Side by side
Du Chinese vs Migaku
Du Chinese
214 positive (84%) · 32 mixed (13%) · 9 negative (4%)
Trust + time weighted: +82%
Top excerpts
Du Chinese is suitable for beginners! You'll find plenty of easy to read stories adapted for you. Additionally, there is an option to show pinyin pronunciation above characters, and there are really good grammar points provided for lots of basic characters.
Parent context: The text, in combination with the functionality of the app, is their primary product. The images aren't. There's no reason to think that the text is AI generated, just because the text is. But even if the text is generated, it's presumably reviewed by qualified native Chinese people, so I fail to see the issue. Reply: I would not presume this. Native? Perhaps. Qualified? There are a lot of factors that go into the pedagogical quality of a graded reader that neither natives or AI just magically know, and most apps are allergic to hiring qualified teachers precisely because they know customers can't tell the difference between good and bad educational content
It's one of the many amazing stories in DuChinese.
the only thing I can afford is Du Chinese (I asked nicely and they gave a good discount on the annual subscription) because it's one of the few graded readers with traditional characters version and even zhuyin.
In my experience, Skritter is best combined with something like Du Chinese so you get to see the characters in context and get used to their pronunciation.
Migaku
167 positive (87%) · 19 mixed (10%) · 7 negative (4%)
Trust + time weighted: +84%
Top excerpts
I'd honestly just follow a simple guide to set up the commonly used free tools (yomitan, anki, etc) and have fun with Japanese without bothering paying for a service like migaku. Also, I don't trust anything that comes out of automated AI explanations and translations. Better to avoid.
You can watch YouTube on your phone with Migaku; it generates subtitles, lets you click on them to see what they mean, and lets you make flashcards out of the subtitles if you want them
apps like Migaku or tools like Yomitan help you consume media in another language
The major use-case for Migaku is sitting at your computer and watching YouTube, Netflix, etc. and mining subtitles. I don't get much time to sit at my computer and watch content in general, due to working full-time and having two toddler children at home. ... In general there seemed to be a lot to learn when it comes to keep tracking of what words you've seen, what words you're learning, etc, especially if you're going to be hooking up Migaku to Anki rather than just using the built-in SRS.
Their customer service was good, prompt, and polite and I just wanted to share that.