In this update, the focus was on design to improve your user experience learning Chinese, as that’s always one of our priorities. This design update also is a big step toward getting Ninchanese ready for its release on mobile devices. Here’s what’s new in this design update.

A new and improved selection screen

Ninchanese currently offers Chinese content for levels ranging from complete beginner to advanced.  However, it appeared that this wide range of content and learning material wasn’t visible enough to some users, who tended to stick to the beginner area and not notice they could skip ahead to material that suited their level of Chinese better.
So, to make the different levels in Ninchanese more visible and more easily accessible, we’ve completely redesigned the world selection area.  Now all islands are visible, so you can click on them or slide the islands until you find the world that suits you.

Each world corresponds to a specific level of Ninchanese: World 1 is for newbies in Chinese, i.e., complete beginners in Chinese, World 2 is for elementary Chinese learners, World 3 is for intermediate Chinese learners, and World 4 is for upper-intermediate Mandarin Chinese learners. In addition, we also launched advanced Chinese courses, which are World 5 and 6 of Ninchanese.

Plus, we think it looks prettier, and we think you will too.

A new menu

The left-hand menu in the app was also completely redesigned to be easier to use on mobile devices and to allow you to navigate Ninchanese more easily. This is what it looks like now:

Now, you have all the shortcuts you need in one handy place. In addition, the new menu is light, pleasant, and efficient. Trust us, and You’ll particularly enjoy this new menu when using Ninchanese on mobile devices. Neat-o!

We are paving the way for Ninchanese’s first Mobile App!

We have also gone over most of the pages in Ninchanese to make your browsing experience smoother and more pleasant, especially on mobile devices, such as phones and tablets. There’s still some work needed for some pages, but don’t worry, we’re on it.

Our goal is to go over the pages in Ninchanese and reduce the loading time of the app’s pages. So now, you’ll have a more fluid and generally faster experience learning on Ninchanese, especially when you’re using a mobile device.

Even better yet! This design update paves the way for Ninchanese’s first mobile app,

 What else is new in this design update?

The password reset page has been redesigned. You can now reset your password in style! We’ve also fixed and squashed bugs, as we always do. You guys are excellent at spotting and reporting bugs, and we thank you for that!

We regularly update some aspects of Ninchanese and improve the way your Chinese learning application works. Because we do that pretty regularly, sometimes we don’t write a blog post detailing the changes at the time. But plenty has changed since the last update, which added a whole Chinese-English and English-Chinese dictionary to Ninchanese! Things such as:

• Easier access to more information on a stage – now, when you start a new stage, have you noticed you can:
  • Click on See More to see more details on the stage’s content. You’ll be able to see the list of words you’ll be learning or the list of sentences you’ll be learning to put together, speak or understand
  • Read and reread the story as much as you want? Just click on the Read Story button
  • View the lesson, if you’re doing a sentence-building stage with Yocha

• No more “to” – A number of you had told us via feedback and through the Nincha Chat on Slack that having to systematically type “to” before a verb was annoying and counter-productive. So we listened, and no made typing the “to” noncompulsory. So if you want to type “to be called” or ” be called” for 叫, you now can! We’re always happy to make changes, no matter how small, to make your learning experience on Ninchanese more pleasant and intuitive.

How do you like the new changes? We love hearing what you think, like, or believe could be improved, so let us know, either in the app or via the Chat!

See you soon for a new update!

Sarah, a meowsome member of:

The Nincha Team

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The post Speed & Design update: Paving the way for the Android Mobile App! appeared first on Ninchanese.

These top architectural wonders  were selected by Jing Daily, a magazine dedicated to the business of luxury and culture in China.

#1 China stunning architectural: Sifang Parkland (Nanjing)

Sifang Parklang is an 11-building complex, including a hotel, a conference center, residential villas, and the Sifang Art Museum. Guess they really like geometric shapes in Nanjing!Built over the course of 10 years on the outskirts of Nanjing, Sifang Parkland was developed by the 58-year old real-estate developer Lu Jun and his son, Lu Xun.

#2 China stunning architectural: Shenzhen Bao’an International Airport (Shenzhen)

Designed by Rome-based Studio Fuksas […] the Shenzhen Bao’an International Airport’s new Terminal 3 officially opened in November with its first flight taking off for Mongolia.

I already really liked Beijing’s Airport look and feel, can’t wait to go check out Shenzhen’s new airport terminal! The outside looks extremely impressive too! But as the author points out, I might not be getting a change to use the terminal any time soon.

In spite of its cosmopolitan architectural elegance and abundant passenger capacity, the $1-trillion airport currently serves mostly regional routes and has only one direct flight to Europe—Helsinki. Time will tell whether more airlines will connect to the new airport terminal.

#3 China stunning architectural: Shenzhen Stock Exchange (Shenzhen)

photo by philippe ruault – image courtesy of OMA

This building’s most unique feature is the three-story portion that sticks out from the rest, at 120 feet above the ground. Never mind the fact the Chinese stock exchange performed the worst this year, and Shanghai especially, this new Stock Exchange building is set to shine.

#4 China stunning architectural: New Century Global Center (Chengdu)

This massive new shopping center – 4 times the size of the Mall of America, can you imagine? –  is so huge you could almost fit anything you’d want in it. It IS the World’s largest building after all. So you could fit in it: 20 Sydney Opera Houses or 3 Pentagons. Instead, it holds an IMAX theater, shops, restaurants, offices, hotels, conference rooms, a “Mediterranean village,” a pirate ship, and a skating rink.

And a gigantic artificial beach, complete with a waterpark,fake sunrises and sunsets and everything. Makes sense for a shopping mall.

#5 China stunning architectural: The China Wood Sculpture Museum (Harbin)

Photo: Iwan Baan 

This surreal, sleek looking building sure sticks out in Harbin! Despite being a decent size, the city doesn’t have too many modern looking buildings yet…so this sort of looks like an alien tried to park his ship, don’t you think?

What do you think of these buildings? Did we miss architectural wonders that were built in China in 2013? Let us know in the comments below!

Now let’s see what gets built in 2014 I’m hoping this awesomely crazy bus comes to life!

The Nincha Team!

Ninchanese is a new platform where you’ll have fun learning Chinese! We’re still working on it for now, so sign up to try the beta for free when we launch! And stay in touch with us on Facebook, Twitter, Google + and Weibo.

The post China stunning architectural: Top 5 of 2013 appeared first on Ninchanese.