Please read this
Here’s a good article on the gizchina website.
Important Note: this topic is regarding Google Play purchases. Amazon Appstore purchases use a separate licensing system. Other Notes:
In short, when you purchase a paid app, it is tied to your Google Account. Therefore, if your Android device is logged on to that account (through Google Play) it will be able to use the app.
You may uninstall the app (maybe to free up space) and reinstall later without having to pay again.
If you have multiple devices (and are signed into all those devices using the same Google account) then you only need to pay once for all those devices.
If you change your Google Account then you will need to purchase the app again. In which case, please email us to request a refund for the original purchase (quoting the original and new Google Play order numbers). Whether such a refund is granted depends on how much the price has changed and how long ago the original purchase was.
If you are having problems, please check that the Play Store app is using the correct Google Account. To do this, follow these steps:
Note: When you install the app on your new device, Google Play will attempt to restore your user data from your Google Play account and so your starred words, history etc should automatically be restored. However, it’s a good idea to create a manual backup (via Hanping Pro’s Backup/Restore screen) from your old device just in case (don’t forget to keep the backup ZIP file somewhere safe - for example email it to yourself). You can later restore from this ZIP file if necessary.
The search box hint starts with 汉字 in Simplified mode, or 漢字 in Traditional mode. Note, regardless of the mode, searching can be done with either Simplified or Traditional characters.
In the Nav Drawer: Settings / Chinese Settings tap the first item and select either simplified, simp [trad], traditional, or trad [simp]
For Chinese handwriting recognition, tap the paintbrush icon in the search box. To find the character by radical, tap the 部 icon. Alternatively, for Pinyin/Jyutping-based input, try Gboard – the Google Keyboard
Tap the 部 icon in the search box
Tap the microphone icon in Hanping’s search box. Long-press on this icon to show the configuration dialog. From here you can choose whether to recognize Chinese (Mandarin), English or simply use the System Default. If you click on the System Default you will be taken to the System Settings screen for Voice Recognition. The next time you click on the microphone icon, the latest configuration will be used.
Use v instead. For example, if you want to search for the pinyin nǚpéngyǒu (which means girlfriend) then you might type nvpengyou or nv3peng2you3. In fact, if you are using Gboard’s Chinese keyboard, nvp is enough.
Please read this
Suppose you have a multi-character word in the Word Details screen and want to see the dictionary entries for characters/words within that word. Just click on the character you are interested in. This will usually bring up the dictionary entry for that character. However, if there is a sub-word starting with that character then that will be shown instead. For example, suppose the Word Details screen is showing 中国人民 (zhōngguórénmín, the Chinese people). Click on 人 and you will see the entry for 人民. Click on 人 again and you will see the entry for 人.
Hanping supports these wildcard characters:
* - Multiple syllables (Hanzi & Pinyin). For example, 中*国 & zhong*guo (matches 中立国 zhong1li4guo2 & 中华民国 zhong1hua2min2guo2 etc)
@ - Single syllable (Hanzi & Pinyin). For example, 中@国 & zhong@guo (matches 中立国 zhong1li4guo2 only)
# - Tone number (Pinyin only). For example,. xi#an will match xi1an1 & xi1an4 but not xian1 etc
Long-tap on any history item (or any date label). This will bring up an Action Menu at the top of the screen where you will see three icons on the right hand side:
Note: The above steps refer to the default history style only. If you are using Classic History style (see Settings) then you will find a Clear History button at the end of the history.
Hanping Chinese Dictionary Pro and Hanping Cantonese Dictionary automatically backup your starred/tagged words to your local device. To enable this, all you need to do is go to the Backup/Restore screen (left Navigation drawer) and specify the Location for new backups. You should not specify a folder under /Android/data because that may be deleted when you uninstall apps. If the local device storage does not appear then tap on the three-dots icon in the top-right and tap Show internal storage.
Let’s suppose you choose a new folder hanping-backups at the top level of your device’s storage. Your automatic backups will be placed here. However, should you remove this directory/wipe your storage/reset your device/lose your device etc, you will also lose your backups. So you need to, er, backup these backups to a remote location. Hanping periodically prompts you to do this, allowing you to, for example, email a copy of your backup to yourself.
However, there is a better way!
Google Drive provides you with plenty of storage in the cloud. Unfortunately, the Android app does not allow you to specify folders on your device to sync. Luckily, there are apps that unlock that functionality for you. The downside is that you have to grant such apps authorisation to read/modify your Google Drive storage. If you are happy to do that, then here are some instructions for how to do this with FolderSync.
And that should be it!
If you need to restore from a backup that has been synced to Google Drive, simply launch the Google Drive app, navigate to your hanping backups folder, tap on the latest backup and select Hanping app from the app chooser. This will overwrite any starred/tagged words you currently have.
More information on how to configure FolderSync can be found here.
Your starrings and custom tags appear as labels above every headword and next to every word in all search results.
However, some people also want to know if a word is in a Predefined List like HSK 1? No problem! Just import the Predefined List as a new Custom Tag!
If you want to import all HSK levels as Custom Tags then do this:
That’s it!
If you would rather only import certain HSK levels you can do this:
From here there are two ways to import:
i. Tap on, for example, Level 1 to show the full list of words, and then tap on the top-right (import) icon (looks like a down arrow), or
ii. Long-tap for example, Level 1 to show the brief description dialog and then tap IMPORT TAG similar to above
Naturally, you can follow these steps for any Predefined List or Category, such as Top Idioms and Top Characters.
If you enter a long phrase (which is not in the dictionary) then Hanping will break down the phrase into words. This works really well when combined with voice recognition in Chinese mode!
However, sometimes its useful to do so. For example, searching for xi an will not include any of the xian results
Arrow buttons: The up/down arrow buttons at the top-right of the screen are used to navigate through the results (usually the results of a search in the main screen). To return to the search screen you can either click Back through the Word Details screens, or just click the top-left app icon to jump straight to the Search screen
Gestures: Try swiping your finger quickly left or right. This will step through the dictionary. For example, if 你好 (nǐhǎo, hello) is currently showing, then use swipe from the right to show the next dictionary entry 你好吗 (nǐhǎoma, how are you?). This is very useful for finding related words that might not have come up when searching by English (for example, hello would not bring up 你好吗 (nǐhǎoma, how are you?) Swiping your finger quickly up or down will have the same effect as using the up/down arrow buttons (i.e. step through the search results)
The colouring represents the tone of each character. There are different colouring-schemes available. To cycle through them: Menu (within app) > Settings > Colouring by Tones
(If you are not yet familiar with Homescreen Widgets, please watch:
There are two types of widgets available: 1x1 (2-character words) and 2x1 (4-character word). The words are updated daily. Adding lots of these widgets (for example, you can add four 1x1 widgets) is a great way to learn multiple words every day. Clicking on the word in the widget, brings up the word in the second screen of the app. Clicking on the icon of the widget, brings up the main screen of the app. This means you don’t need to have a separate shortcut to Hanping on your homescreen.
The labels showing your Custom Tags next to headwords, no longer include the category name. It used to look like Samples::emotion, but now is just emotion. If you need the category name to appear in the label, then please rename the Custom Tag to include that information (e.g. Samples::sample emotion so that the label is sample emotion).
As an example, you might have a category named HSK 3.0 and so the Custom Tag names might be like HSK 3.0::hsk 1, HSK 3.0::hsk 2 etc and so will show up as hsk 1, hsk 2 etc labels next to a headword.
If you wish, you could reuse labels across categories. For example, you could also have HSK 3.0 Characters::hsk 1. Hanping will not show duplicate labels next to a headword, so if a headword is tagged with multiple Custom Tags with the same label, that label is shown only once.
TLDR: For a Custom Tag in a category, the name format is Category::label. The category appears in the Tags tab as Category… and the appears next to a headword as label
For this, you need to edit the AnkiDroid template. The easiest way to do this is when viewing a flashcard in AnkiDroid:
</script> tag
document.querySelector('.play_button').click();Sometimes Hanping is unable to reset the Anki card templates directly. This is because Anki does not allow third party apps to make changes that would force the user to do a full sync.
The most common situation here is that the Hanping Chinese Type (Note Type) does not have all of the expected Card Templates. For example, if the only card type is Hanzi Question then that will be the only type of card that can be exported. To see the Card Templates, (in AnkiDroid) go to Manage Note Types, long tap on Hanping Chinese Type and tap Edit Cards.
How to recover from this (assumes you have an Ankiweb account and have already synced the problematic note type): WARNING - you will probably lose your study progress if you do this.
Sometimes Hanping is unable to export words to AnkiDroid. This only affects Android 13+ devices (predominantly Samsung and Xiaomi) and it looks like it’s an AnkiDroid bug. Please let us know if the solution here helps you.
TLDR: Use the Quick Settings Tile to show/hide the Popup Cursor.
Android 14 places extra restrictions on screen reading, so as a consequence we’ve had to remove the hide/show functionality from the persistent notification.
Instead, please use the Quick Settings Tile.
Another side-effect is that the permission dialog will show whenever you rotate the device or enter full screen mode.
Note - From Android 14, we’ve removed the ‘Trigger On System Startup’ functionality because the Quick Settings Tile is a more convenient way to control the cursor.
All permissions are optional for core functionality. However some non-core features will not work properly (or not at all) if the appropriate permissions are not granted.
Please read this
Google, Facebook, YouTube etc are unavailable from within mainland China. Nor can you purchase apps (or in-app purchases) from Google Play Store. To overcome this, sign up to a VPN provider (preferably before) you travel, and for that we currently (as of mid 2023) suggest trying ExpressVPN (affiliate link) and LetsVPN (non-affiliate).
Note: VPN provider quality is often changing and it’s often a game of cat-and-mouse, so please check before leaving for China.
First, please make sure you are running the latest version of the Hanping app you are having problems with.
Hanping apps use Google Play Store to check the current installation has a valid license. If Hanping discovers there is no valid license, the Pro-only features are automatically disabled and you may be unable to use the app.
Please note - if you DO NOT currently have an internet connection, the license check will be performed later and you can use the full version in the meantime. This means that you don’t need to worry about being locked out of the paid features when offline (for example, on holiday).
In rare circumstances, Hanping may mistakenly think a licensed installation does not have a valid license. The most common reason for this is that you are not logged into (on Android) the same Google account you used to purchase the app. The easiest way to verify this is to:
If the Hanping app (the one which is showing the license problem) is not included in the list then you probably need to add whichever account you used to purchase the app. You can also try finding your Google Play Order Number.
If the Hanping app is included in the list, then it is possible that Google Play is incorrectly reporting the license as missing. In this case, please do the following…
First, try restarting your device (because sometimes this is enough). If that doesn’t help, then:
If you still have the same problem, then please RESTART your device.
If you have LuckyPatcher installed, then that may also cause problems, so please try uninstalling that.
Please send us an email (including your Google Play Store purchase details and the Google account you used to make the purchase) if you are still having problems contact us.
Now and again, Google Play Store doesn’t quite work as it is supposed to. General Google Play Store technical support can be found here and the official page of Known Issues can be found here.
If the problem is regarding payment, try here.
In particular, worth mentioning:
From the Android Homescreen, press the Menu button and go to Settings > Manage Applications. On that screen, locate the Play Store app and click on it. Then, Clear data.
Then try again.
Try removing your gmail account (from your Android device!) and then adding it back again:
Settings > Accounts & sync > [select Google account] > Menu button/icon > Remove account (you may want to sync everything first)
then:
Settings > Accounts & sync > Add account …
When you start the Play Store app be sure to switch to the correct Google account:
Play Store app > Menu button/Overflow icon > Accounts
You might see Your download is starting, or forever Installing, or a Cancel downloading button that does not work.
Solution (2.2+ only):
From the Android Homescreen, press the Menu button and go to Settings > Manage Applications. On that screen, locate the Play Store app and click on it. Then, Clear data.
This should stop the stalled download and return things to a healthier state. When you are sure you have a good internet connection, go to the actual Play Store app and attempt to download the app again.
See more here.
This can happen when trying to view an app’s listing from My Apps.
If you just want to update an app, then try Update all. If however, the app is Manual Update then you need to long-press on the app and from there you can Update. Note: the long-press functionality is not available in the latest version of the Play Store app (3.0.26) released mid July 2011 (so please use the Update all approach or switch to a paid-app country sim card).
Please email us your purchase details so we can check your license.
If you are having problems purchasing the app or making an in-app payment (e.g. payment declined), please have a look here.
Please post here any solutions you have to Google Play Store problems.
There are a few ways to find details of your previous Google Play Store purchases:
Launch Play Store app / Tap on your profile icon (top-right of screen) / Payments and subscriptions / Budget and history
Check your old emails. The confirmation email probably has a subject starting with Your Google Play Order Receipt from. In this email you should see the Order Number which starts with GPA.
Go to Google Payments and (in the Activity tab) scroll down to your Hanping purchase and click on it. The Transaction ID should be the order number which starts with GPA. Note: make sure you are logged in to the same Google account you used to make the purchase.
If you no longer have access to your Google account nor your order confirmation email then it may still be possible to identify your purchase if it was within the last year or two, in which case please send us the email address of your Google account used to make the purchase and we will attempt to search the purchase records. Sadly, Google Play Store does not keep email address information for purchases older than one or two years.
A Hanping Account is a single place to keep a record of all your Hanping Dictionary purchases.
Definitions of some terms:
Currently, the only way to sign in to (or register a new) Hanping Account, is through Google Sign In. Therefore, for most people, the Google Play Store Account and the Hanping Account will be associated with the same Google account. However, this is not necessary. Suppose you start making purchases with a new Google account, you can just install Hanping through that and then sign in to your Hanping account which should already have the purchases linked to your old Google account.
When you register a new account, it is automatically linked to your Google Play Store account.
Notes: