HelloChinese

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.

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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.

Hanbridge Mandarin

Summary

Hanbridge Mandarin is an online Chinese school. They offer 1-1 online classes with professional teachers. It’s a good option for people looking for a Chinese tutor, but it’s not my top choice. Personally, I decided to sign up for classes with TutorMing. Though, those who prefer a cheaper option without a commitment might prefer italki.

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I Like

• My teacher made the lessons very interesting by utilizing multimedia. She was very skilled and avoided speaking English.
• There is a Chinese level assessment test for you to take prior to starting. This makes it easier for the teacher to assess your level.
• The lessons are fairly flexible. You’re able to cancel a class 12 hours before it starts.

I Don’t Like

• Lessons are only available between 8am and 10pm Chinese time.
• The cost is comparable to other online schools, but much more expensive than italki.

Price

The cost per lesson varies significantly depending on a variety of factors. It can be anywhere from $8-$45 per 50-minute class.

Ninchanese

Summary

Ninchanese is one of the most unique resources for learning Chinese. It’s a mixture between a course and a game and manages to do quite well in both regards – being both fun and extensive. You’ll need to use a few other resources to cover a few gaps that Ninchanese has. However, it’s one of the best tools for learning Chinese that I’ve come across.

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I Like

• The lessons are very thorough. You’ll learn new words, grammar, practice speaking, and listening.
• The lessons tie together very well based around a story. The vocabulary words you learn will be reinforced in other sections.
• It’s one of the most fun ways to study Chinese.

I Don’t Like

• The audio is recorded by text-to-speach. This is the biggest issue currently, but there are plans to add human recordings soon.
• You’ll want to use other resources for a few gaps like pronunciation and extra reading practice.
• Lessons can start slow and you may initially get demotivated in the “Learn Words” section. It’s worth pushing thru though.s

Price

You can try Ninchanese for free. A one-month subscription costs $10, a half-year costs $54, and a full year costs $96.

Use the promo code “ALR15OFF” to save 15% on a subscription to Ninchanese.

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.