Supercharge Your Mandarin: A Guide to the Best Online Chinese Learning Resources
With Mandarin Chinese gaining prominence as a global language, the demand for effective learning resources has exploded. Thankfully, the internet offers a wealth of options, but navigating this landscape can be daunting. This article filters through the noise, presenting a curated list of resources to help you achieve fluency, whether you're a complete beginner or an advanced learner.
Comprehensive Language Learning Apps
These apps adopt a holistic approach, covering various aspects of the Chinese language, making them ideal for newcomers.
Du Chinese
Du Chinese excels in enhancing reading skills with its user-friendly interface and engaging content. The app is wonderfully designed, making for a great user experience, and the content is interesting. It offers the chance to improve listening skills by listening to the material read aloud. The articles are relevant and interesting, the app is super easy to use, the only downside is that new content isn’t added as frequently as for The Chairman’s Bao. However, it’s a little better for beginner level learners.
Pimsleur Chinese
Pimsleur Chinese is a well-established program focused on developing listening and speaking skills. It uses extensive audio-based lessons to help learners grasp pronunciation and conversational fluency. While it minimizes the emphasis on grammar explanations, reading, and writing, it provides a solid foundation for verbal communication in everyday Chinese. Through real-world contexts, such as ordering food in a restaurant or asking for directions, the course helps learners feel more confident speaking Chinese. While it doesn’t emphasize grammar explanations or reading, the audio lessons introduce essential vocabulary and sentence patterns.
HelloChinese
HelloChinese is a favorite of the free apps for learning Chinese. The lessons are organized similarly to apps like ChineseSkill and LingoDeer, but they go into a bit more detail with everything. There are also lots of speaking exercises which I really like, as they force you to take an active role in your learning. This one is really well put together and provides a ton of content. The Premium plan has lots of mini-games that can help you to practice what you’ve learned in the free lessons. The Premium+ plan is similar to a podcast in many ways, but with some additional exercises.
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Yabla
Yabla employs an immersion approach, using videos with interactive subtitles and engaging language games to help users learn Mandarin. The platform offers videos at different difficulty levels, including both original and internet-sourced content, all featuring native Mandarin speakers. The Mandarin course doesn’t include language lessons, but it has its own unique features, such as the Mandarin Pinyin Chart and a practice tool to help you understand tone pairs.
Apps for Honing Reading and Listening Skills
Reading and listening to Chinese learning material is essential if you want to improve your overall understanding of the language. We’ve listed a few of these resources that can help you improve these skills.
The Chairman's Bao
The Chairman’s Bao is an online graded newspaper with new articles covering current events published daily. It also boasts video lessons for lower-level learners and lessons on historical folk tales and legends. Reading news stories on TCB feels less like studying and more like something I would do for fun. With so much of the content being China-centric, you’ll learn a ton about the culture as well. For additional practice, there are reading and listening comprehension exercises with each article.
Outlier Linguistics
Outlier Linguistics is amazing if you want to really geek out about Chinese characters and learn everything you can about them - their components, origins, evolution, and more. These dictionaries are available as an add-on in the Pleco app and available in both Simplified or Traditional characters. Aside from the fact that this stuff is downright interesting, learning more about how characters are constructed and how they’ve changed over time can make them more meaningful, and therefore, easier to remember.
WordSwing
Wordswing is a mixture between a graded reader and a choose your own adventure game. As you read through the stories, you’ll have to make choices that will affect how the story unfolds. It’s one of the only resources that really forces you to actively use the language while reading, which is cool. They mainly target intermediate and higher-level students who are advanced beyond most graded readers but not quite ready for native materials.
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M Mandarin
M Mandarin uses engaging comics to teach the language, making reading and listening to Chinese more fun. There are a number of other features as well, such as grammar and cultural explanations.
ChinesePod
ChinesePod has a massive library of lessons across all difficulty levels that make for a great way to improve your listening skills. Material at higher levels is taught entirely in Chinese, and an appropriate amount of English is used at the lower levels. Though this scales well, the lessons don’t necessarily build on each other intentionally. Following along with a textbook or another course will help make sure you don’t end up with gaps in your knowledge.
Apps for Mastering Speaking and Writing
These apps will help you improve your articulation and pronunciation of Chinese words and help you understand Chinese word and sentence structure. They’ll guide you on how to write Chinese characters, words and eventually sentences.
Skritter
Skritter is ideal for serious learners focused on mastering Chinese character writing. The app guides users to practice by tracing characters with a finger on their phone’s touch screen, combining this method with SRS flashcards and stroke recognition for effective memorization.
Tofu Learn
For those who feel like Skritter isn’t worth the cost, TOFU Learn may be just what you’re looking for. It’s free and could make a suitable alternative for improving your vocabulary and helping you learn to write Chinese characters.
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Speechling
Speechling is an excellent tool for practicing Mandarin by mimicking native speakers. This can do wonders in helping you improve your speaking cadence, confidence, and pronunciation. The method involves listening to a recorded Mandarin sentence and then recording yourself repeating it. Hearing your voice alongside a native speaker’s helps you catch differences and areas for improvement. It’s also one of the few resources where you can choose between hearing a male or female voice.
Bolstering Vocabulary with Specialized Apps
It’s no surprise that Chinese, being as widely spoken as it is, has quite the vocabulary. As a Chinese language learner, you should strive to always learn new vocabulary and practice them regularly. We have listed some very efficient apps to help expand your vocabulary.
Pleco
Pleco is more than just a dictionary. Learn character stroke orders, see example sentences, use the handwriting recognition tool, and listen to audio recordings of over 34,000 words by two native Mandarin speakers.
Chinese Grammar
This app features over 130 grammar lessons, which can be sorted from HSK1 to HSK5. Each lesson comes with very detailed explanations and lots of examples.
Clozemaster
Clozemaster is a popular tool for practicing Chinese, especially useful for exposing learners to a wide range of sentences and vocabulary. This app uses fill-in-the-blank exercises in which you can type in your answer or choose from multiple choices. You can filter sentences based on HSK level and you’ll earn points for answering questions correctly.
Anki
Anki employs a spaced repetition system (SRS) to help users retain Chinese characters, words, and phrases. Customization is extensive, allowing you to add images, audio, sentences, notes, tags, and more to your cards. While there’s a learning curve at the beginning, users who prefer not to create their own decks can explore a variety of pre-made Chinese decks available.
Connecting with Tutors and Language Exchange Partners
If you prefer learning with the help of a tutor or through language exchange with a native Chinese speaker, then these resources are for you. Check them out and find which one is best for you.
TutorMing
TutorMing is an online Mandarin school that offers classes 24 hours a day, with qualified teachers, using unique content. I learned new things about Chinese culture, despite having lived in Beijing for a few years.
Preply
Preply is another online tutor directory with a vast selection of tutors for various language courses, including Mandarin. Prices are affordable, though tutors earn small commissions and aren’t paid for trial lessons. You’ll find both seasoned professionals and new tutors, allowing a wide range of options.
italki
italki is the most affordable and accessible option for finding a Chinese tutor online, with a large selection of teachers to suit any budget or learning style. Whether you’re a beginner looking for structured lessons or an advanced learner aiming to improve your Mandarin conversational skills, you’re likely to find a teacher who fits your needs and schedule-many offer lessons for under $10 an hour. Though primarily known for one-on-one tutoring, italki also has other helpful features, like finding a free language exchange partner or receiving feedback on your writing through the Exercise section.
HiNative
HiNative is a platform that connects Chinese learners with native speakers for quick answers and cultural insights. It’s an excellent tool for asking those questions that aren’t easily found in textbooks or online searches. You can post questions, from simple grammar inquiries to requests for cultural explanations.
Additional Resources to Consider
BaoDao Talk
If you’re planning to learn Chinese for visiting Taiwan, choosing BaoDao Talk will be a no-brainer. Taiwanese Mandarin includes the use of more beautiful traditional characters (rather than simplified). It’s easier to learn traditional characters first then tackle simplified later (rather than vice versa). BaoDao Talk is the only platform with free trial classes (maximum one per account). BaoDao Talk uses a spiral curriculum design, which means that each lesson will revisit and expand on materials from previous lessons.
Yoyo Chinese
Yoyo Chinese has several affordable online Chinese courses for sale, along with a popular Youtube channel. The courses start at the very beginning and work their way to an upper-intermediate level. They’re very thorough with lots of videos, clear explanations, interactive quizzes, and more.
Chinese For Us
ChineseFor.Us is a much newer online Chinese course, having only covered the beginner levels so far. But, the course is very good and exceptionally thorough. Even better, it’s very affordable, costing only $9.99/mo if you subscribe for six months at a time. There are lots of interactive quizzes and well-produced videos, while also being HSK integrated.
HelloChinese (App)
On HelloChinese, you can get through the basics and watch a handful of videos with the free plan.
Chinese Zero to Hero!
Chinese Zero to Hero! is a course that follows the HSK Standard Course textbook series. The course takes you from HSK 1 up to HSK 6 and includes lots of videos, along with some exercises. I think it’s a really good course for independent learners that like to use several different resources to study. This way, they’re able to add some structure to their learning and avoid knowledge gaps.
Ninchanese
Ninchanese is probably the most unique Chinese course around. It’s created in a manner that’s similar to a game, where you follow a character to explore different worlds. Despite this, it’s still one of the most comprehensive courses around, covering levels from HSK1 to HSK5. There is an abundance of activities that build upon and relate to each other very well.
Chinese Grammar Wiki
The Chinese Grammar Wiki is an amazing resource that’s completely free to use. Grammar points are organized according to difficulty levels. Each grammar point includes very easy to understand explanations and lots of examples. There are over 2000 articles, starting at the A1 level and advancing to the C1 level. This site is definitely worth checking out.
Lingodeer
LingoDeer is a bit less well-known than some popular apps like Duolingo, but one that I like much more. It started out with teaching Asian languages and does so better than many apps. It’s a really enjoyable app to use because of their variety of exercises, crystal clear audio recordings, grammar explanations, and all the review opportunities. There’s also an extra ‘Stories’ section for Mandarin learners.
Tandem
Tandem is a language exchange app created to connect learners from around the world. You can teach someone the language you speak and they’ll help you learn the language you’d like to learn. It comes with lots of useful features (as well as a large, active user base) to make connecting with other users easy and facilitate language practice. There’s also a tutoring service offered in the app for those who are interested.
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