Best App to Learn Chinese in 2026: 8 Apps Compared

HelloChinese is the best app to learn chinese for a complete beginner. Its lessons start with pinyin and tones, then build vocabulary, grammar, reading and speaking in a clear order. Speech recognition gives feedback on pronunciation, and character writing practice helps you learn stroke order from the start. That structure removes the guesswork of what to study next.

The limit is level. HelloChinese covers beginners well and reaches into intermediate material, but advanced learners will need reading, listening and speaking tools beyond it. Use HelloChinese as your first course for several months, then add Du Chinese for reading and italki for speaking as you progress. For a first app, its balance of structure and practice is hard to beat.

Duolingo is the easiest way to start a daily Chinese habit. Its short, game-like lessons fit into five minutes, its streak system keeps you returning, and its free tier covers the basics. For a first month of pinyin, tones and simple phrases, Duolingo gives a friendly and low-pressure start.

Its Chinese course is thinner than HelloChinese for grammar, character learning and real conversation. Learners who stay only with Duolingo often stall at a basic level. Use Duolingo as a habit tool alongside a structured course, or as a warm-up before a HelloChinese lesson. If Duolingo is the app that gets you practising daily, that habit alone makes it worth keeping.

Pleco is not a course, but it is the tool almost every serious learner installs. It is a fast dictionary with handwriting input, camera lookup for characters on signs and menus, stroke order animations and audio pronunciation. When you meet a new word in a lesson, a book or a conversation, Pleco tells you what it means in seconds.

Paid add-ons extend Pleco into flashcards and a document reader, which make it useful well into advanced study. Pleco suits every level, from a beginner checking a first character to an advanced learner reading a novel. Install it alongside whatever course you choose, since a good dictionary saves more time than any single lesson app.

LingoDeer suits learners who want grammar explained clearly rather than absorbed by repetition alone. Its Chinese lessons introduce sentence patterns, particles and tones with notes that help you understand why a sentence works. That approach appeals to learners who like to see the rules before they practise them.

LingoDeer is less well known than Duolingo, and its community and extra content are smaller. It works well as a main course for beginners to intermediate learners, or as a grammar companion to HelloChinese. If you have tried Duolingo and felt lost on grammar, LingoDeer is a strong next test.

Du Chinese is the best platform to learn chinese reading skills at your level. Its graded stories are written for learners from beginner to advanced, and you can tap any character to see its meaning, pinyin and audio. A listening mode lets you hear the story while you read, which links characters to sound.

Reading alone will not teach speaking or grammar, so Du Chinese works best as a second app. Pair it with HelloChinese or LingoDeer for structure, and use it daily for ten minutes of reading. Over months, graded reading builds vocabulary and character recognition faster than flashcards alone, because words appear in context.

Skritter is the best chinese learning software for handwriting. It teaches stroke order, gives feedback as you write on screen, and uses spaced repetition to bring characters back just before you forget them. For learners who want to read and write by hand, not just recognise characters, Skritter fills a gap that most course apps leave open.

Skritter is a specialist tool, not a full course. It does not teach conversation or listening in depth, and it needs a paid plan after the trial. Use Skritter for fifteen minutes a day alongside a course, focusing on the characters from your current lessons. Writing characters by hand also helps memory, since the act of writing forces attention to each part of a character.

italki connects you with native Chinese tutors and professional teachers for one-to-one video lessons. That live practice is the fastest way to improve tones, listening and natural speech, since a tutor can correct you in real time. You can choose a tutor by price, availability and teaching style, and book lessons around your schedule.

The cost adds up if you take several lessons a week, so many learners use italki once a week or once a fortnight alongside app study. Read tutor reviews and take a trial lesson with two or three tutors before committing. italki suits learners who have basic vocabulary and want to turn app knowledge into real conversation.

Pimsleur is an audio course that builds listening and speaking through repeated prompts and responses. Its lessons suit commutes, walks and other times when you cannot look at a screen. By forcing you to answer out loud, Pimsleur builds the reflex of producing Chinese without translating in your head first.

Pimsleur does not teach characters or reading, so it works best as a companion to a visual course. Use it for audio practice while HelloChinese or Skritter covers reading and writing. Pimsleur suits learners whose main study time is away from a desk, and who want to arrive at a conversation able to listen and respond, not just read.