Chinese Courses: A Review of the Best Learning Programs and Tools

Nowadays there is no shortage of free resources for learning a language: websites, apps, forums, videos, podcasts, you name it. However, many people are still looking for a more professional Mandarin course, the type of course that is generally paid. Personally, in the past few years, I have bought a few of them. Why?

There are two main reasons for that:

• Often, you must pay if you want the best resources. Think of FluentU, Yoyo Chinese or Skritter. Who would take the time to develop such a wonderful learning tools for free?
• The ultimate goal is to learn the language. And achieving this objective requires a long-time commitment. Personally I’m more likely to stick to my goals when I’m paying some money for it. No matter if it’s a good gym, a reliable server for my website or a language course.

The problem is that there are so many different Chinese courses and find the right one may be painful.

Given my experience with foreign languages – Mandarin is my sixth language – I thought I could help these people by listing the main Chinese courses in the market and highlight the difference among them.

Podcasts and Videos

FluentU

FluentU is an innovative platform that uses a broad selection of videos as its learning materials. The videos include both videos especially designed for them as well as a selection of ads, music videos and documentaries, among others, with subtitles in Chinese and English.

However, FluentU is much more than a selection of videos with subtitles, as the platform offers a ton of additional tools to get the most out of your studying time, like flashcards, tests and grammar lessons among others, all perfectly integrated.

A FluentU subscription costs 30 USD per month; however, if you pay for a year in advance, you will only pay 20 USD per month, i.e. 240 USD per year.

Also, note that at the moment they are offering a 14 days free trial.

Do you want to learn more? Click here to read our full review of FluentU.

Yoyo Chinese

Yoyo Chinese is an online platform that offers a complete course for learning Chinese that covers all aspects of the language (vocabulary, writing, grammar and written and oral comprehension). The course is based on video lessons both from teachers as well as on real situations in China.

Yoyo Chinese focuses its program for learning Mandarin Chinese from a practical point of view in order to improve your real communication abilities (both written and oral), leaving more academic instruction on the language in the background. In other words, this is a course for people whose priority is to learn the Chinese used every day.

Ps. Here you find our full review of the course.

ChineseClass101

ChineseClass101 is another complete platform based on podcasts. The platform offers hundreds of podcasts of around 15 minutes that are perfectly organized according to the subject and level of competency. Each of them is structured in the same way, starting with a dialogue from an everyday situation followed by a complete analysis regarding vocabulary, grammar and culture.

Just like the two previous platforms, ChineseClass101’s podcasts are integrated into a platform that offers numerous additional tools to maximize the learning of the concepts laid out. Among these tools are: flashcards, grammar lessons and a voice recorder to improve your pronunciation.

A ChineseClass101 Premium subscription costs 15 USD a month for a year plan.

If you want to learn more about this platform, I recommend that you take a look at our complete review of it by clicking here.

ChinesePod

ChinesePod is one of the most popular podcasts to study Chinese,

At the moment it offers almost 3,000 lessons of about 15-20 minutes each and a new lesson is uploaded every day. You can study on your laptop or download the files in mp3 format and listen to them on your favorite music player (this is what I do).

There are six levels of difficulty so this product also suits advanced learners. Every lesson comes with a pdf transcription and translation. Also, if you get the premium subscription you’ll have the possibility to access other advanced features such as the exercises and the app for iPhone.

ChinesePod costs 14 USD/month for a Basic subscription and 29 USD/month for a Premium subscription. Click here to read my full review of the software.

Writing and reading Chinese characters

Skritter

Skritter is a software designed to teach you how to write Chinese characters and remember them.

As soon as you register, you can download a list of characters (there are a lot). Afterwards, you can start a study session. The software will show you a phrase with a character missing or the meaning of a word with its pronunciation. Your job is to reproduce the character with the right order of strokes by using the touch screen of your tablet or smartphone, a pen tablet or your mouse.

If you make a mistake or don’t know how to write the character, the software will suggest you the right stroke order. Thus the next time that you’ll see that specific character you’ll have more chances to remember it.

The interesting thing is that Skritter uses a SRS (Spaced Repetition Software) algorithm that shows you the characters with a clever scheduling. In this way you’ll remember a great ratio of the characters that you are studying (up to the 90% of the characters according to Skritter’s website).

I believe that this new technology is going to supplant the traditional method to study Chinese characters (at least among those people that start to learn Mandarin after the primary school) as keep writing the same characters over and over again is boring and ineffective.

A monthly Skritter subscription costs 14.99 USD. You can pay every month so you can stop when you want. Moreover, you get a weekly free trial.

Here you find my full review of the software.

The Chairman’s Bao

The Chairman’s Bao (TCB) is an online newspaper in Chinese whose articles have been simplified to be appropriate for people learning Mandarin. The newspaper publishes news on diverse subjects written by native Chinese professors using HSK vocabulary lists.

Nonetheless, TCB offers much more than that, and is turning into a complete platform for learning Chinese. Based on the articles, you will find extremely useful tools, such as an interactive dictionary for you to easily look up vocabulary that you don’t know, the possibility of listening to the audio track for the article, a customizable SRS flash card system, a tool to practice writing characters and the possibility of choosing between traditional and simplified Chinese.

TCB costs 10 USD per month or 80 USD if you buy it for the whole year.

If you would like to know more about this platform, you can read our interview with Sean, one of its creators.

Remember the Hanzi

Remember the Hanzi is the method invented by James Heisig, the master of Kanji (the alphabet that Japanese people borrowed from China) and Hanzi, that is the typical Chinese characters.

The introduction of the book starts with the following sentence:

“The aim of this course is to help you teach yourself, as quickly and efficiently as possible, the meaning and writing of the 3,000 most commonly used Chinese characters.”

And the book does deliver what promised. However the method is quite controversial and, after I talked to several people that tried it (I did it myself), I believe that you should really understand what you want before to start using it.

The main issue is that the focus of this book is learning single characters, while speaking Chinese requires – beside reading characters – a whole set of different skills.

Remember the Hanzi costs 28.28 USD. Click here to read my full review of the book.

HSK Courses

HSK Test Preparation by Peking University

Among the many courses dedicated to the HSK exam, we’ve chosen the one offered by Peking University (Beida), since it seems to us to be one of the best when it comes to the matter of quality/price.

The course is offered through the study platform Coursera, and you can choose from courses dedicated to HSK levels 1, 2, or 3, and a course for HSK level 4.

The course costs 49 USD (or 40 EUR) a month, and there’s a seven day trial period. The length of the course varies from 6 weeks (for the first level) to 10 weeks (for the fourth). At the end of the course you can also get a certificate from Peking University (note that this is not the HSK certificate, for which you’ll have to pass the official exam run by the Confucius Institute).

If you’re already learning Chinese but aren’t sure what your current level is, you can always take our free test for evaluating your HSK level.

Grammar Books

Modern Mandarin Chinese Grammar

Modern Mandarin Chinese Grammar: A Practical Guide is one of the best rated Chinese grammar books in Amazon.com. It’s also one of the most recent (it was released in 2006).

This book is divided into two sections. The first part is dedicated to traditional grammar items such as phrase order, nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs while the second part covers more general notions such as communication strategies, giving and seeking information or expressing feelings.

Modern Mandarin Chinese Grammar costs 36.45 USD. Click here to learn more abut this book.

Multimedia Chinese Courses

Rosetta Stone

Rosetta Stone is one of the biggest companies that offer multimedia courses for learning languages.

Their approach is quite different as it’s based on the concept of “immersion.” At Rosetta Stone they believe that the most natural way to study a foreign language is to learn it without any external help (such as an English translation).

Therefore, for teaching you how to say “cup” in Mandarin they may show you the word 杯子 (which means “cup”), let you listen the correct pronunciation (“bēizi” in this case) and show you the photo of a guy who is drinking a cup of wine in a bar.

The basic idea is that you should learn the language the same way kids do, that is through the context and a trial and error process.

Rosetta Stone’s first level course costs 161.10 USD while the whole course (five levels) costs 374 USD. So the main downside of this course is the price. Click here to learn more about it.

Pimsleur

The Pimsleur language method takes its name from Dr. Paul Pimsleur, who devoted his life to the study of language.

This method consists of a set of audio CD or mp3 files. There is no written material as Dr. Pimsleur believed that when you look at one text in a foreign language you tend to read using the rules of your mother tongue.

So if you are American you’ll read the Chinese word “pai” as the English verb “to pay,” even if in theory you know that in Chinese you should pronounce it differently.

Even if this philosophy sounds right to me, the downside is that if you are like me – I mainly learn through my visual memory instead of also exploiting my auditory and sensorial memory – you’ll feel limited by the Pimsleur method as there is nothing to “see,” only audios.

The majority of people learn using a balanced combination of visual, auditory and sensorial memory. However there are a few people (like me, for instance) that mainly exploit a particular physical channel during their learning process.

Hence I can only recommend this course to the people that have a predominant auditory memory. However, before opting for this method, I recommend that you take a look at the podcast and videos section, as in my opinion, they are more complete platforms for a better price, and which are specially designed for learning Mandarin.

Finally, the Pimsleur program (30 lessons) costs 203.23 USD, which is a lot of money. However you can get the conversational lessons for as little as 29.83 USD. I’m not sure why there is such a huge difference, maybe it’s a way to promote the main course. Click here to learn more about the complete course and here to learn more about the conversational lessons.

Chinese lessons via video conference

Currently there are many Chinese schools that also offer their courses through their online platforms or via videoconference.

eChineseLearning

eChineseLearning is one of the oldest online Chinese class platforms, with more than 14 years of experience. While its prices are somewhat high compared to other types of courses, it’s a good option for people looking for a somewhat more personalized course, as it has a large number of study programs. Click here to read more about eChineseLearning.

[Cover Photo’s Copyright: Depositphotos.com]