Learn Chinese From Movies

Summary

Learn Chinese From Movies makes it easier for intermediate and advanced level students to start incorporating movies into their study routine. They add English, Simplified or Traditional Characters, and Pinyin subtitles to play over the top of various Chinese and international movies. I’ve found it to be helpful to bridge the gap between intermediate study materials and native movies.

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I Like

• I had difficulties finding movies with both English and Chinese subtitles in the past from other places. This makes it really quick and easy.
• Finding pinyin subtitles from other places is almost impossible.
• Solid variety of movie titles to choose from.

I Don’t Like

• The glossaries and transcripts are useless to me.
• The Premium Plan is terrible value.
• You have to give your payment information to access the free trial.

Price

A Basic subscription to Learn Chinese From Movies costs $8/month or $77/year. A Premium subscription costs $297/year and the only additional benefit is that you can download the glossary and transcripts.

Save $30 on a yearly subscription by using the promo code “ALR-30$-off-yearly”.

ChineseSkill

Summary

ChineseSkill is one of the most popular apps for people getting started learning Chinese. There are 45 lessons based on a variety of topics. It’s not the most comprehensive course and it won’t be the only tool you need. But, if you’re a beginner and want a free introduction to Mandarin, it’s worth trying. However, I personally think that HelloChinese is a better overall app.

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I Like

• Learning Chinese is intimidating, but ChineseSkill makes it easy to just get started without overthinking things too much.
• They incorporate reading, listening, grammar, and even some writing.
• It’s pretty fun to use.

I Don’t Like

• Pinyin drills are hidden away at the bottom of the menu.
• Not comprehensive enough for serious students.

Price

Freemium, with premium subscription plans from $14.99/month or lifetime access for a one-off fee of $159.99.

WaiChinese

Summary

WaiChinese is an app that makes it much easier to improve your Chinese pronunciation. You can compare your voice to that of a recording, seeing visualizations of your tones. Then, you can submit recordings to be corrected by a teacher. I used to strongly recommend this app even though it’s very buggy. However, a new service, Speechling, was recently after I wrote this review. It does everything WaiChinese does and more, but better.

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I Like

• Seeing the visualization of your speech and being able to compare it to the recording is very helpful.
• Getting feedback from a teacher will help you spot mistakes you didn’t realize you were making.

I Don’t Like

• The app has tons of bugs. I’d often leave the app and do something else while waiting for audio to play.
• Not as good as its main competitor. Speechling gives you unlimited recordings for $19.99/month and has a ton of useful free features.

Price

WaiChinese costs $10/month for the Demo version which allows you to submit 50 recordings. The Beginner version costs $25/month and allows you to submit 150 recordings. The Advanced version costs $50/month and gives you 300 submissions.