I really hated breaking the flow when I was listening to Chinese/Taiwanese podcasts. I wanted an app that let me tap on words I didn’t understand during these sessions without switching context. This led me to create Toku Reader, an iOS app that helps learners tap on words during podcasts, YouTube videos and on any website during the study flow. 

You can look up almost all podcasts and YouTube videos, and the app will prioritize the creator’s transcript (if available) or auto-generate one on your phone. In most cases, the transcripts and word look ups are mostly correct, but given the complexity of Mandarin, there will always be an effort to improve character-word combinations. Also, everything stays on your app, you’re never sharing sensitive information or what you’re reading with anyone, and all processing happens on your phone so it is 100% offline (and therefore fast!) - no API calls, no AI wrappers.

And for those who like shadowing practice, the app can also pause at each sentence, replay in again and again, and allow you to record yourself to compare your practice with the native speech. This combined with the ability to import your own texts (PDFs, eBooks, etc.), a dictionary and revise words sections are all my effort to ensure that your flow is never interrupted!

I did this because I really wanted an app that was intentional and private. In any case, this app has really helped me in my language studies, so I wanted to share it again here. I made an earlier post about this here. The app has improved a ton since then - new UI/UX, a more streamliend podcast experience, a new mascot called Damo based on the Daruma (its Japanese, but it shares deep Chinese roots, which my app respects!), etc. I hope this helps you in your language study! You can see how it works here on a Taiwanese Podcast!

I’m a 26yr old foreigner been staying in China for 1 year now doing my bachelors I would like to make Chinese friends or any mandarin speaking friend who can help me improve my Chinese.