Of all the language learning apps I've tried this has been my favorite! Not only are the stories fun to read, but they are short enough to be consumable even for a beginner. I love that I can easily translate word by word or sentence by sentence as a read - a more interesting way to learn vocabulary than flashcards. And even better, I can listen to native audio as I read along. It's also helpful that the stories are catagorized by level, making finding and pushing my abilities that much easier.
Reviews for Du Chinese - Read Mandarin 读中文
← Back to Du Chinese - Read Mandarin 读中文Du Chinese by far and away the best app for learning Chinese, and i have tried very many! i like that i can always find a story lesson at whatever level i am looking for, and the app always performs as needed, voice, pace, available translation on words, phrases, and full sentences all there. proof, I have just subscribed after using free for weeks, because i want to support this app and those working to help me learn to read, listen to and learn Chinese. And NO ADDS!!!
Been using the app for years living in China. Now I open a text every now and then and I encountered a problem: the new words I save go into my enormous word bank (almost 2 000 words saved) and there's no way to practice them separately from these 2 000. I wish there was a word review thing for one lesson only, like you save flashcards from a text and then work on them till you can read the text without an issue.
Really great app for learning Mandarin. Has traditional characters as well, which for those of us in sovereign Taiwan is great! Can also practicing listening, and save vocab words. The only downside is if you don't star the lessons you're working on, it's easy to lose them after a few days (there's no search functionality).
The use of short stories that repeat certain words and phrases so I can make sense of how they go together. And the app keeps track of how many times you review a word. I think it is worth paying for, but $14 a month is a lot if I am a slow person who cannot make use off having access to everything. I'd rather pay a small amount per story and not worry about monthly fee so I know I can get through it all. Either way its the best language learning experience for me
Honestly, the perfect app to practice reading. It has a large selection of graded readers, human-narrated audio (which can also be consumed like an audiobook/podcast), and tap for definition. You can even save words you encounter with a tap, to review with spaced-repetition flashcards later. As a nice touch, the flashcards created this way include the sentence from which you created the card!
There's a bug on the latest version of the app where changing the audio speed is no longer working-- when I press to use 1.5x, audio stops working completely. Besides the bug, Du Chinese is one of my favorite learning resources- the articles expose me to a lot of useful words and grammar patterns. Especially enjoying the longer stories with multiple parts. If it weren't for that recent bug, this would be a 5 star app! Update: can work around bug using regular headphones instead of Bluetooth.
Very good. pros: lets you save words you don't know to study later. has many levels so you can find your reading level. has audio! piyin if you press on a word very easy to use has story series, I like the one about the cat (I'm a Cat series) translates the sentences records your progress including new words and words you've seen more than 10 times cons: I haven't seen any explanations for the grammar.
One of the best apps I use for learning Mandarin. I love listening to the short stories while reading along with the Chinese characters. You can turn pinyin on or off which displays above of the Chinese characters. You can slow down or speed up the story recordings to fit your preference. Very easy to use. I highly recommend Du Chinese.
Phenomenal app! I find it crucial to learn Chinese by reading passages/conversations, instead of an array of unconnected sentences like most other apps. It is great that the app offers passages for a range of difficulty. The UI/UX is extremely helpful in learning Chinese through a multi-faceted manner. You can toggle pinyin, directly save vocab from a passage, and hide finished passages so it's not cluttered. I am tempted to get the Premium for sure!
I will have to spend much more time on the app to really be able to give more tips, but I have been going on from time to time and it is a nice relaxing way to just practice Mandarin when you are just not feeling it. Learn some basic grammar once in a while even though I don't need some grammar just yet. Very good! 应用非常好。 I've tried other reading apps but this is way better than them all. The premium issue doesn't phase me, the new stories are free for a while.
This app is SOOO helpful. I grew up with Chinese at home, and had completely given up on learning how to read. I started using this app this year and could not remember how to read anything. After reading just a few minutes a day, and I have reached upper intermediate level. The app is very well made (lots of useful features), with a lot of stories that also teach you about Chinese culture!
This application is fantastic and unlike anything else I have ever used. At an intermediate level it is usually so difficult to find texts that match your reading capabilities. But the expansive library of lessons available with Du Chinese offers plenty of interesting texts that I can read without the stress of constantly looking up words. Learning Chinese by simply reading interesting stories is very enjoyable. I have been using this app for more than a year and I cannot recommended it more.
One of the best apps I've used to learn Chinese. Suggestion for feature improvements: I love the new graphs of your reading progress. Unfortunately only the #of lessons provides data for 7 days and 30 days. The #of words and #of characters doesn't show how many new words/characters you learned in 7 and 30 days. It only shows the totals. It would be great if these worked the same as the #of lessons.
This is a very good app. The storytelling, for me, is the easiest way to learn. It is immersive, with interesting non-banal stories that reinforce culture and grammar. Some of the stories are quite witty. But most importantly, you can use your finger to highlight words and save them for later for flashcards, see the meaning, see the PinYin, and pause the reading. After reading for 6 to 10 times, you begin to understand the passage. I also like that you can slow it down.
It is a terrific learning tool. The options available help to pick out words that you want to continue to study. Best app I've found for keeping up on my language skill. The only other improvement I could recommend is to add the different language sets like casual and business. Most of the lessons are structured around casual conversations. But they are awesome.
Great app, it really excellerated my learning experience. There are some small bugs such as that when learning vocabulary, the sentence that gets revealed is cut off when it's too long. Also, it might be nice to see which story the vocabs you are studying are from. Ultimately what led me to stop using the app was the lack of longer stories in the master category. It would be amazing to have full novels to read. Also the word recognition system is slightly broken.
I've only been using this app for a bit, but I really like it! As an ABC, I've been wanting to improve my Chinese and recognize more characters. I don't care too much about writing, speaking, or grammar since I'm already fine at those (with writing, I have little to no use for it since I only type Chinese). This app has a built-in miner to save words that you're unfamiliar with which you can then study later. It makes the learning process incredibly simple!
The passages all have hand-made translations with synced audio to each word. The knockout feature is that you can highlight a word, and the flashcard will be created with the sentence as context--Incredible! The only problem for me is the walled garden with regards to flashcards. They support export to, but not import from Anki, and no automatic syncing. It's too much effort/risk for me to migrate to a proprietary app, especially when there is no way to add cards outside of their passages.
Great app! Here is how I have made the most of it so far. I drill hsk 1 characters so that I am familiar with common words, then I read the passages (like the cat story), listen to voice over, add the new words to vocabulary, drill those, rinse and repeat until I can read the passage as if I was reading it to a child. I am only utilizing the free area but can imagine the depth of understanding if these stories continue in a structured way. Overall, well put together!