Taiwan Mandarin
Taiwan-standard readings such as 垃圾 lèsè and 星期 xīngqí, and Taiwan words: 捷運 for the MRT, 影片 rather than 視頻, 軟體 rather than 軟件.
An iPhone app for Taiwan Mandarin 台灣華語: Traditional characters, Taiwan readings in 注音 or pinyin, and a TOCFL track. Train from white belt to black in a kung-fu dojo, with a coach who kicks when you tap him.
物極必反 wù jí bì fǎn: “when things reach an extreme, they reverse.”
加油!Jiāyóu! Keep going.
Many apps teach mainland Mandarin and swap the characters. Wu Ji Bi Fan starts from Taiwan: the words, the readings, the stroke order and the exam.
Taiwan-standard readings such as 垃圾 lèsè and 星期 xīngqí, and Taiwan words: 捷運 for the MRT, 影片 rather than 視頻, 軟體 rather than 軟件.
3,525 characters with stroke outlines, Taiwan stroke order where it is available, and a breakdown of every one into the parts it is built from.
Read with zhuyin (bopomofo), the way Taiwan learns it, or with pinyin. Pick one when you start and switch any time in your profile.
A placement test, listening practice, writing tasks and mock papers laid out to the format of Taiwan’s Test of Chinese as a Foreign Language.
Belts are levels, forms are lessons and sparring is review. Each belt ends in a belt test. The vocabulary is the app’s own graded list of 14,300 words, each with its reading in zhuyin and pinyin.
Train any of them, in three groups. The home screen’s coach picks your next move and tells you why that one.
Speaking, writing, reading and memory, each checked by the app rather than taken on trust.
Say a word and see your pitch contour drawn over the model, with each syllable marked right or wrong. Scoring runs on the device. When iOS has its offline Chinese (Taiwan) speech model, the app also checks the syllables themselves: it hears 資 when you meant 知 and tells you whether the initial or the final slipped.
Watch a character’s strokes animate in order, then trace them yourself. Your strokes are scored against each stroke’s path, so “written unaided” means unaided. A brush pad lets you repeat a character with the model faint beneath it, then test yourself with it hidden.
Four stories in sixteen chapters, read at your belt, with grammar notes and a comprehension check after each chapter. Tap any word for its meaning; one more tap adds it to your reviews.
Ten branching roleplays, at least one for every belt. Your partner’s next line depends on what you chose, and you say every reply out loud to have its tones scored. Written for Taiwan, scripted and offline. There is no chatbot.
Find your level, then prepare for the test in the format it is set.
It reports the share you got right and the level that suggests. It says plainly that no practice app can turn that into an official score, because TOCFL does not publish a conversion.
Look up any of the 14,300 words by characters, pinyin or English, and save any of them to your reviews.
Every word you learn returns just before you would forget it, scheduled by FSRS-4.5, with a desired-retention dial from 80 to 95 percent, or the classic SM-2 curve if you prefer it. The Memory screen shows a 26-week heatmap, a 30-day forecast of what is due and your predicted recall. It also finds the words that keep failing and says why: a look-alike, a sound-alike or a hard tone pair, with the drill that fixes it.
The coach, the Tournament and your fluency score count what you recall, never how long the app is open.
The whole course is inside the app. Nothing you say, write or photograph leaves your iPhone.
White and yellow belts are free, with every discipline. Your reviews are always free: nothing you have learnt is ever locked.
US$0
US$39.99 / year
3 days free on the yearly plan · or US$4.99 / month
Prices are in US dollars; the App Store shows the price for your country. Pro is an auto-renewing subscription bought through Apple and charged to your Apple Account. It renews at the same price unless you cancel at least 24 hours before the end of the current period. Manage or cancel it in your Apple Account settings. See the terms.
Taiwan Mandarin, 台灣華語: the Mandarin spoken and taught in Taiwan, with its own readings and vocabulary. It is not Taiwanese Hokkien.
No. Wu Ji Bi Fan teaches Traditional characters only, as they are written in Taiwan.
Either. Choose 注音 (bopomofo) or pinyin when you start, and change it any time in 我 Profile under Script.
No account, ever. The course works offline. You only need a connection to buy or restore Pro through the App Store.
The app tracks the pitch of your voice and compares each syllable’s tone with the model, on your iPhone. If iOS has its offline Chinese (Taiwan) speech model, Sparring and Scenarios also check the syllables themselves. Without it, the app scores tones alone rather than send your voice to a server.
The syllable check is lenient by design: a recogniser sometimes hears the word you meant rather than the syllable you said. How to get the offline model.
It tells you the share of a mock paper you got right and the level that suggests. No practice app can convert that into an official TOCFL score, because TOCFL does not publish a conversion. Wu Ji Bi Fan is not affiliated with or endorsed by the organisers of the TOCFL.
You keep white and yellow belts with every discipline, and your reviews stay free. Words you have learnt are never locked. Green belt and above, and the TOCFL mocks and writing tasks, close again until you resubscribe.
iPhone, running iOS 26 or later.
Free on iPhone. White and yellow belts, every discipline, no account.
Download on theApp Store