HelloChinese
Course app: game-like Mandarin lessons for beginners, with speech recognition and handwriting practice.
Prices checked 12 Oct 2026 · How we check
Is HelloChinese worth it?
Yes, if you are starting Mandarin and want one app built only for it, covering pinyin, tones, characters and speaking, with graded stories once you can read a little.
What it costs. A year costs $69.99 ($5.83 a month); month to month is $11.99.
What's free. Free to download, with free lessons to start.
Skip it if you are past the basics, or learning anything but Mandarin: HelloChinese is built for beginners in Mandarin only.
What learners rate it. 4.9 out of 5 from 23,533 ratings in Apple's US App Store and 4.8 from 411,843 on Google Play, checked 12 Oct 2026.
$69.99 a year $5.83 a month, billed yearly · Premium
In our comparison: strongest on teaching depth and price, weakest on the number of languages.
- Annual plan
- $69.99 a year ($5.83/mo)
- Monthly plan
- $11.99
- Lifetime plan
- —
- Free tier
- Free sample
Free to download, with free lessons to start; Premium unlocks the rest, and HelloChinese does not publish where the free part ends. - Languages
- 1
- Speech recognition
- Yes
- Live tutoring
- —
- Offline mode
- Yes
- Placement test
- —
- CEFR levels
- —
- Refund or trial
- Yearly plans bought on HelloChinese's website or through its customer service have a 30-day money-back guarantee; monthly plans are not refunded. Purchases in the iPhone or Android app are final with HelloChinese and follow Apple's or Google's rules.
- Platforms
- iOS, Android
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How a HelloChinese lesson works
- What you do
- A short game-like lesson: hear words and sentences from native speakers, match, build and say them with speech recognition checking your pronunciation, and trace the characters by hand.
- What comes back
- Automatic: exercises are marked, and speech recognition scores how you say words. No person checks your work.
- Not included
- A live teacher or stated CEFR levels.
How a lesson works in a course app
Plans and prices
Every consumer plan on HelloChinese's own pricing page or app-store listing, in US dollars unless marked. Per month is the plan price divided by its term; promotions are noted, never used for the figure.
| Plan | Billing | Price | Per month | Covers |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Premium, twelve monthsPremiumApple's US App Store listing, in HelloChinese's own description. | Annual | $69.99 | $5.83/mo | everything in the app |
| Premium, three monthsPremiumApple's US App Store listing, in HelloChinese's own description. | Every 3 months | $25.99 | $8.66/mo | everything in the app |
| Premium, one monthPremiumApple's US App Store listing, in HelloChinese's own description. Apple also sells Premium+, whose terms the listing does not name. | Monthly | $11.99 | $11.99/mo | everything in the app |
What will HelloChinese cost you?
Total billed over 12 months
$73.89 less on annual billingOne yearly payment of $69.99.
What each plan covers. Monthly: everything in the app. Yearly: everything in the app.
Before subscribing, compare trial, cancellation and refund terms, including how purchases through an app store differ.
What HelloChinese says about itself
| Feature | What HelloChinese says |
|---|---|
| CEFR levels | — |
| What it is | Course app. Game-based Mandarin lessons for beginners, with speech recognition, handwriting practice for characters, graded stories and videos of native speakers. |
| Languages offered | 1: Chinese |
| Free tier | Free to download, with free lessons to start; Premium unlocks the rest, and HelloChinese does not publish where the free part ends. |
| Platforms | iOS, Android |
| Offline mode | Yes |
| Speech recognition | Yes |
| Live tutoring | — |
| Placement test | — |
| Refund or trial | Yearly plans bought on HelloChinese's website or through its customer service have a 30-day money-back guarantee; monthly plans are not refunded. Purchases in the iPhone or Android app are final with HelloChinese and follow Apple's or Google's rules. |
| Company | HelloChinese Technology Co., Ltd. |
How HelloChinese compares
HelloChinese is strongest on teaching depth and price, weakest on the number of languages. Each criterion is scored out of 5 from what each app says about itself and from independent reviews, to compare apps that do the same job; it is not a review of the app. How we score.
| Feature | Score (of 5) | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Teaching depth | 4 | Game-like Mandarin lessons for beginners, with speech recognition and handwriting practice |
| Speaking practice | 3 | Speech recognition scores your pronunciation |
| Language coverage | 1 | 1 language |
| Free tier | 2 | The first lessons are free, the rest is paid |
| Price per month | 4 | $69.99 a year $5.83 a month, billed yearly · Premium |
| Trial and refund | 4 | A 30-day money-back guarantee |
| Offline use | 4 | Works offline |
| Staying power and bugs | – | Not available |
Languages you can learn on HelloChinese
1 language as listed by HelloChinese.
How far its courses go
- HelloChinese: Courses built on HSK levels; 1,000+ graded stories and 2,000+ videos. Simplified or traditional, starting with a pinyin course.
Compare HelloChinese
- Best app to learn Chinese (Mandarin): every app that teaches it, compared
- Best language apps for speaking practice, compared
- Best language learning apps for beginners, compared
- Best language apps for travel, compared
- HelloChinese against any other app, side by side
- What HelloChinese will cost you for the months you study
- All 41 apps in one table
References
- Apple App Store: HelloChinese listing (checked 12 Oct 2026)
- HelloChinese: home page
- Google Play: HelloChinese listing
- HelloChinese: terms of use (checked 12 Oct 2026)