Not sure how suitable it is but I think SwiftKey recently learned Chinese
It's main use is for typing Chinese of course. I find it much easier type type Chinese than it is to handwrite it.
Can use it for study I suppose about how Chinese characters relate to pinyin romanization, but if you don't know any pinyin spelling, and what the characters mean. It's not likely to teach much about the language, like grammar, any more than a QWERTY keyboard can teach you about English...LOL
Quick intro to Hanyu Pinyin romanization:
Capital of China used to be known as Peking, but in pinyin it's Beijing or sometimes BeiJing. So on a pinyin keyboard you'd type "beijing" which will give you “北京”
BTW those apps I suggested for the OP, they're for Mandarin, not Cantonese. IMO as a foreigner you only really need Cantonese if you wish to impress people or are doing business in Hong Kong.
Also in mainland PRC, it's simplified Chinese characters, not traditional. The hardest part of learning Mandarin for me, is how to speak it correctly. Because if you don't say the phonics and the tones correctly, they might not understand you.
