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Mandarin Chinese

An Honest Review of Lingo Bus With Image of Chinese Architecture

Lingo Bus Review – Mandarin Lessons Designed For Kids

Lingo Bus

Rating 4.8
★★★★
★
★

Summary

Lingo Bus is an online Chinese learning platform specifically designed for children between 5 and 12 years old. Their immersive online lessons, well-designed curriculum, engaging materials, and excellent teachers would make them my top choice for anyone interested in helping their child learn Mandarin.

Quality 5.0
★★★★★

They have clear learning targets with materials designed for kids.

Thoroughness 5.0
★★★★★

The extra materials, both before and after the class, make Lingo Bus much more than just a tutoring company.

Value 4.5
★★★★
★
★

It’s not the cheapest option, but the price is very fair when you consider everything that’s included.

I Like
  • Their focus on teaching Mandarin specifically to children leads to more appropriate and engaging lessons than competitors offer.
  • The design of the curriculum with clear learning targets.
  • The extra materials available both before and after the class.
  • Skilled teachers that provide a comfortable and immersive environment.
I Don’t Like
  • The price is fairly expensive though still reasonable.
Price

Each lesson costs $20 though discounts are available if you purchase lesson bundles.

Try a free demo lesson on Lingo Bus
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Lingo Bus Review – Mandarin Lessons Designed For Kids Read More »

An Honest Review of Coffee Break Chinese With Image of Chinese Architecture

Coffee Break Chinese Review – Is It Right For You?

Coffee Break Chinese

Rating 4.0
★★★★★

Summary

Coffee Break Chinese offers a free audio podcast and a premium course. You’ll learn Chinese alongside one of the hosts, Mark, who’s learning himself with the guidance of Crystal, the Chinese host. Together they create a fairly relaxing atmosphere in which to learn Chinese. As Coffee Break Chinese is still producing their first season, only beginners would benefit from this course.

Quality 4.5
★★★★
★
★

The lessons are well structured – building up from words to sentences to dialogues.

Thoroughness 3.5
★★★
★
★★

As they’re still producing the first season, there’s a lot of material left to cover.

Value 4.0
★★★★★

It’s great that you can listen to the audio lessons for free but the paid course is a bit expensive.

I Like
  • The lessons are scaffolded very well. In a single lesson you’ll go from learning new words to being able to put those words together into a full dialogue.
  • It’s less intimidating than other Chinese learning resources which will better suit a certain type of learner.
  • The audio version of the lessons are completely free.
I Don’t Like
  • I think serious learners could progress faster with other resources.
  • You’ll need to supplement your learning with other materials.
Price

You can access all of the audio lessons for free as a podcast. The premium course costs $350.

Try the first lesson for free

Coffee Break Chinese isn’t for everyone but it wasn’t designed to be for everyone.

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Coffee Break Chinese Review – Is It Right For You? Read More »

Glossika Review – Not Cheap But Useful

Glossika

Rating 3.6
★★★
★
★★

Summary

Glossika has learning resources for over fifty languages that impressively range from Armenian and Czech to Icelandic and Tagalog. While not suitable for absolute beginners, lower intermediates could use the resource to familiarise themselves with sentences in their language of choice using Glossika´s intuitive approach. Listening to native speakers and repeating what they say can help learners to improve their comprehension skills and spoken fluency. While it is amazing that so many languages are included, learners would have to use numerous other resources alongside it. The cost is unjustifiably high.

Quality 3.8
★★★
★
★★

The audio recordings are well made but other aspects could be improved

Thoroughness 3.8
★★★
★
★★

Glossika covers an impressive number of languages but their method requires you to intuitively learn

Value 3.5
★★★
★
★★

Polyglots may find the price to be fair but for most language learners it’s not

I Like
  • There are lots of languages available, including many that are rarely covered by other resources.
  • The subscription gives you access to all of the languages making it possible to study one language and review another at the same time.
  • It will force you to speak the language which will improve your confidence and prosody.
I Don’t Like
  • As all of the languages cover the exact same material, the diversity of the languages and cultures are reduced to a simple formula with no cultural context involved in their teaching.
  • There are a fair amount of errors in the materials.
  • The cost is excessively high compared to other resources.
  • There are no explanations of grammar.
Price

You can try out Glossika´s learning method for free with their week-long trial. Their basic subscription is $16.99 a month. The monthly subscription costs $30.99 a month. The annual subscription costs $24.99 a month and will set you back 299.88$ in total.

Click the link below to save $5 on a subscription to Glossika.

Try Glossika For Free

Few resources cover as many different languages as Glossika does. Because of this, I was excited to try it out and see what it’s like to use.

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Glossika Review – Not Cheap But Useful Read More »

Earworms Review – A Unique Idea But Lacks Substance

Earworms

Rating 2.5
★★
★
★★★

Summary

Earworms is a unique language resource that relies on audio lessons mixed into music. The theory is that you will find the music catchy and thus remember your lessons easily.  The whole idea behind Earworms is the psychological theory of memory association. You would associate some information with the music and thus remember it easily. However, the music used in these lessons will not appeal to everyone, at least it didn’t for me. Moreover, the lack of visual aid and no exercises to assess your skills make it harder.  I would only recommend this for people who have failed to learn through other online resources or perhaps someone looking to learn a few phrases before a trip.

Quality 2.0
★★★★★

With a lack of exercises and visual aids, I can’t really say that it will prove to be a useful resource.

Thoroughness 2.0
★★★★★

All the lessons are comprised of various phrases that they think will be useful for anyone willing to learn French. Unfortunately, they’re too shallow and poorly structured.

Value 3.5
★★★
★
★★

With such low utility, it is important to have a low-price tag. Fortunately, they have followed this idea and thus you won’t be losing out too much if you opt for this.

I Like
  • The repetition of the phrases
  • Some of the tracks aren’t half bad
I Don’t Like
  • Tracks aren’t as catchy as I expected
  • Lack of visual aids
  • Complete absence of a testing system
Price

Each volume can be purchased as an mp3 download for £10.42 or £31.26.

Visit Earworms

When I first heard of Earworms, I was quite intrigued mostly because I know what it’s like to get a song stuck in my head. Compared to annoying lyrics, getting a new language stuck in there sounds pretty appealing.

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Earworms Review – A Unique Idea But Lacks Substance Read More »

An Honest Review of HelloChinese with Image of Chinese River

HelloChinese Review – Start Learning Chinese for Free

HelloChinese

Rating 4.8
★★★★
★
★

Summary

You won’t find a better free option for learning Chinese than HelloChinese. This app has a ton of content and engaging exercises that will have you practicing Chinese immediately. It’s great for beginners and covers a lot of material; including reading, writing, listening, speaking, vocabulary, grammar, and even parts of Chinese culture. Not only that, it’s actually fun to use.

Quality 5.0
★★★★★

The app is extremely well designed. Everything runs smoothly, looks great, and is very effective.

Thoroughness 4.5
★★★★
★
★

It covers the beginner and elementary levels of Mandarin with a lot of depth.

Value 5.0
★★★★★

It’s extremely good and it’s free.

I Like
  • There is a lot of content that you can access for free. The explanations are clear and the content is engaging.
  • There is a heavy emphasis on actually speaking Chinese. This isn’t an app that you can use passively.
  • The role-play portion of the Premium+ plan where you dub a video is extremely silly, but not without purpose. You’ll find yourself recording and re-recording the dialogue trying to perfectly mimic the actors. It’s seriously fun.
I Don’t Like
  • The lessons really only go up to around the elementary level, so if your Chinese level is higher, you’ll be better off using other resources.
  • The Premium plan has a lot of potential, but it’s not quite there yet. For most people, I think they’d be better off sticking with the free plan, or paying extra for the Premium+ plan.
Price

The “Learn” portion of the app is completely free and includes a lot of material. The Premium plan costs $8.99/month, $19.99/3-months, or $59.99/year. The Premium+ plan costs $19.99/month, $89.99/6-months, or $149.99/year.

Start Using HelloChinese for Free

HelloChinese is the best free app to get started learning Chinese.

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HelloChinese Review – Start Learning Chinese for Free Read More »

How To Learn Chinese (Mandarin) – An Extensive Guide With Focus On Getting Started

If you’re a native English speaker, learning Chinese is no small feat. In fact, the US Department of State’s Foreign Service Institute puts Mandarin Chinese in the hardest category of languages to learn.

But don’t let that discourage you. There are more resources available than ever before to help you learn Chinese fast or even learn on your own. The best way to learn Chinese will depend on your learning goals and preferences.

…

How To Learn Chinese (Mandarin) – An Extensive Guide With Focus On Getting StartedRead More »

How To Learn Chinese (Mandarin) – An Extensive Guide With Focus On Getting Started Read More »

An Honest Review of Duolingo Chinese With Image of Shanghai Skyline

Duolingo Chinese Review – Free, But Still Not Worth Using

Duolingo Chinese

Rating 2.5
★★
★
★★★

Summary

Duolingo is one of the most popular tools for learning a language and they finally released their Chinese course. Unfortunately, it’s just not very good. They fail to provide a useful course in every area except one, motivating students to continue studying. If you’re serious about learning Chinese, don’t waste your time with Duolingo.

Quality 3.0
★★★★★

Duolingo is beautifully designed but the lessons are terrible.

Thoroughness 1.5
★
★
★★★★

The material is covered very poorly without much for explanations.

Value 3.0
★★★★★

It’s free, but your time is valuable.

I Like
  • The gamification aspects and quick lessons provides enough of a push to get people to study when they might not otherwise want to.
  • It’s free.
  • A clean and technically well-designed product.
I Don’t Like
  • A large part of the lessons are spent matching sound to pinyin and pinyin to characters. Then, all of a sudden, they expect you to know the meaning of vocabulary without ever teaching it.
  • Tones and pronunciation are pretty much completely ignored.
  • Recordings for more than one character end up being very choppy and unnatural sounding.
  • Even if you complete the course, I doubt you’ll be able to communicate in even the most basic ways.
  • Translation exercises don’t include enough variations of correct answers.
Price

It’s completely free. You can pay $9.99 per month to remove the ads and get offline access.

Start Using Duolingo For Free

It’s Here!

After years of waiting, the beta version of Chinese for English speakers course was finally released on Duolingo.

…

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Duolingo Chinese Review – Free, But Still Not Worth Using Read More »