Lanzhou is the capital of Gansu, with about 4.4 million people, and its everyday speech, 兰州话, is a dialect of Mandarin that is also spoken in nearby Baiyin. Friends end a friendly push with 唦, as in 快些来唦 ("come on, hurry up"), and one sentence can use 给 three times: 给妈把钥匙给给了 means "I gave Mom the keys." We searched the App Store in English and Chinese, and Bubblegum is the only app we found that teaches Lanzhou speech, so this guide also shows which apps help in other ways.
Most learners start with Standard Mandarin and pick up Lanzhou speech from people, TV and short videos. For more Standard Mandarin apps, see our Chinese app comparison.
Custom Lessons Made for You
Bubblegum
For serious learners, Bubblegum is the best app to learn Lanzhou dialect. You learn from Lanzhou dialect you can mostly understand, which is called comprehensible input.
The Lanzhou dialect is its own course in Bubblegum. Tell Poppy, your AI tutor, your level and what you like, and she writes lessons for you in the speech people use in Lanzhou, from a lunch with friends to a weekend walk by the river. At a dinner, a friend might tell you 把酒喝上 ("drink up"), while polite speech to an elder stays polite.
There's no fixed course to work through in order, and Poppy can't stand in for a real person from Lanzhou. Pimsleur is better for audio drills with recorded speakers, and italki or HelloTalk can put you in touch with people from the city.
- Lessons, stories, and news are written in Lanzhou's everyday speech at six levels, in Simplified characters.
- Eleven Lanzhou grammar cards explain local forms, from 尕 for 'small' to 那 for 'he' or 'she'.
- Look up a word in the dictionary to see what a Lanzhou word means.
- Chat with Poppy, and she answers in Lanzhou speech.
- Voices that speak Lanzhou dialect read the lessons aloud.
- Regenerative Review™ brings saved words back in new lessons, so you review them by reading instead of using flashcards.
- Clear, expressive AI voices read every lesson aloud, with a different voice for each speaker.
- You cannot import your own books, articles, or videos.
- A new custom lesson costs us real money to make, so your first one is free, and Bubblegum Pro gives you unlimited custom lessons. The lesson library is free for everyone, because we believe everyone should be able to learn.
- Regenerative Review™
- Teaches Pinyin
- Traditional characters
- Zhuyin
Mobile
Learn Standard Mandarin First
Lanzhou speech shares most of its words and grammar with Standard Mandarin, so a Mandarin course covers much of what you hear in Lanzhou. These apps teach Standard Mandarin, not Lanzhou speech.
HelloChinese
HelloChinese walks you through Mandarin one lesson at a time, with practice in speaking and writing characters by hand. Pick it if you'd like the app to decide what you learn next.
- Lessons follow the HSK levels.
- Speech recognition checks your pronunciation.
- Flashcards
- Teaches Pinyin
- Traditional characters
Mobile
SuperChinese
SuperChinese is a course app where you shadow the speaker in a dialogue or story and then say the lines yourself. AI explains your mistakes and gives you someone to practice speaking with.
- The main course covers HSK 1 to 5 in 8 levels.
- More than 1,000 lessons of about 10 minutes each.
- Teaches Pinyin
- Traditional characters (partly)
Mobile
Pimsleur
Pimsleur suits learners who want to start speaking before they read much. You hear a prompt, pause to answer, and then hear the answer.
- Five levels with 30 audio lessons each.
- You answer out loud and then hear the answer.
MobileWeb
Look Up Words
Pleco
Pleco gives you the Standard Mandarin meaning of a word, which is usually all you need. When a word is local to Lanzhou, check it in a Lanzhou source too.
- Look up a word by typing it, drawing it, or pointing your camera at it.
- Paste in any text and tap words to see what they mean.
- Flashcards
- Traditional characters
- Zhuyin
Mobile
For local words, Wiktionary's dialect tables list how Lanzhou says common words, such as 今个 for "today" in its table for 今天.
Practice With People From Lanzhou
italki
People are the best way to hear how Lanzhou speech really sounds. On italki, look for Chinese teachers whose profiles say they grew up in Lanzhou, and ask them to speak the way they do at home.
- Find Chinese teachers for conversation and pronunciation.
- Get live practice and feedback from a person.
MobileWeb
HelloTalk
With the city filter, you can look for HelloTalk members in Lanzhou and swap messages or voice notes. Leave time to help your partner with your language, too.
- Meet Chinese speakers for language exchange.
- Paid members can look for partners by city.
Mobile
Hear Lanzhou Speech on TV and Online
Lanzhou speech reached a national audience on CCTV in 2023. Actress Sun Qian spoke it at the Spring Festival Gala, and Lanzhou's 德艺坊 crosstalk troupe performed a routine in it, 《发家致富》, on CCTV's Spring Festival crosstalk show. In 2018 the Lanzhou city government also posted a picture guide to Lanzhou words. It spells words the way they sound, such as 组撒 for 做啥 ("what are you doing"), so look them up under their usual characters.
For a short recording, the International Dialects of English Archive has a speaker from Lanzhou reading lines from the Analects in Lanzhou dialect, after she talks about her city in English. On Douyin and Bilibili, search for 兰州话 to find comedy sketches and short videos from Lanzhou.
For Advanced Learners, in Chinese
Once you can follow Chinese explanations, 兰州方言词典 (2009) by Zhang Wenxuan and Mo Chao is a 416-page dictionary of Lanzhou words. Linguists Li Lan and Hilary Chappell compare Lanzhou's 把 sentences with other dialects in a free paper, and Chinese Wikipedia's 兰州话 article describes its sounds and tones.
Other Apps We Looked At (5)
- DuolingoA free Standard Mandarin course in Simplified characters, with short game-like exercises.
- ChineseSkillA Standard Mandarin course for mainland China that goes from first words to short graded stories.
- TandemLanguage exchange through messages, voice notes, and calls. Its Lanzhou page lists members who live in the city.
- 方言通A new and growing Chinese-language app with recorded phrases in more than 20 Chinese dialects, such as Cantonese, Hokkien, and Sichuanese.
- 乡音A Chinese-language app where people share recordings of their hometown speech and guess each other's dialects.
Frequently Asked Questions
Which Lanzhou dialect app should a beginner choose?
If you are serious about learning Lanzhou dialect, start with Bubblegum. Poppy writes lessons at your level about things you like. HelloChinese is the other good start if you want to work through Standard Mandarin in order first. Bubblegum's free Pinyin course teaches the sounds of Mandarin in your browser.
Should I learn Standard Mandarin before the Lanzhou dialect?
Yes, for most learners. Standard Mandarin is the language of school and TV across China, including Lanzhou, and the dialect is written with the same Simplified characters, so the Mandarin you learn carries straight over.
How is the Lanzhou dialect different from Standard Mandarin?
It has its own everyday words, its own tones, and some of its own grammar. For example, 那 can mean "he" or "she," so 那说立马就到 means "He said he'd be right there."
Is Bubblegum free?
Yes. The lesson library is free for everyone, because we believe everyone should be able to learn. It holds lessons that other learners asked Poppy for. A new custom lesson costs us real money to make, so your first one is free, and Bubblegum Pro gives you unlimited custom lessons.
On this site, the Pinyin course and the Chinese lessons cost nothing and don't ask you to sign up.
Sources
- Lanzhou (Wikipedia): 4,359,446 people in the 2020 census
- 兰州话 (Chinese Wikipedia): Lanyin Mandarin, spoken in Lanzhou and Baiyin District
- 郑州大学文学院《河南罗山方言的“给给”》, citing 公望《兰州方言的“给给”》on Lanzhou 我给给给了
- Li Lan and Hilary Chappell, 汉语方言中的处置式和“把”字句（下）, with Lanzhou examples such as 把酒喝上
- 兰州晚报 via 中国甘肃网《在央视出圈的兰州方言值得挖掘》(2023-02-06)
- 兰州发布 via 澎湃新闻《一起看图get兰州方言 系不攒劲！》(2018-09-12)
- International Dialects of English Archive, Gansu 3: a speaker from Lanzhou reads the Analects in Lanzhou dialect
- Wiktionary dialect synonyms for 今天, with a Lanzhou row
- 张文轩、莫超《兰州方言词典》(2009), catalogue record
- Bubblegum
- HelloChinese
- SuperChinese
- Pimsleur
- Pleco
- italki
- HelloTalk
Checked on October 14, 2026 against each app's own pages.
