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Mandarin Chinese is the second most spoken language in the world, so it shouldn’t be a surprise that there are a ridiculous number of apps out there for learning Chinese. While having plenty of options is certainly a good thing, finding the ones that are best for you can seem daunting. Hopefully, we can help with that.
Yoyo Chinese is probably the most established and popular website for online Chinese courses. Yangyang has helped hundreds of thousands of students learn Chinese and her videos have been viewed millions of times. There are several different video-based courses available which include interactive quizzes, clear explanations, and tons of practice, with each progressing in difficulty. I think the conversational courses are especially good value.
Quality 5.0
★★★★★
Video lessons and interactive quizzes are very well done.
Thoroughness 4.5
★★★★
★
★
The content is explained very clearly and covers a wide range of topics.
Value 4.5
★★★★
★
★
The course bundles help to lower the price.
I Like
The way Yangyang explains the content makes it super easy to understand.
The courses are structured very well, with less English spoken as you move up levels.
The combination of real-life Chinese as it’s spoken on the street with more ‘correct’ Chinese.
High-quality videos with lots useful extras to practice what you’ve learned.
I Don’t Like
The lessons definitely use more English compared with equivalent levels of other resources.
There are other resources I prefer over the Chinese Characters courses.
Price
Yoyo Chinese offers subscription options and the Lifetime one-time purchase option. If you want to test out the program, try a monthly full-access “Learn” subscription for $19.99/mo. Or an annual subscription for $11.99/mo. Lifetime one-time purchase is $399 (don’t forget the 10% discount with the discount code ALR10!!).
If you’re looking for an online Chinese course, you’ll eventually come across Yoyo Chinese. It’s one of the few established courses where you can independently study Mandarin online.
We’ve tested tons of resources for learning Chinese to help you figure out which ones are worth using and which ones should be avoided. These are our top choices.
Oxford Dictionary has published numerous bilingual dictionaries over the years, many of which are not designed to be comprehensive. While some are “complete” dictionaries, others are called “mini”, “concise”, “essential” or even “shorter”.
Even the smaller ones are pretty thorough, however. The Oxford Mini Greek dictionary contains 40,000 words and phrases, many of which also contain multiple translations. It’s a lot shorter than the Oxford Hindi dictionary, at 100,000 entries, or the New Oxford American English Dictionary at 350,000 – but it’s still got a wider vocabulary than the average English speaker.
You can purchase the books themselves, but most learners will prefer the convenience of the apps with their regular updates and learner-friendly features. Search Autocomplete, Fuzzy Filter, Wild Card and Voice Search help you find words you don’t know how to spell. Favourites help you save useful words and phrases, while Word of the Day will introduce you to new words. Some dictionaries also contain audio recordings and thesauruses. And the freemium Oxford Dictionary with Translator will translate words and paragraphs to and from 14 languages.
For some languages, learners already have plenty of free, thorough dictionaries available to them. Spanish learners, for example, will probably prefer to combine the free apps SpanishDict and Diccionario RAE (Google Play, App Store). Mandarin Chinese learners will likely find Pleco more useful. But for some languages, these dictionaries may well be the most thorough and reliable ones available.
The rating is our best guess, but we haven’t yet had the opportunity to fully test and review this resource.
You don’t have to travel to another country to create an immersive Chinese environment, nor do you have to stare at a screen for hours on end. With a digital device and a pair of headphones (or speakers), you can bring immersion to you—for free.
Your day is coming to an end and you want to squeeze in a bit of Chinese practice, but you can’t muster up the energy to study on your own. Why not try a new YouTube channel to relax and learn at the same time?
In order for you speak with confidence, understand hanzi characters and pinyin, and perhaps most importantly of all, enjoy learning Chinese, you need to find the right Mandarin course.
Du Chinese is one of the best resources for learning Chinese. This app will help you to improve your Chinese reading skills as well as listening comprehension. There are articles across six different levels – from Beginner to Master. The design of this app is absurdly good, making it exceptionally easy to use. The biggest weakness is that new content isn’t added frequently enough.
Quality 5.0
★★★★★
Amazingly high-quality with lots of useful features.
Thoroughness 4.0
★★★★★
New articles are added fairly slowly, but they age well.
Value 4.5
★★★★
★
★
You can read some articles for free.
I Like
The design is superb, and it’s loaded with useful features. I love how it uses highlighted words to synchronize the audio playback to the text.
The articles cover interesting content and remain relevant for months after release.
Articles can be downloaded for offline use.
I Don’t Like
Content isn’t added frequently enough. For most levels, a new article is only added about once per week.
Content is added even less frequently for Advanced and Master levels.
Price
A subscription to Du Chinese costs $14.99/month. A six-month plan costs $89.99. A one-year subscription would cost $179.99/month. There is also a limited selection of lessons available for free.
The Du Chinese app is quite possibly the best-designed app out there for learning Chinese. I don’t know if it’s necessarily the best Chinese-learning app overall, but the developers really did an outstanding job.
Mondly is a language-learning app that teaches basic vocabulary and grammar structures. It seems most appropriate for learners with little to no exposure to their target language.
The activities mostly rely on passive recognition of vocabulary and phrases, and therefore are not very challenging. However, they are varied enough that you probably wouldn’t get bored with short, daily practice sessions.
Although I wouldn’t recommend Mondly to anyone looking to seriously learn a language, it may be appropriate for individuals studying languages with less available resources, or for individuals who are preparing to travel abroad.
Quality 3.0
★★★★★
Both the interface and the course itself could be designed better. *Edited on Nov 22* It has made many improvements this year. We will update soon.
Thoroughness 2.5
★★
★
★★★
It’s decent for learning vocabulary, but I thought a lot of the material wasn’t explained very well.
Value 3.0
★★★★★
It’s fairly inexpensive.
I Like
Daily lessons, weekly quizzes, and monthly challenges – these functionalities encourage you to practice every day.
The vocabulary included is useful and drilled in an effective way.
It’s fairly inexpensive.
I Don’t Like
The content and exercises are the same for all levels and languages.
The exercises are mostly passive.
I don’t think the order of lessons and topics is very well thought out.
For me, the interface is not user friendly and the platform is visually unappealing.
Price
There are three plans… $9.99 per month for one language $47.99 per year ($4/mo) for one language and $99.99 for lifetime.