HelloChinese is a Mandarin course app made for beginners, with lessons on reading, writing, speaking, vocabulary, and grammar. On Reddit (r/ChineseLanguage), one new learner had HelloChinese, SuperChinese, Du Chinese, and Pleco on their phone. They wanted to focus on pronunciation and recognizing characters, and asked how to fit the apps together.
Each section below fits a different part of learning Mandarin, and HelloChinese comes first.
What HelloChinese Does
HelloChinese
HelloChinese suits learners starting from zero. Its courses follow HSK levels, it has more than 1,000 graded stories, and more than 2,000 videos show real people speaking. Courses work offline once you download them.
- Speech recognition checks your pronunciation.
- Handwriting practice helps you learn characters.
- A pinyin course gets brand-new learners started.
- Flashcards
- Teaches Pinyin
- Traditional characters
Mobile
Custom Lessons Made for You
Bubblegum
For serious learners, Bubblegum is the best app to learn Chinese. You learn from Chinese you can mostly understand, which is called comprehensible input.
In Bubblegum, Poppy, your AI tutor, writes Mandarin lessons for you, so you meet the same characters again and again in new stories. You can learn 
Taiwan Mandarin too, with zhuyin and Taiwan readings.
Poppy builds a flexible journey around your interests and level, so you can focus on what's most useful to you. The trade-off is that Bubblegum doesn't practice every skill, like handwriting, and it is not a person to talk with. For a course with speech and handwriting practice, keep HelloChinese or try SuperChinese.
- Poppy writes Mandarin lessons about your interests, at the level you're ready for.
- Ask for a story about anything, from dumplings to basketball.
- Ask Poppy about a character or a measure word right in the lesson.
- Saved words reappear in later lessons through Regenerative Review™.
- Clear, expressive AI voices read every lesson aloud, with a different voice for each speaker.
- Textbooks or articles you pick yourself can't be added.
- 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
Take Another Full Course
SuperChinese
SuperChinese covers speaking, reading, writing, and listening, starting with pinyin for beginners. Each lesson takes about 10 to 15 minutes, and spaced repetition brings words back for review.
- A free AI level test shows where to start.
- Speech recognition tells you where your tones need work.
- Animated videos teach words by theme.
- Teaches Pinyin
- Traditional characters (partly)
Mobile
ChineseSkill
ChineseSkill teaches reading, writing, listening, and speaking in one app. Besides Mandarin, it has a Cantonese course for Hong Kong.
- Pick Mandarin as spoken on the mainland or in Taiwan.
- Its curriculum runs from zero to HSK 4.
- Lessons take about 15 minutes each.
- Flashcards
- Teaches Pinyin
- Traditional characters (partly)
- Zhuyin
MobileWeb
Learn by Listening
Pimsleur
Pimsleur teaches Mandarin as an audio course, so your ears and voice do most of the work. Its course list includes both Mandarin and Cantonese.
- Hear Mandarin and answer out loud in every lesson.
- Practice without a screen in a hands-free mode.
- Download lessons to learn offline.
MobileWeb
Read Graded Stories
Du Chinese
Du Chinese is a reading and listening app for Mandarin. Its courses bring new words in slowly and repeat them in different stories.
- Pick from more than 3,000 readings and courses.
- Every reading has audio recorded by people.
- Look up pinyin and sentence translations as you read.
- Flashcards
- Traditional characters
- Zhuyin
MobileWeb
Other Apps We Looked At (3)
Common Questions
Which HelloChinese alternative should a beginner choose?
If you are serious about learning Chinese, start with Bubblegum. Poppy writes lessons at your level about things you like. Or start with SuperChinese if you'd like its level test to place you, or with ChineseSkill if you want Taiwan Mandarin from day one.
How do these apps fit together?
One way is to use a course, a reader, and a dictionary together. For example, a course like HelloChinese teaches the basics, Du Chinese or Bubblegum gives you stories to read, and Pleco looks up any word you meet.
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.
Sources
- HelloChinese: No. 1 Chinese learning app (speech recognition, handwriting, 2000+ videos)
- HelloChinese: App Store listing (1000+ graded stories, HSK-based courses, pinyin course)
- r/ChineseLanguage: HelloChinese or SuperChinese? How to incorporate Du Chinese & Pleco?
- SuperChinese: App Store listing (AI level test, speech recognition, animated videos)
- ChineseSkill: Mandarin (Mainland and Taiwan) and Cantonese courses to HSK4
- Pimsleur: Mandarin Chinese audio lessons
- Du Chinese: Learn Chinese with stories
- Pleco: App Store listing (free dictionaries, paid add-ons marked $)
- Skritter: Handwriting recognition and stroke feedback
- Duolingo: App Store listing
- Bubblegum
- ChineseSkill
- Pimsleur
- Du Chinese
Checked on October 14, 2026 against each app's own pages.
