About p8nda

What p8nda is

p8nda is a Chinese to English dictionary, available on the web and as a mobile app. The focus is on Mandarin as used in mainland China. The dictionary holds 60,928 entries: the full HSK 1-9 vocabulary (per the 2025 HSK 3.0 exam syllabus, where 7-9 share a single unified word list), plus the characters, idioms, and everyday vocabulary you meet outside a textbook. Each entry leads with the simplified form; the traditional form is shown next to it when the two differ.

The mobile app is out on both stores: Google Play for Android and the App Store for iPhone and iPad. It works offline, and your flashcards, history, and settings sync with the website when you sign in.

We are a small team based in Kraków, Poland, and we are learning Chinese ourselves. We use p8nda every day.

What you get

• A clean interface built around day to day study
• HSK badges using the 2025 exam syllabus and frequency rankings on every entry
• Short learner tips covering usage, grammar, history, culture, register, and common mistakes
• Characters broken down into their components and radicals, with animated stroke order and writing practice
• AI translation for full sentences, with word by word breakdowns
• Flashcard decks shared between the website and the app, with practice that targets the words you keep getting wrong
• Audio on words and example sentences, with each character highlighted as it is spoken
• AI and OCR features included with daily quotas, not sold as add-ons

How the dictionary is made

Entries are drafted with AI and then checked. Every draft is verified against established Chinese reference works before it lands, and HSK levels and frequency rankings are assigned from published word lists rather than estimated. Nothing reaches the dictionary straight out of a language model.

After that, entries go through review passes that take one problem at a time across the whole dictionary: pinyin spacing, tone accuracy, example quality. It is slow, and it is the part that decides whether the dictionary is worth using. The tools and data behind it are listed on the credits page.

What's planned

• Better support for traditional characters, including a toggle to read the whole dictionary in traditional
• A light theme, for people who would rather not read a dark interface
• Audio on every word, closing the gap on entries added since the last generation run
• Example sentences ordered from simple to advanced within each entry, so beginners meet the easy ones first
• Continued dictionary growth, with hand review keeping pace

How it stays free

The dictionary and all offline features are free and will stay free. There are no ads, and you do not need an account to use the dictionary. AI features cost real money per request, so they run on daily quotas: 15 AI translations a day without an account, 25 with a free account, and 10 image OCR scans either way. Paid plans will expand those quotas for anyone who wants more over time. The dictionary itself will not be paywalled.

How p8nda compares

Pleco is the benchmark Chinese dictionary on mobile, with years of work behind it and a feature set nothing else matches. We have used it for years, paid for its add-ons, and still rely on it. p8nda is not trying to replace it. It covers the same ground of fast search and offline reading, with a more modern interface, AI translation built in, and the AI features included rather than sold separately.

General AI chatbots can answer Chinese questions too, but they are built for everything, not for Chinese. Looking up a word is faster than waiting for a chat response. A chatbot writes its answer on the spot and nobody checks it; a p8nda entry is written once, reviewed repeatedly, and when it gets corrected the fix reaches everyone. The app works offline, audio is ready to play rather than generated on request, and the interface is built around the things a learner actually repeats: search, read an entry, hear it, save it, review it.