Frequently Asked Questions

Because cost shouldn't be the reason anyone doesn't learn Chinese.

We made Bamboo Island free so it can reach the families who need it most — those who can't swing a recurring subscription or a hefty upfront payment, or who simply haven't found a learning mode that fits them. Mandarin tools tend to assume you can pay, pay again, and keep paying. We wanted a different model: one where a motivated learner with a phone can learn for real, no credit card required.

We built Bamboo Island for our own families first — then decided to share it with anyone learning Chinese. If it helps you, that's the whole point.

The voice comes from your phone's built-in speech engine, so how natural it sounds depends on your device. The default Android voice can sound a bit unnatural, but you can install a more natural Chinese voice for free — for example, updating Google Text-to-Speech in the Play Store often unlocks better voices already on your device. Bamboo Island lets you pick any installed voice in Settings → Voice, so try a few and keep the one that sounds best.

Speed also matters a lot. Too fast and the tones blur; too slow (below 70%) and voices drag — the tone contours stretch and start to sound odd, which can actually make tones harder to hear. The app defaults to 70% — slightly slowed for listening practice, while staying close enough to real speech (~100%) that listening skills transfer to the real world. Once the ear trains, 80% keeps tones most natural. If a learner is struggling, replay the audio rather than slowing it down — repetition beats rate.

It means "readable at" that level: HSK 2 on a card says that if you have finished HSK 2, you can read the lesson. The label is the lowest HSK level whose vocabulary covers 90% of the lesson's characters — a few harder words may still appear, and tapping them for their meaning is the natural next step.

In the app, the My Imports page has a How? link that opens the full explanation with the math.

Yes — the app is still fully offline. Everything in Reading (the lesson library, imports, word look-ups, audio) works with no connection at all.

The four Generate options are the exception by design: "AI Generated" means the AI really writes the lesson — extending one of your own stories or talks, or writing something new at an HSK level you pick. That needs a (free) AI key plus internet, exactly like the other ✨ buttons in the app. Everything the AI writes is checked on your device: the new-character count and the Review / Just right / Stretch / Challenge badge are computed from the actual text, never just trusted from the AI.

Get a free key in Settings → AI assistant — Groq and Google Gemini both offer free keys with no credit card.

Almost any plain text: paste it or upload a .txt file (even ones that show up as garbage characters 乱码 elsewhere — old Chinese-app files are read correctly). Four layouts are understood automatically —

• Chinese line with English on the next line, or the reverse order;
• both on one line separated by a Tab (Anki's "Notes in Plain Text" export format);
• Chinese only.

Only have English? The preview offers ✨ Translate to Chinese; Chinese-only text can gain ✨ Add English the same way (AI key needed). A live preview shows the pairing and difficulty before anything is saved, re-importing the same text warns you first, and files over 200 lines import their first 200.

Imports are yours: title, description, cover picture, star ratings — and the ✎ button reopens the editor anytime.

When a line's spoken tones differ from the dictionary (tone sandhi — 你好 written nǐ hǎo, said ní hǎo), readers show two rows by default: dictionary pinyin (green) over spoken pinyin (blue, changed syllables red).

Settings → Reading display → Pinyin display offers four modes:

• Both rows (default) — dictionary on top, spoken below, wherever tones change;
• Spoken only — just the spoken row on sandhi lines;
• Dictionary only — always the dictionary form;
• Smart single row — spoken pinyin where tones change, dictionary pinyin everywhere else, so every line keeps exactly one row.

The colors never change in any mode — green dictionary, blue spoken, red changed syllables.

Because tones change in real speech. When two third tones meet, the first is spoken as a second tone — 你好 is written nǐ hǎo but said ní hǎo. The green row shows the dictionary pinyin; the blue row below shows how it's actually spoken, with the changed syllables in red — exactly what the ▶ voice says. It's on automatically whenever Pinyin is on, in stories and talks alike. Full explanation →

Every learning path — Stories, Talks, Reading (including all 60 built-in lessons, AI-generated lessons, and text imports), Flashcards, and Remember — is completely free. No ads, no subscription, no data sold, and nothing important is locked behind a paywall.

The one optional purchase: extended recording practice. The free version includes 3 recordings stored at a time (up to 2 minutes each) — enough to record, listen back, and compare takes. Deleting a recording frees its slot, so you can practice as many times as you like. A one-time purchase extends this to 5 recordings, up to 5 minutes each. That's it — no recurring charges, no other locked features. Every recording — free or unlocked — can be shared with the 📤 button (WhatsApp, email) and plays on any device.

• No ads — you never see advertising.
• No subscription — the only purchase is a one-time unlock, and everything else is free.
• No data sold — we don't sell or share your information. See our Privacy Policy.

You never have to — the app is English-first: type or speak English, tap ✨ to get Chinese. But if you'd like to type hanzi directly (in the app's Chinese text fields or anywhere on your phone), add Chinese to your phone keyboard once. The important detail: pick Chinese (Simplified) with the Pinyin layout — not Traditional and not Zhuyin/Bopomofo — so the keyboard matches the characters the app teaches. Full walkthrough: Typing Chinese →

Yes — fully. After the initial install, Bamboo Island runs completely offline. All the stories, talks, flashcards, the dictionary, stroke animations, and the memory libraries work with no internet at all — no Wi-Fi, no cellular data. That's deliberate: a learner should be able to learn on a phone or tablet, anywhere — in the waiting room, on a bus, or in the small pockets of free time that fill the cup of an ordinary day (see why those gaps matter →). The only feature that needs the internet is the optional ✨ AI translation/generation, which calls an AI provider you choose in Settings — and several providers offer a free tier, so even the AI can stay free.

Yes. Everything you create — stories, talks, cards, drawings, settings — is stored privately on your own device. There's no account, no login, no email required, and no cloud sync that sends content to our servers. We can't see what you write, and neither can anyone else.

The one exception is the optional ✨ AI features: if you turn them on, a sentence you're translating is sent to the AI provider you chose (e.g. Groq, OpenAI) under your own key. That's the only time any text leaves the device and goes to the provider's servers. Read the full Privacy Policy →

Bamboo Island is built for learners of every age — from young beginners (roughly 5 and up) learning alongside a family member, to teens, college students, and adult self-learners using it independently. The youngest learners benefit most from someone reading alongside them and helping create personal stories; older learners use it on their own. The content you create is what you make it — so it grows with you.

Absolutely — Bamboo Island works for solo learners and groups, not just families. The Talks feature is built for conversation practice between any two (or more) voices:

• Solo learner: create a dialogue with a virtual partner. Set one speaker as a "Friend" and the other as "Me." Tap the Friend's line to hear it spoken, then read your line out loud — and tap the Friend's line again to check yourself. It's like having a practice partner who never tires.
• High-school or college friends: each of you takes a speaker and reads your lines back and forth. You can even give each speaker a different voice so the dialogue sounds real.
• Officemates or a study group: the same idea — assign a speaker to each person and take turns. Great for a lunch-break practice session.

You can name the speakers anything you like — "Friend," "Me," "Mom," a classmate's name, even a character from a story. Each one can have its own voice. See Talks for how to set it up.

No. The ✨ AI features (translating English to Chinese, generating stories or dialogues) are entirely optional. Without any AI provider set up, the app works completely by hand — you type the Chinese yourselves, and everything else (reading, review, the memory system) is fully functional.

If you do want the AI conveniences, you bring your own key from a provider of your choice (Groq, Google Gemini, OpenRouter, OpenAI, or a custom endpoint) in Settings → AI. You pay that provider directly for whatever you use — Bamboo Island takes no cut and adds no fee. And several of those providers offer a free tier, so the AI can be free too.

💡 No key at all? There's a middle way — see Can I use the AI without an API key? below.

Yes — with any free chatbot. ChatGPT, Gemini, Groq, or any other chatbot can do the same job as the in-app ✨ button:

1. Copy one of our ready-made prompts (one for stories, one for talks) from the No AI key? Use any chatbot section of the Settings guide.
2. Paste the prompt into your chatbot, add your English story or conversation after it, and send.
3. Copy the Chinese lines it gives back — the prompt asks for them one per line, in the exact format the app expects — and paste them into your story or talk.

It's a little more copying than tapping ✨, but it costs nothing, needs no account, and works with whatever chatbot your family already uses.

The app works fully offline, so it picks word meanings from its built-in dictionary — the same one, every time, without analyzing the sentence. For words with several meanings, the dictionary layer now ranks the everyday meaning first (this was tuned against the official HSK vocabulary, word by word), and the word popover shows the top two meanings.

Example: in a story about kittens, 黑 alone means "black", and 黑色 ("black color") is its own word — both show the color meaning first. Rarely, a technical or historical sense may still come first for an uncommon word. When a meaning looks odd, tap 📖 Pleco in the popover to see the full dictionary entry for all senses — that's exactly what it's there for.

Not at all. Bamboo Island is built for families everywhere — including the many places where English isn't the first language. When you write or speak a story or talk line in English and tap ✨ to translate, the AI gently fixes your English grammar before translating it into Chinese — keeping your meaning, just making it cleaner.

For example, you might write:

"Yesterday I go market buy apple."

The AI corrects it to "Yesterday I went to the market to buy apples" — then gives you the matching Chinese: 昨天我去市场买苹果。 You learn correct English and correct Chinese at once, with no embarrassment.

No AI key? You can also type or paste the Chinese directly — the rest of the app (reading, pinyin, review, the memory system) works perfectly either way. Or let a free chatbot do the translating: Can I use the AI without an API key?

💡 The Chinese the AI produces also leans on your HSK level (Settings): it prefers common, everyday words at or below that level — but never swaps a meaning just to stay simple. So beginners get readable sentences, and accuracy always comes first.

Yes — Bamboo Island is an Android app, available on Google Play.

The app uses your device's built-in voice, fully offline. For most words it's accurate. For a few characters with multiple readings, the word popup plays a matching single-syllable sound that is very close but not always the exact tone (e.g., 了 le may sound like lè). For the full, precise pronunciation, tap ▶ on the whole line — sentences are always read in context and correct — or check the word in 📖 Pleco.

On older Android phones (roughly 2019 or earlier), Bamboo Island may fail on first open or show only a blank screen. The cause is the phone's built-in web engine being out of date: the app needs a reasonably current Chrome (or Android System WebView) to run, and some older phones still carry a Chrome that has never been updated.

The fix is simple: open the Google Play Store, search for Chrome — or Android System WebView if your Settings list it — and tap Update. Then reopen Bamboo Island; it should load normally. Nothing you had saved is affected. (Confirmed on a 2019-era Android 9 phone: after updating Chrome, the app loaded fine.)

Bamboo Island is designed to complement, not replace. It works well alongside a tutor (tutors can even drop in their own reading passages as stories) or another app. Many families use it as the "daily practice" anchor — the personal, low-pressure half-hour — while a tutor or course handles structured progression. There's no conflict in running both.

Bamboo Island teaches Simplified Chinese (简体字) and Mandarin (普通话 / Putonghua). If you paste or speak Traditional characters, the app automatically converts them to Simplified for reading. The voices are Mandarin voices — so it's the mainland/standard spoken form. (Cantonese is a different spoken language and is not taught here.)

Because everything is stored locally, a reinstall or new device starts fresh — so use the Backup feature (in Settings → Data) to save your work to a file (Google Drive, Dropbox, MEGA, an SD card, or your Downloads folder). Then Restore it on the new device. Back up regularly — it's your safety net.

See Settings → Data for exactly how, including the loading spinner you'll see while it works.