HelloChinese: Learn Chinese

A Google user

6 years ago

I started out with an audio podcast to learn Chinese, but I found as a native English speaker that I had trouble discerning certain sounds in the speech. This app gives you the audio and written words which I find makes it easier to distinguish between similar sounding words. I've been using this app nightly and I feel like it is really helping me pick up the language.

A Google user

5 years ago

This is the greatest Chinese learning app I have found. It incorporates natural speakers, vocab., and literal translations which makes it easier to find patterns in the Chinese language. The cultural notes are awesome (teacher talk) too! You have the option to learn characters or skip if it is too difficult. Thank you and it is mostly free (I am at level 2 and teacher talk just became 'premium' 😕) No Ads!!!!

Miso

4 years ago

App is good, one of the best that I have tried to learn Chinese. I like the style of the lessons, also option to refresh your memory in reviews. However the biggest disadvantage of this app is that with no subscription, you can only access half of the lessons. Last free lesson is Restaurants 2. Afterwards from Helping out lesson, you need to be premium. I do not mind paying one time charge to access the rest of the lessons, but paying monthly, it's not cheap. Would it be possible to add option of one time charge to access the rest of the lessons? Thanks

Ariel Salinger-Kraft

1 year ago

As of writing, I haven't gotten very far, but what I've used is very clear and precise. My only complaint is my realization that I keep thinking "volume" for the tones, when I know they mean "pitch." Not sure if a vocal training app would help alongside this, as learning to pay attention to tonal intonations is not something folks who use languages without tones necessarily know how to manage. (It's certainly been a confusing jumble for me. Slowly figuring things out, though.)

A Google user

5 years ago

It's a neat app to help you learn, although I'm not sure it's enough to learn from the scratch. IMO the app should have much higher daily goals: the highest one takes 10m. Character drawing's a bit clunky, not recognising hooks and lines, and I think the radicals you put in place work better. Voice recognition works fine, but not perfect, sometimes feeling like it's picky on different dialects (esp. 是). Videos with natives're great! Too bad the app has this weird caricature of a Chinese person.

Aewin

4 years ago

An excellent introduction to Mandarin so far, and I appreciate that it has exercises for writing characters, speaking, and listening to/watching native speakers to practice the entire language. Individual types of exercise can be toggled off if you're only interested in learning to read or speak or watch Chinese media. Edit: video issues fixed! I wish the sound quality on some of them was better, but still bumping to a 5 b/c sound quality in real life isn't perfect anyways.

Veronica M

1 year ago

I'm surprised at how much I have learned in just 3 days. I've had other apps and learning tools all the way back to the days of CDs, but never made it this far. I especially never thought I'd be able to read, but I turned off the pinyin and I can! I enjoy the lack of ad distractions, the little grammar notes, the manageable speech pace, the natural pace of the videos... the fact that there are videos... all of it! Great app. Cheers to the developers.

A Google user

5 years ago

Allows disabling writing exercises, which is fantastic. The content is solid, and the review feature is great. If you have used the free version for a while, Premium is not really worth it though. The premium games' level is not tied to your progress, so you're really just paying $7 to re-learn "cat" and "mother" over and over with no option to skip ahead, and there's a daily level cap to keep you from grinding it, so you don't really learn much.

Anthony Tallent

1 year ago

It is very likely one of the best language apps/curriculums period. Duolingo has a somewhat similar design but is executed so poorly. This does everything almost perfectly. Learning to write the characters requires you to have a pen and paper in addition. Regardless, it even offers Traditional 漢字 & manages to find studying it quite fun. *Do yourself a favor and disable Pinyin after you learn to understand tones.*

Dereck Bowen

1 year ago

So I downloaded this app in 2020 to start to learn Mandarin while I was still living in the US. Sadly after 3 years I am still stuck at level 1. Once you realize the app doesn't make you learn anything but just use a process of elimination. Good example is it will teach you new words with each section but the wrong answers will be so obviously wrong all you have to do is pick the word that doesn't look familiar. I've been stuck in locations of 6 months now trying to figure out how to learn.

Abigail Lundberg

1 year ago

This is a fantastic app to learn up to HSK1 for free (it's paywalled for HSK2 and up), and there are no ads other than occasional (but pretty rare and unobtrusive) screens about getting the paid version. The video clips by native speakers are super helpful, and the ability to customize how information is displayed is great too -- I can leave pinyin on while I'm learning vocabulary and then turn it off for review.

Sol

1 year ago

Love it so far! The lessons are properly challenging but easier to follow than I expected. Nice variation between reading, speaking, writing, and listening. Fun to use and not a chore - I look forward to doing my lessons every day. The little widget that helps you stay on track is so cute! I'm not too far into the program but I'll update when I'm fluent.

Johnathan Kargin

11 months ago

This is an awesome app for learning Chinese! Not only do they make it easy to speak it, but they also give you chances to WRITE Chinese characters. I absolutely love this app, but I noticed most recently is that only the first set of lessons are free. There used to be the first TWO set of lessons free. Anyways, I still love this app. Just wish I had access to the second set of lessons without Premium(+). P.S.- I still have yet to explore this app, so consider this a "draft."

Agnes Ivaškevičiūtė Jiang

1 year ago

This is an amazing app. It teaches all the modalities of language, including listening, reading, writing, and speaking. It also provides cultural context, explains grammar rules in simple, easy to understand ways, and after every lesson, there's repetition to solidify new information. Can't recommend this app enough to anyone who wants to learn at least the basics of Chinese

Andrew McNeil

11 months ago

(2022) Pretty good and as a beginner it is easy to use. (2024) Now that I have been on the app for a while, I found that once you get to a certain point, it does in fact make you pay to continue on through the lesson. It does provide some free additional learning materials like stories, reading, writing, and listening exercises but when getting into about the third module

Josh Wolf

11 months ago

I'm enjoying this app. The main exercises are fun and strike a good balance between providing challenges and success. There are also tons of supplementary skill-building exercises. The lessons also have many videos of speakers, which is so helpful. You can also drill on character flashcards. Overall, they pack a lot of excellent features into this app.

Duck Phoenix

9 months ago

*ETA learning is less accessible as you advance, only HSK1 is free. premium is expensive + doesnt unlock everything. sad to have to switch apps to continue learning affordably* no ads, well-paced + actually explains grammar/sentence structure, shows REAL people using the what you learn so you know how it sounds irl. TONS of learning/practice options (a lot only for premium, but many free) like stories, immersive practice, mini games for word/character recognition. fun + makes learning easy!