If you’re looking to learn Chinese, one of the best, easiest ways to do so is to use an app (or three). Apps can help you keep your motivation to continue learning, give you unique ways to develop your skills and practice what you know, and allow you to learn and study while you’re on the go or waiting in a line. Check out our list of the best iPhone apps for learning Chinese.
The best iPhone apps for learning Chinese
4 Sep 2021, by Cherry Mae Torrevillas
The Fun Chinese for kids’ app provides Mandarin Chinese Learning Games together with educational activities to teach kids to read, speak & spell. With this iPhone app for learning Chinese, you will get unlimited access to all learning activities by signing up to the free 7-day trial. Fun Chinese uses male and female voices. The voices use different tones and expressions so that learners can pick up on the subtleties of pronunciation.
- Designed by language learning experts for kids aged 3-10
- Course for preschool, early learners & young children studying languages
- Learn 150 words & phrases
- 65 lessons
- 11 themed courses
Kids YAY learning Chinese app is intended for kids and beginners. Kids YAY Chinese app for learning Chinese is a game-based learning course designed to build Chinese language skills — characters, words, phrases, pronunciation, and handwriting. With this app, learning Mandarin Chinese is actually easy and fun! Learn basic Chinese language skills while playing. It is pressure-free and learners can choose their own pace.
- Fun and engaging game-like activities help you learn basic spoken Mandarin phrases and vocabulary for everyday life
- A tongue twister helps better master tones in Mandarin
- Chinese Characters handwriting lessons help expand your vocabulary and enhance your understanding of the language
- Supports offline learning
- Supports both simplified and traditional Mandarin Chinese
This is the best app to learn Chinese, the Online Homework app for MLP Chinese curriculum. MLP Chinese curriculum is designed for children of Chinese immigrants who are learning Mandarin Chinese as a heritage language. The online homework component is designed to be a part of a complete curriculum set including textbook, workbooks, and vocab cards, and not as a standalone Chinese learning app.
- Learn Chinese at home
- Apply advanced self-study techniques.
- Learn Chinese yourself, be your own teacher
- Improve your native language
The Chineasy App is the best app to start your Mandarin Chinese learning journey, no matter if you’re a total beginner or an intermediate learner! Loved by millions of followers worldwide, Chineasy is highly recommended by educators, parents, and media for its fun, engaging, and effective methodology. Featured as App of the Day and the App Store’s list of “Apps We Love” and “Editor’s Choice.”
- A Game-based learning journey to keep you motivated. Keep Bao fed and happy every day!
- Over six-hundred bite-sized levels to learn, review, and quiz yourself anytime and anywhere
- Speech recognition to improve your Chinese speaking skills
- Simplified and traditional Chinese are both supported
HelloChinese offers beginners a fun way to learn Chinese Mandarin quickly and easily. The idea is to quickly bring you up to a conversational level. The app uses proprietary character handwriting technologies and speech recognition to make the learning easy and fun. The app is free with no in-app purchases and uses games to teach the language. There’s a pronunciation course for complete newbies, and you can choose between to display the Chinese as pinyin or characters. Speech recognition corrects your pronunciation so you learn it correctly and the curriculum is bite-sized to quickly ramp up your Chinese speaking, listening, reading, and writing skills.
- Accessible offline once downloaded
- Progress tracks across multiple devices
- Speech recognition
- Game-based learning
- Free iPhone app for learning Chinese
ChineseSkill offers a game-based learning course to help you learn Chinese Mandarin. You can choose pronunciation at standard or slower speed, switch between pinyin or characters (or both), and the app makes it effective for people to learn while mobile. Testing provides both review and consolidation of what is taught and the app offers a new way to study Chinese characters. The mini-games test your reading, listening, speaking, and writing skills while teaching you all along. Content is broken into different practical skills and users are kept motivated to continue. Learn more than 200 sentence patterns, 50 Chinese skills, 150 Chinese grammar points, 1000 key words and phrases, and 2000 essential Chinese characters.
- Many different lesson topics
- Game-based
- Learn while testing
- Switch between simplified and traditional Chinese
- Free iPhone app for learning Chinese
Pleco Chinese Dictionary is an integrated flashcard system/document reader/dictionary. You get two free dictionaries and there are more available to download for free and more to purchase. The app offers merged search function, links and cross-references, audio pronunciations, a document reader, and great typography. You can watch animations to learn how to draw each character, create new dictionary entries as you come across new words, and more. There’s an active community online and the app offers customer support. You can also use the app’s full-screen handwriting support to practice your characters.
- Document reader
- OCR feature
- Full-screen handwriting support
- Two built-in dictionaries
- Free with in-app purchases
FluentU teaches you Mandarin Chinese using videos. You’ll watch music videos, movie trailers, talks, and news in Mandarin, which will help teach you the language in an immersive manner. It doesn’t matter if you’re a complete beginner or just looking to brush up on your language skills, you can use this app. They’ve turned fun videos into a great language learning experience. There is a new daily goal feature and you can use the app to loo up any words, instantly. You are quizzed based on your history of learning with the app, and the My Vocab section is always available.
- Watch real-world videos to learn Mandarin Chinese
- Music videos, movie trailers, talks, and news
- For people of all levels
- Daily goal feature
- Free iPhone app for learning Chinese
Art of Chinese Characters makes it fun and interesting to learn Chinese characters. You may have put off learning the language because you thought the characters were too difficult to learn; you might have just been trying to learn the wrong way. This app helps you find the connection part of Chinese characters from the painting so you can learn the pronunciation, meaning, stroke order, phrases, and origins associated with each character. The practice section gives a quick review that has you trying to match Chinese characters to their English meanings. There are 15 paintings of Chinese characters, 89 Chinese characters, 163 phrases,stroke order demonstrations and writing practice, and true human voice pronunciation for each Chinese character and phrase.
Art of Chinese Characters app review
- Traditional Chinese and Simplified Chinese available
- Learn more easily
- Three parts to the app
- Free with in-app purchases
Learn Chinese Free is a collection of commonly used phrases and vocabularies in Mandarin Chinese. A parrot helps you practice your listening and speaking skills. You can adjust the font size, hear authentic pronunciations, and store and manage your favorite phrases. You can search for phrases and vocabulary by keyword, record and compare your pronunciation, and you don’t need an Internet connection. You’ll learn common scenarios, greetings, phrases covering travel, and basic information like date, time, weather, numbers, and more. This app is great to use to learn in short bursts like when you’re standing in line, waiting at the doctor’s office, or when you have some time to spare.
- Learn commonly used phrases and vocabularies
- Hear authentic pronunciations
- Store and manage your favorite phrases
- No Internet connection required
- Free iPhone apps for learning Chinese
Learn Chinese Easily gives you an interactive, easy way to learn Chinese. You’ll be connecting words with images to solidify their meaning in your head. You will learn Chinese language correctly, complete tests to determine your level of mastery of the lesson, and keep track of your learning progress.The study method is efficient, using pictures and pronunciation to aid your understanding. The developer promises that free language lessons will be included in updates. The interface is simple and easy to use, and the lessons are just the right level of difficulty to be challenging, but not too hard.
Learn Chinese Easily app review
- Interactive way to learn Chinese
- Connect words with images
- Complete tests to determine your mastery
- Keep track of your progress
- Free with in-app purchases
Learn Chinese (Mandarin) is a paid app you can try for free before you buy it. You’ll learn vocabulary, fundamental grammar and word elements, and stroke order. You get more than 5,500 flashcards, a customized flashcard repetition algorithm that reduces your memorization time down, and browse and search functions that let you find the cards you want. You get ongoing feedback, visualization tools, and statistics that allow you to track your progress. The app is easy to use and effective to help you learn as quickly as possible.
Learn Chinese (Mandarin) by Brainscape app review
- Learn a few new words each session
- Customized flashcard repetition algorithm
- Learn fundamental grammar and word elements
- More than 5,500 flashcards
- Free to try
uTalk will give you the basics of the Chinese language using images, fun quizzes, and a point scoring system. You’ll perfect your accent by 275 phrases and words you are most likely going to need if you’re in China. You’ll learn things like how to find a chemist, how to order a drink, and how to ask for a painkiller. You will learn how to discuss food, numbers, colors, shopping, and more. In just 10 minutes you can learn several words or phrases. Learn Mandarin in a way that makes you learn the basics so that you will think you always knew the language.
uTalk Classic Learn Chinese app review
- Learn just the words you need
- Interactive learning games
- Fun quizzes
- Point scoring system
- One-time purchase
