Chinese Annotator for iPhone

Quick overview

Chinese Annotator is an iPhone reader built to help learners tackle Chinese text. It opens ePub books and lets you attach three-line annotations (character, Pinyin, and an English gloss) directly to the text. You can tag words you already know and manage which cues remain visible while you read.

Main capabilities

• Import ePub files and annotate text inline using a three-line layout (character / Pinyin / English).
• Hide Pinyin or English glosses for items you’ve marked as known to encourage recall.
• Generate a word index showing all tokens, only those lacking definitions, or only those missing Pinyin.
• Export word lists so they can be transferred into study tools like Pleco or other flashcard apps.
• Mark individual words as “known” or “unknown” to track vocabulary familiarity at the word level.
• Print the book page you’re viewing; on iOS 10+ you can produce a PDF of that page.

Learning advantages

• Exported lists make it straightforward to build focused flashcard decks for review.
• Printing or saving pages as PDF is useful for offline study, note-taking, or sharing.
• Hiding supportive text (Pinyin/definitions) nudges you to depend on character recognition instead of transliteration.
• The three-line annotation format reinforces the link between form, pronunciation, and meaning.
• Per-word knowledge flags help you prioritize unfamiliar items and monitor progress.
• Importing your own ePub material lets you study content that interests you rather than generic lists.

Typical workflow

1. Load an ePub into the app.
2. Add three-line annotations as you read, and flag words you already know.
3. Use the word index to focus on unknown words or missing pronunciations.
4. Export the selected list to a file and import it into a flashcard tool (for example, Pleco).
5. Print or save pages as PDFs for offline review or long-form study.

Alternative app suggestion

If you want a free, creative alternative outside of purely study-focused tools, try Toca Life World — a sandbox-style app for building scenes and stories. It’s not a language tool, but it’s listed as a popular, free option for casual exploration.

Who benefits most

This app is best for Chinese learners who read ePubs and want lightweight, in-context annotation plus simple export options to link reading directly to spaced-repetition study.