You don’t have much time when you get back to your hotel… you turn on your computer, ready to find an effective way to learn Chinese… and all you see are countless apps that overwhelm, confuse and frustrate. So frustrating!! From our research of a number of apps, we’ve summarized the best Chinese language apps out there, based on their popularity and user reviews. Check them out and grab the app that fits your learning style the best!
Table of Contents
Best Apps For Learning Mandarin Chinese
- Duolingo: Everybody’s Favorite Language App
3 Images
Duolingo home screen with different levels
Duolingo flashcard example with pronunciation button
Duolingo showing selection of Chinese characters
Let’s get this one out of the way first. If you’re at all interested in learning languages, you’ve probably already used Duolingo. It’s one of the best language-learning apps available with courses for over 30 languages, including Mandarin Chinese.
Work through different levels to build up from your first words to semi-complex sentences. As you learn, you gain points and compete against your friends for the best scores every week.
The big downside to Duolingo is that it teaches every language using almost the exact same syllabus. Other apps on this list make it easier to grasp the grammar and written characters because they’re designed specifically for learning Chinese.
Download: Duolingo for iOS | Android (Free, subscription available)
- HelloChinese: Designed Specifically for Chinese
3 Images
HelloChinese home screen with various levels
HelloChinese multiple choice question with selected answer
HelloChinese grammar game
HelloChinese might be the best app to get started learning Mandarin Chinese. Like many of the apps on this list, you work up through different levels, building on your knowledge and improving your understanding of the language as you go.
HelloChinese starts with an explanation of how to read pinyin—the written form of Mandarin that uses letters instead of Chinese characters.
From there, play award-winning games to expand your vocabulary, learn grammatical rules, and construct sentences. By the time you complete the app, you should be conversational in Mandarin.
Download: HelloChinese for iOS | Android (Free, subscription available)
- LingoDeer: Learn to Read and Write
3 Images
LingoDeer home page with choice of categories
LingoDeer audio question
LingoDeer writing a chinese character
LingoDeer is an excellent option if you want to learn how to speak, read, and write in Chinese. This well-structured app uses minimal English to get you thinking in Mandarin Chinese as soon as possible.
Practice writing Chinese characters, expand your vocabulary from beginner to conversational, and listen to native speakers in slow motion to help perfect your pronunciation.
LingoDeer also gives you a breakdown of your performance after each lesson. This makes it easy to see your progress and highlight any weak spots, which you can work on using Review mode.
Download: LingoDeer for iOS | Android (Free, subscription available)
- Memrise: Translate Objects Using Your Camera
3 Images
Memrise using video clips to learn words
Memrise reminding you to review old words
Memrise using the camera to translate real-world objects
Once upon a time, Memrise was a flashcard-based app, but these days you can use it to follow a gamified learning syllabus instead. One of the great parts about Memrise is that it periodically encourages you to review what you’ve already learned, helping shift those words to your long-term memory.
Memrise is packed with clips of native speakers so you can improve your listening skills while learning how to pronounce words and phrases clearly.
You can also use the camera on your device to get translations of objects around you, helping to bridge the gap between Memrise and the real world.
Download: Memrise for iOS | Android (Free, subscription available)
- Skritter Chinese: Learn to Write Chinese Characters
3 Images
Skritter Chinese home screen with different learning modes
Skritter Chinese teaching a character
Skritter Chinese guiding the user through drawing a character
Learning to read and write Chinese characters is incredibly important in your journey. First of all, the same characters are used across Mandarin and Cantonese, so knowing them boosts the number of people you can communicate with. Second, reading or writing Chinese is extra useful if you meet anybody with a regional dialect that you can’t understand.
Skritter is the best app available for learning to write in Chinese. It teaches you over 10,000 characters, which combine to make over 400,000 words. And Skritter guides your hand through writing these characters one stroke at a time.
If you don’t want to pay anything, you’re limited to a seven-day free trial. But that’s plenty of time to get some basic characters under your belt.
Download: Skritter Chinese for iOS | Android (Free trial, subscription required)
- Anki Flashcards: Expand Your Vocabulary Even More
AnkiMobile and AnkiDroid act as counterparts to the Anki desktop app, which is one of the best flashcard apps available. These fully-featured mobile counterparts let you add Chinese decks to your account so you can work through vast vocabularies and expand your knowledge.
Decks of flashcards can include audio and images to aid you in memorizing new words. You can then sync your decks over the cloud, making it easy to review them on any device.
AnkiDroid is totally free, just like the open-source desktop app, but only works on Android devices. If you have an iPhone, you need AnkiMobile instead, which comes at a premium fee to support further app developments.
Download: AnkiMobile Flashcards for iOS ($24.99)
Download: AnkiDroid Flashcards for Android (Free)
- HSK Online: Work Through the Standardized Levels
3 Images
HSK Online with different categories of tests
HSK Online standard listening question
HSK Online incorrect quiz answer
Hanyu Shuiping Kaoshi (HSK) is a standardized test used to measure your skill in Chinese. It consists of various levels, with increasingly large vocabularies ranging from the basics at HSK 1 all the way up to fluency at HSK 6.
Many of the other apps on this list copy from the HSK vocabulary list to decide what to teach you. So why not get that information from the source itself?
You may need to know some basics to get started, but The HSK Online app offers curated lesson plans to improve your listening, reading, and writing skills. Work through the HSK levels from the beginning, or test yourself to find out what level you’re already at.
Download: HSK Online for iOS | Android (Free, subscription available)
- Pleco Chinese Dictionary: Fill In All the Gaps
3 Images
Pleco showing Dictionary search
Pleco showing dictionary definition
Pleco voice recognition
No matter how long you spend learning Mandarin, you’re still going to come across characters and words you don’t already know. When that happens, Pleco Chinese Dictionary will quickly become your favorite app.
Pleco gives you the definition and pronunciation of words you don’t know and even shows you how to use them in a sentence. You can break a word down to understand its root and even look at the individual character components that make it up.
Find what you’re looking for by typing pinyin, drawing characters, or searching for the word in English. With an in-app purchase, you can even use the camera on your smartphone to scan Chinese characters from the real world!
Best app to learn chinese for beginners
- Lingbe (iOS/Android)
Apps to Learn Chinese Online
Using Lingbe, you can call other Chinese learners (totally free) or native Chinese speakers (pay only US$5 for 1 hour of conversation) to practice your Chinese. Lingbe is fast, low cost and anonymous.
- Anki (iOS/PC)
Apps to Learn Chinese Online
Anki is an app that uses SRS. You can download pre-made flashcards or make your own. You can then grade how well you know the card: “Hard”, “Good” or “Easy”. But the best thing about Anki is it’s open-source and easy to customize. Rich, CEO of China Admissions personally uses Lingbe.
- Duolingo (iOS/Android)
Apps to Learn Chinese Online
Duolingo helps you learn Chinese through interactive games and bite-sized lessons. For beginners, you start with lessons such as greetings, numbers, names etc. Advanced learners need to take a placement test.
- Memrise (iOS/Android)
Apps to Learn Chinese Online
Memrise is a flashcard app that helps you memorize Chinese characters by using mnemonics and SRS. You will choose your own course and study it, after which, Memrise quizzes you on them using fun games where you get badges and virtual rewards.
- Skritter (iOS/Android)
Apps to Learn Chinese Online
Like Anki and Memrise, Skritter uses SRS but what’s unique about this app is it has a smooth on-screen handwriting feature that you can use to actively recall how to write Chinese characters wherever you are.
- Hello Chinese (iOS/Android)
Hello Chinese features mini-lessons delivered through fun games. You can use their handwriting tool to practice writing characters. If you would like to speak conversational Chinese fast, this app has many listening exercises and a speech recognition tool to help with your pronunciation.
- ChineseSkill (iOS/Android)
ChineseSkill is the only app that follows a curriculum designed by veteran Chinese teachers from Peking University, the best university in China. This app features automatic speech assessment, character handwriting and pinyin tone animation.
Conclusion
Let us know your thoughts in the comment section below.
Check out other publications to gain access to more digital resources if you are just starting out with Flux Resource.
Also contact us today to optimize your business(s)/Brand(s) for Search Engines