlimited widgets and Live Activities, and iCloud sync. Prices and subscription terms are shown before purchase.

DATA SOURCES

Dictionary data is derived from CC-CEDICT under CC BY-SA 4.0. Examples and recorded material include attributed licensed and first-party sources. Source and license details are available in Profile > Data Sources.

Software: Arseniy Dorogin and Dmitry Polyansky
Design: Dmitry Polyansky

Version History Controls now adapt to iPhone Duo: actions sit along the right edge on the outer display and in landscape on the inner display. Reader details also fit more clearly on the outer display. 5.3.8 19h ago • Choose a study reminder after practice, with controls to pause it or turn it off.
• Return to Learn from reminders and the word widget.
• Improved dictionary navigation, example paging and layouts at different screen widths.
• More reliable word selection, keyboard focus and switching between word and example search.
• Easier navigation with large text. 5.3.7 1d ago • Clearer practice feedback and fairer listening choices.
• Repeat a round directly from your results and keep your progress when returning to practice.
• More reliable lesson navigation, keyboard focus and History.
• Library now uses the same native search as Learn, with an easy way to close it on iPad. 5.3.6 Oct 1 Guided practice for word lists now starts with short, tap-to-answer rounds. Read clear explanations at your own pace, see your progress, and pick up an interrupted round. Custom settings and writing practice remain available. 5.3.5 Sep 27 Fixes here and there...
New stuff on characters decomposition, check it out:) 5.3.3 Sep 22 Improved stability when importing shared lists and reading text with emoji. Added product analytics controls in Settings. 5.3.2 Sep 12 Laowai 5.3 brings HSK courses and word practice closer together.

• Follow HSK 3.0 courses for levels 1–4.
• Review difficult activities from across your course.
• Continue your course or your word lists from a clearer, more colorful Learn screen.
• Explore grammar patterns with explanations, examples and spaced review.
• Read Chinese with pinyin above individual words.
• Reach Live Activity and widget controls more easily.

Also includes improvements to scrolling, large text, dark mode and French study controls. 5.3 Sep 8 Meet Laowai 5.2 — a major upgrade built around real Chinese and a clearer daily learning flow.

• Learn now brings adaptive practice, grammar reference, and your word lists together.
• Practice rounds can mix meaning, sentences, listening, speaking, tones, writing, and connected grammar — with controls for the skills you want today.
• Recorded dialogues, readers, stories, and native examples bring words into authentic context.
• Library is now the home for books, texts, dialogues, readers, classics, and saved reading.
• EPUB import, chapter navigation, auto-continuation, complete-phrase selection, and text-to-speech controls make long-form reading much smoother.
• Real sentence audio is preferred when available; text-to-speech highlights the passage it is currently reading.
• Apple Watch, widgets, and Live Activity now use one honest recall model: forgotten words return sooner, checked accuracy stays untouched, and delayed signals never roll back newer progress.
• New study reminders, richer deep links, clearer progress reporting, refreshed tips, and extensive accessibility, UI, and stability improvements. 5.2 Aug 30 Laowai 5.1 brings a faster, smarter way to learn Chinese:
• Search pinyin with tone numbers and see common words first.
• Character variants are grouped into cleaner results.
• Learn now brings lists, texts, grammar, and scanning together.
• Word cards now include grammar, measure words, related words, synonyms, and antonyms.
• Full French interface, dictionary definitions, and Chinese–French examples with English fallback.
• Faster lists, HSK-personalized onboarding, clearer free practice, and a new Lifetime Pro option. 5.1 Aug 27 A clearer path from lookup to learning:

• Free offline Chinese-English dictionary with 124,000+ entries
• Search by characters, pinyin, or English
• 106,000+ Chinese-English example sentences
• Save words to personal, HSK, and topic lists
• Short adaptive practice for translation, tones, listening, and writing
• Tap any word while reading to see pinyin and meaning
• Laowai Pro adds unlimited practice, widgets, Live Activity, and iCloud sync 5.0.5 Aug 24 Bug fixes 5.0.4 Aug 21 A clearer path from lookup to learning:

• Free offline Chinese-English dictionary with 124,000+ entries
• Search by characters, pinyin, or English
• 106,000+ Chinese-English example sentences
• Save words to personal, HSK, and topic lists
• Short adaptive practice for translation, tones, listening, and writing
• Tap any word while reading to see pinyin and meaning
• Laowai Pro adds unlimited practice, widgets, Live Activity, and iCloud sync 5.0.3 Aug 20 Laowai is now redesigned for English-speaking Chinese learners.

• Chinese-English dictionary powered by CC-CEDICT
• English, pinyin, and character search
• Chinese-English example sentences
• HSK, topic, book, and personal word lists
• Updated study, texts, widgets, sync, and subscriptions
• Your existing lists, progress, texts, and eligible subscriptions are carried forward 5.0.2 Aug 11 - UI tweaks 4.1.1 09/11/2021 - new study module
- visual tweaks 4.1 09/08/2021 system lists updated 4.0.6 09/04/2021 - bugs desinsected 4.0.5 08/26/2021 - critical fix for subscription popup 4.0.4 08/10/2021 - we fixed settings bug on iPad 4.0.3 08/08/2021 - critical fix for Texts 4.0.2 08/08/2021 Made several cosmetic changes to Library. 4.0.1 08/07/2021 We changed everything, Laowai is totally rewritten.

- New study module
- Text module added
- Fancy pinyin
- Settings

Oh, by the way, we removed all tracking from the app. 4.0 08/02/2021 - object detection optimised
- audio playback optimised 1.0.3 02/20/2021 - fixed profile bug 1.0.2 02/11/2021 - fixed synonyms
- some translations in HSK were not correct
- fixed toolbar (Study button) 1.0.1 02/09/2021