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In-Depth Reviews And Recommendations - Without The BS

Memrise Review – Useful But Don’t Overuse It

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Quick Review
Summary: Memrise is one of the most popular language learning apps around. It’s basically a gamified flashcard app. It’s a good way to help build vocabulary and beginner students would benefit the most from it. While it can be very useful, it’s important to not try to use it as your main tool for learning a new language.

Quality
The app is extremely well designed, but courses are user-made, so quality can vary.
Thoroughness
There are courses covering tons of topics, but you’ll need to use additional resources.
Value
Free and very useful. Awesome!
I Like
It uses spaced-repetition software making it easy to learn new words and review them periodically.
It’s a bit more fun than traditional flashcard apps.
There are tons of different courses to choose from.
I Don’t Like
 I personally prefer other flashcard apps that are less gamified (Anki or Pleco for Mandarin).
It should be used with other resources, not in isolation.

Price: It’s free. The Premium Plan costs $9 per month or $59 per year.

Visit Memrise
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Du Chinese Review – One of the Best Apps to Practice Reading and Listening

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Quick Review
Summary: 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
Amazingly high-quality with lots of useful features.
Content
New articles are added fairly slowly, but they age well.
Value
You can read some articles for free.
I Like
The design is superb with lots of useful features. I love how the audio is synchronized to the text, with the current word being highlighted.
The articles cover interesting content that remain relevent months after originally added.
Articles can be downloaded to listen to and read offline.
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 slower for advanced and master levels.

Price: A subscription to Du Chinese costs $11.99/month. A six-month plan costs $54.99. A one-year subscription would cost $89.99/month.

Use the promo code “ALLLANGUAGERESOURCES” to save 10% on a subscription to Du Chinese.

Try Du Chinese For Free

Alternatives:

The Chairman’s Bao is the biggest competitor to Du Chinese. They release far more content, but the design isn’t nearly as good. They also don’t have English translations which are really helpful – especially for beginner level students.

The Du Chinese app is quite possibly the best designed Chinese learning app around. I don’t know if it’s the best app overall to learn Chinese but the developers really did an outstanding job. In this review, I’ll tell you more about Du Chinese and help you decide whether or not it’s worth the subscription cost.

Impressive Design

First off, I just have to reiterate how smooth and well made this app is. It’s about as sexy as a Chinese learning app can be. It packs all of the features I would want into a clean interface that can be customized to fit your preferences.

Across the top of the screen is the English translation of the currently highlighted sentence. I love that you can tap it to show or hide the translation. If it always showed the English, I’d likely feel it was a crutch and use it too much. However, without it, there would be instances where I’m not certain I understood the sentence correctly. I like hiding the English and then using it to check comprehension later if I’m confused about something.
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eChineseLearning Review – 1 on 1 Online Chinese Classes

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Quick Review
Summary: eChineseLearning is one of the oldest and most popular websites for finding an online Chinese tutor. It isn’t my first choice because it’s more expensive and less flexible than competitors, such as italki. It requires a longer-term commitment which for some might provide the motivation needed to stick with learning Chinese.

Teacher Quality
Teachers are professional with most teaching full-time.
Platform
The platform has a very old feel and lessons are taught on Skype.
Value
Fairly expensive while lacking some flexibility of competitors.
I Like
The teachers have a lot of experience and background in teaching.
A commitment to taking weekly classes can prevent some people from abandoning their lessons.
Lots of unique lesson topics.
I Don’t Like
 With some plans, if you miss a class one week, you lose it and won’t get a refund.
There are other cheaper options for finding a Chinese tutor.
It may be hard to schedule lessons only a week or less in advance. A popular teacher’s schedule may fill up quite fast.

Price: Lessons cost between $9-$25 per hour – depending on the number of lessons and length of the plan.

Get one week free if you sign up for a 3-month or longer package

Visit eChineseLearning

Alternatives:

italki is the cheapest and most flexible place to find an online Chinese teacher. You can book lessons directly from the teacher. This is my top choice.

Verbling is similar to italki, but a bit more expensive with fewer teachers.

Hanbridge Mandarin is another online Chinese school that may be worth considering. Unfortunately, their working hours are fairly limited.

Finding a Chinese tutor or language exchange partner is essential for learning Mandarin. You need conversation practice and feedback from a Native speaker. A skilled teacher can pinpoint your weak areas and significantly speed-up the learning process.

In this review, I’ll look at eChineseLearning. They’re one of the oldest and most well-known companies for 1-to-1 online Mandarin lessons. I took two hours of trial classes and researched other people’s experiences for writing this review.

I’ve used italki (read my review) rather extensively for help with my Chinese. While this isn’t meant to be a comparison article, there are places where I’ll be comparing my experience with the two services.

Get one week free by mentioning “All Language Resources” when you sign up for a 3 month or longer package.

Find a Chinese tutor on eChineseLearning
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ChinesePod Review – Improve Your Chinese Listening Comprehension

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Use the coupon code “ALLLANG50” to get $50 off an annual premium subscription.

Quick Review
Summary: ChinesePod is one of the most often recommended resources for learning Chinese, and one of the best. There’s no better tool available to improve your listening comprehension. The lesson library is massive, covering diverse topics and six difficulty levels. This review will look at both the Basic and Premium Plans.

Quality
The hosts explain things in a very clear and easy to understand manner
Thoroughness
Lesson library goes back over a decade with lessons added daily
Value
The price is competitive with other resources while providing tons of value
I Like
You can find lessons on pretty much any topic imaginable.
The Premium Plan includes lots of useful expansion exercises that’ll give you more than just listening practice.
An appropriate amount of English to Chinese is used in each lesson. As you move up to higher levels, they’re entirely taught in Chinese.
The hosts are great. They add lots of personality into the lessons.
I Don’t Like
Access to the app is only included with the Premium Plan.
Not a progressive course. You may want to follow a course or textbook to make sure to avoid random gaps in your knowledge.

Price: A subscription to the Basic Plan costs $14/month or $124/year. The Premium Plan costs $29/month or $249/year. The Premium+ Plan includes tutoring and is really overpriced. You should consider using italki instead if you’re looking for a teacher.

Use the promo code “ALLLANG50” to save $50 on an annual Premium Plan.

Visit ChinesePod

ChinesePod is one of the resources most often recommended to Mandarin learners for good reason. Improving your listening skills may be the most important skill to becoming fluent in Chinese. After all, being able to speak isn’t particularly helpful if you have no idea what the conversation is about.

This review will look at both the Basic and Premium plans. The Basic Plan is more fitting for people who just want to listen to audio podcasts and be able to check the lesson notes. The Premium Plan is better suited for people looking to study each lesson very in-depth. This is for people looking for a resource that can cover other areas besides just listening.

ChinesePod been around longer than a decade and the lesson library has become massive. It’s not a perfect all-encompassing resource but it’s probably as close you can get.

Chinesepod is the best podcast for learning Chinese
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Chinese Learn Online Review – Progressive lessons for all levels

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Quick Review
Summary: Chinese Learn Online is an online platform providing progressive Chinese lessons across several levels. The website and app feel very dated and in need of a major upgrade. It’s not necessarily a bad product, but it would be far from my top recommendation for people insterested in learning Chinese independently.

Quality
The website and app are both fairly poorly made and in need on an update
Thoroughness
A decent amount of content at various difficulty levels, but falls short of competitors.
Value
Not priced any cheaper than other, better products.
I Like
The lessons build on each other and can give you some structure.
The amount of English used in lessons slowly becomes less and less as you move up.
Lesson notes can provide helpful explanations.

I Don’t Like
The lesson content is fairly average and forgettable. Lessons aren’t particularly interesting.
The website and app design are quite bad. You won’t see corrections when you make a mistake on the exercises.
There are better products priced similarly.

Price: The Self-Study Plan costs $19.95/month, $49.95/3-months, or $149.95/year. There’s also a guided plan with a teacher for $49.95/month, $119/3-months, or $399/year.

Visit Chinese Learn Online

Alternatives:

ChinesePod is the biggest and best alternative to Chinese Learn Online. They have a massive library spread across various difficulty levels.

Yoyo Chinese has excellent online courses for self-studying Chinese.

There are several other possible courses. What’s best for one person may not be the best for everyone.

Chinese Learn Online (CLO) is an okay option for learning Mandarin. It wouldn’t be my first choice though. Lessons aren’t particularly interesting. The app and website are both pretty poorly designed and in need of an update. There isn’t as much content as several other resources. Finally, the price isn’t any cheaper than many products that I think are much better. But for now, let’s get into the details of this review.

A bit more about Chinese Learn Online

CLO is based in Taiwan. I’m living in Beijing and have primarily heard Beijing accents, and haven’t had any difficulties understanding the presenters’ accents. There may be a slight one, but it’s not a reason to buy or to avoid CLO. There are 7 levels with 60 lessons in each level. These lessons range from absolute beginner to somewhere around the upper intermediate level. The amount of English used in each lesson varies according to the level you’re at. You can access the first three lessons of any level for free.
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