Best App to Learn Chinese in 2026 (for Tones, Characters and the HSK)

The short answer: Chinese is three jobs at once: hearing and saying the tones, reading characters, and understanding spoken Mandarin at full speed. For a complete beginner course with pinyin and speech recognition, HelloChinese. For a free daily habit, Duolingo. For a CEFR course with feedback from Chinese speakers, Busuu. For a dictionary you will use every day, Pleco. For graded reading with audio, Du Chinese. For writing characters, Skritter. For listening to real Chinese in songs, stories and YouTube, with every word explained in your own language, Soma. For flashcards you control, Anki. Most learners end up with one course, one dictionary and one way to listen.

Mandarin is often called the hardest major language for English speakers, but most of that reputation comes from two things: tones and characters. The grammar is friendlier than people expect: verbs don't change for person or tense, most nouns have no plural form, and there is no grammatical gender. This guide sorts nine apps, plus the official HSK site, by which part of the job each one does.

How we compared them

We looked at each app's own pages and store listings in October 2026 and asked six questions:

1. What do you actually do in it? Lessons, drills, reading, writing, songs, videos, flashcards.
2. Does it teach tones? And does it tell you when yours are wrong?
3. Characters or pinyin? Does it teach you to read characters, or keep you on pinyin, the Latin spelling of Mandarin sounds?
4. Which language explains the Chinese? For many learners in Vietnam, Korea, Japan and India, English is a second language too.
5. Does it bring words back before you forget them (spaced repetition)?
6. What does it cost? Free, a free tier, or a subscription after a trial.

We don't quote prices, because they change by country and month. Each app's own page has the current price.

Chinese learning apps compared

Tones first

Mandarin has four tones plus a light neutral tone, and the tone is part of the word: mā (mother), má (hemp), mǎ (horse) and mà (to scold) differ only in pitch. Get the tones into your ear in your first weeks, because a word learned with the wrong tone is hard to relearn.

• HelloChinese starts with a pinyin course, so you learn the sounds and tones before the characters, and its speech recognition corrects your pronunciation.
• Skritter teaches each character's meaning, reading and tone before you practise writing it.
• Pleco's flashcards include tone drills, as a paid add-on.
• Soma: learn tones from speech, not songs. In singing, the melody largely takes over from the tones, in Chinese songs generally and in ours too. Soma's spoken stories and dialogues give you natural Mandarin at four levels, and shadowing has you say each sentence back and scores your pronunciation word by word against Mandarin (zh-CN), on the Pro and Max plans.

Characters or pinyin?

Pinyin is how you learn to say Chinese; characters are how Chinese is written. Most learners start with pinyin, and it stays useful for typing and dictionaries. But signs, messages, subtitles and books are in characters, so a learner who never leaves pinyin cannot read. Start reading characters early, a few at a time, inside words you already know.

There are also two character sets: simplified, used in mainland China and Singapore, and traditional, used in Taiwan and Hong Kong. Most learners start with simplified unless they are heading for Taiwan or Hong Kong. HelloChinese, Pleco and Du Chinese support both.

• Busuu has a separate Chinese Characters course, to learn how to read and write them.
• LingoDeer has character drills for writing practice.
• Skritter is built for writing, with HSK decks for every level.
• Pleco lets you look up a character you can't type by drawing it on the screen, or, with a paid add-on, by pointing your camera at it.
• Du Chinese shows pinyin, a definition and native audio when you tap a word in a story, so you can read above your level without leaving the page.
• Soma shows Chinese in characters only, with no pinyin. It is for you once you can read some characters, or as listening practice with the characters in front of you; a tap on any word gives its meaning, whatever you can read.

Best free app to learn Chinese

Duolingo is free with ads and is good at one thing: making you open it every day. Its weakness is depth. Learners often finish a unit able to read short sentences but not to follow spoken Mandarin at full speed, and tones need more ear training than a game gives.

Busuu has a free Mandarin course to start with. Du Chinese lets you read for free before you upgrade, Skritter keeps some decks free for guests, and Pleco's two built-in dictionaries are free.

Soma is free for one language, with every song, story and picture in it. If Chinese is your one language, you get all of the Chinese. It runs in any browser on your phone or computer; native iOS and Android apps are coming soon.

Best app for listening to real Chinese

Textbook Mandarin is slow and carefully toned. Real Mandarin is fast, swallows the neutral syllables, and runs words together, so listening needs its own daily practice.

• Soma builds listening in three ways. Original Chinese songs are sung word by word in karaoke, with the translation under every line; you can slow them down or switch the vocals off and sing. Spoken stories and dialogues come at four levels, and in a dialogue you can take a part and answer aloud. And a Chinese YouTube video you paste becomes a lesson. Tap any word for its meaning, including grammar words: 着 shows "aspect marker indicating a durative or ongoing situation". The songs are made with AI for learners, and every lyric is checked by people.
• Du Chinese has native-speaker audio for every reading, so each story is also a listening exercise.
• HelloChinese has more than 2,000 videos with Chinese speakers.

Try one before you decide: 港口渡轮 ("Harbor ferry") opens with 晚风推着小渡轮走 ("The evening breeze pushes the little ferry along"); tap 走 and you get "walk; leave". The full karaoke is on the page, no sign-in needed.

Best app if English isn't your first language

Almost every Chinese app teaches through English. If your strongest language is Vietnamese, Korean, Thai, Indonesian or Hindi, you are learning Chinese through a second language, and every explanation costs you twice. Korean and Vietnamese speakers also have a head start worth using: thousands of words in both languages come from Chinese.

• Soma explains Chinese in the language you choose. It offers 22, including Vietnamese, Korean, Japanese, Thai, Indonesian, Russian, Hindi, Arabic, Spanish and Portuguese. The app's menus switch to that language too.
• HelloChinese's app comes in 13 languages, among them Vietnamese, Thai, Indonesian, Korean and Arabic.
• Duolingo, Busuu and LingoDeer: which language explains the Chinese depends on the course, so check what each offers from your language.

Best app for Chinese vocabulary

• Anki, if you like control. Free on desktop and Android, with the modern FSRS scheduler built in. If Anki feels like too much setup, see Anki alternatives.
• Pleco turns any dictionary entry into a flashcard with one tap (a paid add-on), so the word you just looked up becomes the word you review.
• HelloChinese brings vocabulary back with its own spaced-repetition system.
• Soma keeps every word or line you save in one spaced-repetition review, and each word comes from a song or story you heard, so it arrives with a sound and a sentence attached.

Learn words, not single characters: 渡轮 (ferry) is easier to remember as one word you heard in a song than as 渡 and 轮 on their own. And keep your reviews short and daily: see how to learn a language with spaced repetition.

Best app for the HSK

Be careful here: a general app is not an exam course.

• Start with the official HSK site (chinesetest.cn), run by Chinese Testing International (CTI). The HSK is moving from six levels to nine: the new HSK has "three stages, nine levels" and tests listening, speaking, reading and writing, with translation at the advanced levels. You can take it on paper, online at a test centre, or online at home. The site has the new syllabus, sample questions and a demo of the new test. Speaking has its own exam, the HSKK, at three levels, done as an audio recording.
• HelloChinese organises its courses by HSK level, Du Chinese has HSK-aligned reading, and Skritter has writing decks for HSK 1–6 and for all nine levels of the new HSK.
• Soma doesn't do mock tests. What it adds is listening, which the HSK tests at every level.

Is Duolingo enough to learn Chinese?

For a start, yes; for the HSK or a real conversation, almost never on its own. Duolingo is excellent at habit and early vocabulary. It gives you little long, natural listening, little tone training and little reading beyond short sentences, and those are exactly what a conversation, a menu or the HSK demand. Keep the streak if it motivates you, and add a dictionary, a character tool and one way to listen every day. More options in Duolingo alternatives.

Frequently asked questions

Which app is best to learn Chinese for free? Duolingo is free with ads, and Busuu has a free Mandarin course to start with. Pleco's built-in dictionaries are free, and Du Chinese and Skritter both let you start without paying. Soma is free for one language, including all its Chinese songs and stories.

Does Soma show pinyin? No. Lyrics and stories are in Chinese characters, and a tap on any word gives its meaning. For pinyin, start with HelloChinese's pinyin course, and keep Pleco or Du Chinese at hand when you read.

Which app teaches Chinese in Vietnamese or Korean? Soma explains every word and song line in Vietnamese, Korean, Japanese, Thai, Indonesian or 17 other languages, whichever you choose. HelloChinese's app comes in Vietnamese and Korean among its 13 languages.

Should I learn simplified or traditional characters? Simplified, unless you are heading for Taiwan or Hong Kong, or your teacher uses traditional. Many apps, including HelloChinese, Pleco and Du Chinese, support both, so you can add the other set later.

What is the best app for the HSK? There isn't one app for it. Use the official syllabus and sample questions for the format, an HSK-based course such as HelloChinese for what to study, Skritter or Anki for the characters at your level, and daily listening for the listening section.

Can I learn Chinese with songs? Yes, for vocabulary and listening, as part of a routine. Songs make words stick because the melody carries them, but the melody also bends the tones, so learn tones from speech. See best apps to learn a language through music.

How long does it take to learn Chinese with an app? It depends on your hours and on what you already know: learners who read Japanese kanji start well ahead on characters. Be wary of any app that promises an HSK level in a few weeks.

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Sources: vendor pages and store listings checked October 2026: hellochinese.cc, busuu.com, pleco.com, chinesetest.cn, apps.ankiweb.net, and the App Store listings of HelloChinese, Pleco, Du Chinese, Skritter, LingoDeer and Duolingo.

Comparing apps for another language? The same guide for Japanese, Korean, English and Spanish.

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Try Soma free. Hear Chinese in songs, stories and real YouTube videos, with every word explained in your own language and kept with spaced repetition. Play 港口渡轮 first, no sign-in needed, then start at app.soma.ninja; plans are on the pricing page.

Drafted with AI, edited and fact-checked by a human.