ChineseSkill - Learn Chinese

I am a teacher and very thoughtful about the ways the human brain absorbs information. I teach in a predominantly Chinese area, so I am motivated to learn Chinese. My students think it is exciting and funny when I try to speak Chinese - they laugh, then help me with my accent and tones. I bought Rosetta Stone (very expensive) and I do use it, but this app is 1) much easier to get into, 2) more memorable with art than with photos, 3) more multimodal (switching from recognize, recall, listen, write, fill-in, English to Chinese, Chinese to English, etc.), 4) more grammatically oriented (ie this/that), 4) more organized topically, 5) less confusing (when using RS I have to stop and look things up on google translate or else stay confused) 6) more reading/writing (on this app I am starting to read the Chinese before the English), more time friendly (5-10 minute sections), and 8) more [sic] FREE!!! So great that I took the time to write a review! (I rarely do this) [[[ If you are a developer reading this review, please turn the large written Chinese characters into Flashcards for optional ongoing vocabulary development (I currently screenshot them, but think it would be a great addition to the app - and thank you!! ]]]

I’ve tried this and duolingo for a few days, and although duolingo seems to be more well known (could be just marketing), I like ChineseSkill app more. (My background is that I am Cantonese Chinese, and I know how to speak and understand some really basic Mandarin but am not a native Mandarin speaker.) Duolingo was way too repetitive, i was on the first lesson “greetings” and it repeated the same two words (“hello”) throughout 2-3 long lessons which was such a waste of time. ChineseSkill is not as mind-numbingly repetitive and even when it does try to teach you the same word/sentence a few times it will do it in a few different ways. Also, I really appreciate that ChineseSkill teaches not only the sounds of the words but also shows you the pinyin and how to write the words in Chinese characters, which duolingo does not do. They are both fun apps, and I can see how they’d be a fun and easy way to teach people completely new to the language. But since I already know how to speak and understand some basic mandarin, and I am looking to increase my vocabulary more quickly in order to be able to carry conversations and would also like to learn how to read and write chinese, I think I need to take a more advanced maybe university level course, like on Coursera or something.

Overall this is a great app that is engaging and tests out the many facets it really takes to learn another language. I like how sometimes I have visuals (whether that’s a picture flashcard or a Chinese character), fill in the blank to practice listening skills, the ability to click on a word and character combination for vocabulary recall (I really like how the characters and pinyin are side by side 谢谢/xie xie), etc. The suggestions I have are minor but I think would be very helpful. When you get an answer RIGHT I wish it would show the whole sentence in Chinese (and its pinyin) AND correct English translation. It would also be great if you could still get an opportunity to HEAR the sentence AFTER you have answered (whether you got it right or wrong) so that it can help you learn it more because it’s great to be able to hear and read the answer over again (whether right or wrong). Another cool thing would be if you could incentivize the app so that it is even more like a game. Most people like mini challenges and earning things. DuoLingo already has something similar to this. Maybe you can earn a wrong answer back if you get three right in a row. Or after doing a set number of lessons (or minutes spent using the app maybe per day) you could win different pandas, 元 （fake), or a dragon. Anyway, those are just a couple of things that I thought would maybe help make this great app even better. 谢谢你们。再见👋。

I’m an american living in china and I’ve always wanted to learn mandarin. I used duolingo for a while but I found that it was quite hard and confusing and the lesson structure was really bad for chinese. It taught hanzi without pinyin and didn’t teach writing at all along with teaching obscure words and characters that were quickly forgotten. I just started using this app and I already love it so much more, I’m considering buying the lifetime subscription. It teaches reading, writing, native listening, conversational speaking, pinyin + characters (with the option to turn off one or the other) and the lesson structure is a lot easier to follow. The only recommendations I have are to have more matching between pinyin and hanzi because for me, I can speak and listen well, but I can’t read or write easily. Also, to put an explanation for certain grammar or structural words especially like 在 or 要 which have multiple implications depending on the sentence.

I am fluent in Cantonese but also wanted to learn conversational Mandarin. After a quick search in the App Store, this app came up at the top of the search results. I read the reviews and decided this is the app to start my journey to conversational Mandarin. I’ve only been using the app for a month and have made progress. The keys to success are be consistent, go slow, and do the reviews after each lesson before moving on. I devote an hour a day to review and/or new lessons. So far I am able to form simple sentences and order at my local Chinese restaurant. For me, that is a win. One anomaly is when I got to the lesson on numbers and measurements there was no teaching lesson. Instead, I was thrown into the sentence quizzes. I muddled through but also noticed there is no audio for some of the fill in the blank sentences so I didn’t know which word is said to pick from. All in all, this is a great start for those who want to learn Mandarin.