Recommended app · Reviewed 2026-08-15
The best spaced-repetition app for Chinese vocabulary
What is the best spaced-repetition app for Chinese vocabulary?
Once you know your HSK level, learning the words you are missing becomes a scheduling problem: seeing each word enough times, spaced correctly, that it moves from familiar to known. I recommend Wordbrush, the iOS app I built, because it schedules every word with FSRS, shows words in context, and puts due reviews before new words. I tell you exactly where my bias comes from below, and I name the alternatives I would happily see you use instead.
Disclosure: I made an app specifically for spaced-repetition learning of Chinese. It's called Wordbrush, and I've built it carefully over a series of months to specifically solve for my desire to learn as quickly and efficiently as possible. So I'm a little biased, but I think it's pretty awesome (and so do the other people who have used it).
Once you know your level and which words you are missing, the entire remaining job is repetition: seeing each word enough times, spaced correctly, that it moves from "looks familiar" to "know it cold." That is a scheduling problem, and it is exactly the problem spaced-repetition software exists to solve. This page explains what to look for in that kind of app, and why the one I built is the one I keep pointing people at.
What actually matters in a vocabulary app
Most Chinese apps do too much: a dictionary, a chat bot, a grammar course, games. For the specific job of getting HSK vocabulary to stick, only a few things matter, and they are easy to check before you commit:
- A real spaced-repetition algorithm. The app should schedule each word's next review based on how well you knew it, not show you a fixed daily list. Modern systems use FSRS, which is more efficient than the older fixed intervals.
- Words shown in context. An example sentence, not just a character and its English gloss, so you learn usage and not only recognition.
- A review queue that protects itself. The daily job should be "clear your due reviews first," because skipping reviews to chase new words is the most common way self-studiers stall.
- Frequency-ordered content. Learning the most common words first gives the most coverage per word.
- It stays out of your way. The best tool for a daily habit is the one you will actually open every day.
Why I keep recommending Wordbrush
Wordbrush is an iOS spaced-repetition vocabulary app built around exactly that short list. It schedules every word with FSRS, shows words in context rather than as bare glosses, and structures the daily session so reviews come first and new words are added only when you have room. It is deliberately narrow: it does the vocabulary-retention job and does not try to be your dictionary or your grammar course. I built it that way because I wanted that tool for myself. I had placed my own level, found my own gaps, and could not find an app that just ran the reps without also trying to be a course. So I spent months making one. That is the same path this site walks you through, in the same order I walked it.
How it fits the rest of this site
Take the free placement check to find your level, browse the HSK vocabulary for your band to see what is next, then use an app to run the daily reps. The placement check and the word lists are free and always will be, because that is the part I think everyone learning this language should just have. An app only earns its place on the piece that is genuinely a daily-habit problem.
Get the app
Wordbrush is on the App Store for iPhone and iPad. New users get a free 7-day trial, then it continues as a paid subscription. It handles the daily reps so you keep the words you have learned instead of relearning them. Try it, and tell me what you think.
Try Wordbrush free for 7 days