HelloChinese - Learn Chinese

First I would like to say thank you to my new friends at 小红书 for directing me to try this app. This has been the easiest and most enjoyable way I have ever learned a new language. I tried duo lingo first which was fun and all but learning different food items when learning a new language is not going to help all that much with communication. Hello Chinese has EVERYTHING that you need to truly learn, truly teaches you about word and sentence structure and shows you HOW to communicate, they even have it set it up so that you can practice and be critiqued on the way that you are saying words so that you know how to fix it. I really love that Hello Chinese has actual people involved in the making of this app. Hearing native speakers use their native language really helps. This app also stays true to the culture and that in its self makes it the best out there. I 1000% recommend. I bought the subscription as I have a goal to be fluent in 1 year, and so far I think that is very obtainable. If you don’t have the extra funds at the time however, it still teaches you everything you need to know for no cost. I don’t ever leave app reviews but Hello Chinese is great and they deserve to be #1 for language learning done correctly.

EDIT: The below comparison to Duolingo is still true, but I want to add that I have not found a better app specifically for Chinese language learning in about two years of searching. Hello Chinese has really stepped up its reading offerings in that time, which is huge. And one feature I had not yet found when I left my review, the native speaker listening practice, is amazing. Even though they’ve moved some really useful features behind the paywall, and this app’s subscription costs more than the others I have checked out, it’s not *much* more expensive, and the value of what you get really makes up for it. If you’re looking just for free content, then my original review stands. If you are willing / able to afford the subscription, however, then Hello Chinese stands head and shoulders above other paid app options. Original review: Duolingo is great for some things, but there are a couple key aspects it’s missing, particularly for study of Mandarin. This is no knock against Duolingo; that app is just more general. Unfortunately, Duolingo also lacks the audio quality to make learning a tonal language work well. Enter Hello Chinese. - Better audio quality - Hand drawing characters practice - Reading practice! Short stories with a fantastic UI - Additional cultural notes These additional features are out of the scope of what Duolingo provides for any language, but since this one is more specialized, it’s a much more comprehensive program. Super happy with it

This is overall a superb app. I finished the course and have used it to continue to review. The reading content overall is excellent. There are many other learning features that are stellar. I feel this app is more than worth the money. There is one issue though that has continued to bother me. There is almost no correlation between the language course offered and the reading texts. If you finish the course and want to challenge yourself to advance by reading more difficult texts, you find that the most of the vocabulary does not correspond. The course is supposed to have taken you through HSK3 and even into some HSK 4 vocabulary, but the reading texts have numerous vocabulary words labeled “level 2” that have not been covered by the course. The key vocabulary from the course is not used in the reading texts. So you go from practicing Chinese at a sentence level to struggling with texts that do not apply directly the skills you have learned. It’s clear that the language course and the reading texts were either made entirely separately - without any thought to match the content (except to loosely align the level) or the reading texts are just out-sourced from somewhere else. My hope for this app is that they will expand the language course so that the learner will have a chance to build reading skills to prepare for the abundant reading texts. I also hope that the designers will take the extra step to align vocabulary from the reading texts with the language course.