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I have no idea how many others like me there are out there, but if you could make a pinyin-only setting that would be really cool. I'm learning mandarin but not learning characters and it makes of a lot of study apps non-useful to me if they only use hanzi.

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I think you should try learning the characters for once, maybe this time you won't have so much difficulty remembering them.

This feels uncharitable. Pinyin is a lot easier to learn coming from a western background. It's also used by many people as the primary input method for typing, and it's reasonable that the parent poster might not have a current need to learn characters. There's no reason to shame people for learning.

I certainly have no intention of shaming or talking him down, just trying to suggest an option, if it comes across that way, my bad.

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