iLearn Chinese Characters Lite 4+

The organization is excellent. In 'progressive study' mode, you learn characters based on their frequency of use, and have to pass a quiz to move on to the next few (6-12) characters. Or you can look up characters based on category without taking quizzes. In either mode, you get both basic and advanced examples of how the character is used in a phrase. There's also an index organized 'alphabetically' by pronunciation. The app would be improved by placing the traditional character (and the ancient pictogram, when available) in an obvious and consistent spot on every page. It would also be cool if the quizzes gave you a definition/pronunciation and asked you to draw the character.

As a historian of ideas, I've had to learn to make my way through a number of languages, to date, I can read without over-dependence on a dictionary etc. around twelve. Like most Westerners, I was at first intimidated by Chinese because of the characters. However, I found that learning characters is no more difficult than learning any set of vocabulary and the manner this program teaches characters makes even that fairly straightforward, and it's etymological approach to explaining characters appeals to persons who see history as a wonderful type of storytelling. The fact that compared to Sanskrit and Classical Greek, Chinese grammar, such as it is could be described as either non-existent or a "cake walk" only serves to make things more easy and more enjoyable, is just an added benefit to the program's manner of treating the primary difficulty Chinese does present.

The best information and detail I've seen so far to break down Chinese characters with their original meanings, and then contrasting simplified vs traditional. Understanding the history and reason for the pictograms makes everything much easier to remember.

The downside is the app is very ugly and a face lift would really do this app justice! This should be one of the top Chinese apps.