When I first started my Mandarin journey (2008), there were far fewer resources for learning Chinese online. Luckily that has changed, and now, if anything, there are TOO MANY options to choose from.
After living in China briefly then in Taiwan for over a decade, I’ve now been in Canada for five years and make regular trips back. My Chinese is getting a little rusty, so I decided to explore the best current options for Mandarin classes, tutors, and other ways online.
In this article, I’ll introduce the six best ones I found:
- BaoDao Talk: Taiwan-based Mandarin tutors (my personal favorite!)
- Italki: tutors for Mandarin and many other languages
- Preply: tutors for Mandarin and many other languages
- Yoyo Chinese: Video-based online Mandarin curriculum
- HelloChinese: Mandarin learning app
- ChinesePod: Mandarin learning podcast and videos
You may also like my guide to the most useful Mandarin phrases for traveling in Taiwan.
Chinese Online Learning Platforms Compared
Here’s a quick summary before I get into the detailed review of each one.
| Platform | Format | Based In | Pros | Cons |
| BaoDao Talk | Tutors | Taiwan | – Free trial class – Structured lessons – All teachers pre-evaluated – Traditional characters | – Fewer teachers – No filtering system to find ideal teacher |
| Italki | Tutors | China | – Tons of teachers – Filtering system to find ideal teach | – Too much AI – No free trial class – Non-structured lessons |
| Preply | Tutors | USA | – Tons of teachers – Filtering system to find ideal teach | – No teacher certification standards – No free trial class – Non-structured lessons |
| Yoyo Chinese | Recorded videos | USA | – Good supplementary materials | – China-focused – Limited higher level content |
| Hello Chinese | App | China | – Multi-faceted approach | – China-focused – Awkward videos – Best content costs more |
| ChinesePod | Podcasts and videos | China | – Podcasts are free – Content goes deep – Spans all levels | – China-focused – Listening, not speaking |
My Personal Experiences with Each Platform
Here are my reviews after personally trying each of these programs or classes.
BaoDao Talk
Since my website in Taiwan-focused and that’s where I lived for over 10 years, it will come as no surprise that I liked BaoDao Talk the most.
On their website, it’s refreshing to see images of Taiwan – unlike all the other language learning sites, where I have click a China flag even if I’m seeking to learn Taiwanese Mandarin.
If you’re planning to learn Chinese for visiting Taiwan, choosing BaoDao Talk will be a no-brainer. However, if you aren’t necessarily planning to travel, there are other reasons you may also choose to learn under a Taiwanese (rather than Chinese) tutor.
Taiwanese Mandarin includes the use of more beautiful traditional characters (rather than simplified). It’s easier to learn traditional characters first then tackle simplified later (rather than vice versa).
Taiwanese Mandarin also sounds softer, in part because it lacks the heavy use of erhua (adding the “er” sound) in China.
BaoDao Talk is the only platform with free trial classes (maximum one per account). I simply browsed the list of tutors here, chose one that stood out and had availability at my desired time, and then clicked “Get Free Trial”.
During the trial, I found BaoDao Talk to have a more versatile video chat platform than others, with the option to switch between screens showing us, materials prepared by the teacher, notes pages where she or I could type characters, and a blank page where one can draw characters with a cursor.
The most notable feature compared to other platforms I tried is that the lesson was structured. My teacher on BaoDao Talk came to the class with a lesson in the form of a slideshow presentation.
With the slideshow, every lesson has a set theme or topic. It included some new vocabulary, correction of my pronunciation, writing or typing the characters, cultural lessons, and by the end, I could read out a whole paragraph about the topic.
Although the lessons ended up being too easy for me, this was just a free trial after all, so we just used it as a base for conversation, and surely the next lesson would have been more suited to my level.
BaoDao Talk uses a spiral curriculum design, which means that each lesson will revisit and expand on materials from previous lessons. This was very different than the other two tutor platforms I tried, where the teachers didn’t prepare anything and we just chatted randomly for the whole class.
Regarding the price, each tutor on BaoDao Talk is either $33, 40, or 63 per 50-minute class. Their prices are based on specific levels of Mandarin teaching experience and certification that they have achieved.
This is unlike other platforms, where tutor prices are arbitrary or set by the teachers themselves, which leads to competition between them.
Even the lowest level tutors on BaoDao Talk (such as the one I tried) still meet certain qualifications set by BaoDao Talk, and I found my teacher to be excellent. She was especially good at making sure I pronounced words (and those tricky tones) correctly before we would move on.
I would only add that BaoDao talk is younger and still growing compared to the following two platforms. They have fewer teachers and time slots available – but I would expect this to change as their company grows.
If you have any trouble finding a tutor at your desired time, it is advised to message them using the form at the bottom of their homepage or on Facebook and they’ll help you find one.
Italki
The next two platforms I’ll introduce, Italki and Preply, are huge international platforms for finding tutors in multiple languages. They are not Mandarin specific but do have many Mandarin teachers, especially from China, but also some from Taiwan.
Italki is China (Hong Kong) based. If you are planning to travel or live in China, it will be better for you.
My first impression when logging onto the site was that they really like AI. Almost right away there was a pop-up asking me if I wanted to start learning with AI tools. When looking for a teacher, the AI automatically recommended teachers from China for me, which I didn’t want. Then it prompted me to use their AI chat box to find one.
Many may disagree with me here, but I’m not a big AI fan, so the I found the insistence on AI here a little annoying, but not a game-changer.
Luckily, Italki also has a regular page listing their tutors. Because they have such an enormous pool of teachers, the robust teacher filtering system allowed me to filter by language, lesson type, price range, class date and time, and teacher’s origin country.
Italki also makes an important distinction between “Professional Teachers”, who are more qualified and experienced, and “Community Tutors”, who are less so but may be cheaper.
In my search for my ideal tutor, I noted that Italki has nearly 1000 Mandarin teachers, three-quarters or whom are from China, but only 57 from Taiwan.
Still, I had no issue find a Taiwanese Mandarin tutor available at the exact time I wanted. I only had to hover over each tutor for their intro video and availability calendar to automatically appear on the side.
I could also filter the results be personality, price, or student ratings. The filtering system made my search for a tutor faster and easier.
Italki has Mandarin teachers for as low as US$5 for a trial class or $10 for an hour-long class. For a teacher from Taiwan, they started from $15 for a trial or 30 for an hour-long class. Different teachers offer different possible lengths of class.
In the actual class, the tutor and I conversed in Mandarin the whole time, just getting to know each other. There was no specific plan or materials, but she was good at asking me a lot of questions and keeping the conversation going.
As I spoke, she would tell me a better way to say things and type the Mandarin phrases in a GoogleDoc on the screen. The doc would automatically convert the characters to pinyin and English in adjacent columns.
We just kept chatting but didn’t spend time practicing the new terms or sentence patterns. It was up to me to do that on my own after the class. (Note: other teachers may have their own way).
Overall, while I enjoyed the class, it was less structured than my class with BaoDao Talk. I didn’t feel I learned a lot in the class, but I did get a chance to talk a lot, and ended with a big list of new words and phrases to study (if I ever get around to it…)
Since I’m Taiwan-obsessed (that’s literally the name of my website), it only makes sense that I will choose to support the Taiwan-based platform, not the China-based one. If that’s not an issue for you, then make your choice based on other factors!
Preply
Preply is the US-based counterpart to Italki. The two platforms are very similar so they are often compared online.
Like Italki, Preply offers a wide variety of languages. The homepage mentions that they have over 30,000 English tutors and over 5000 Chinese ones.
For Mandarin, I found there were 312 Taiwanese tutors available, compared to 4579 from China. Prices started as low as $4 for a 25-minute trial or $7 for a 50-minute class, for teachers from either China or Taiwan, so if you’re looking for rock-bottom cheapest classes, here you go (just keep in mind you get what you pay for!)
Like Italki, Preply has an advanced filtering system for finding your ideal tutor. You can set the language, price range, country of teacher, class time, and specialties.
To see a teachers’ availability, I had to click to the teacher’s profile, unlike Italki, where I only had to hover for it to display – a tiny inconvenience but it does add a little more time when checking many teachers.
Again, a major plus here is that they have so many teachers, you should have no problem to filter and find one that meets your desired criteria and schedule.
However, there’s no distinction about qualifications like on Italki or BaoDao Talk – my understanding is that pretty much anyone can sign up to be a tutor on Preply. You have to check each teacher’s profile for their qualifications, if they have any.
Going for the cheapest teacher could have quality implications. However, Preply does have “super tutors“, which means they’ve achieved a certain level of experience and positive reviews.
The teacher I chose was $18 for a 25-minute trial. Like my class on Italki, there were no specific materials or lesson plan. We just chatted and got to know each other. She kept the conversation going and typed any new words for me to see on the screen in pinyin only (other teachers may have their own way).
Overall, I would say there isn’t a huge difference between Italki and Preply. In the end, your experience will mainly depend on which teacher you choose. Some teachers are even on both platforms.
Yoyo Chinese
Yoyo Chinese is a US-based online recorded video-based Mandarin-learning program. At first, I just signed up for their free account to see what it’s all about.
The website has a six-course curriculum. Each course has six levels, within which there are themed units, and each unit contains several video lessons. In other words, it adds up to a ton of videos. Most videos are around 5-10 minutes.
For newbies, Course 1 (Beginner Conversational) has a total of 208 videos. According to the website, it takes students around 4-6 months to complete Course 1, assuming you watch 1 or 2 lessons per day. This also assumes that you wouldn’t just blast through the videos, but take the time to absorb and practice the things they teach.
With the free plan, you can watch the first 22 lessons of Unit 1. By the end of those, you’ll be able to understand the sounds and tones of Chinese, greet people, introduce yourself, say where you are from. It’s also enough to experience the program and decide if you want to pay for more.
Because I am already past the basics, I signed up for a paid plan. The pricing is a little tricky – the prices you see at first are only if you choose the annual plan. To see the prices for paying one month at a time, you have to toggle the switch.
When I clicked to monthly, the “Watch” plan went from 8.99/month to 14.99/month, while the “Learn” plan (which comes with additional quizzes and 25,000+ dual-audio SRS flashcards) went from 11.99/month to 19.99/month.
Once I purchased a monthly plan, I explored the higher level courses and found that my ability is around Upper Intermediate, which is their 5th (and highest) level.
The levels include beginner conversation, Chinese Characters, Intermediate Conversation, Chinese Characters II, Upper Intermediate, and the manga-style Chinese Character Reader.
This means if you’re coming in with a higher level of Mandarin like I am, you will get less total use out of the platform. For beginner’s it could be great.
The videos are clear and easy to follow. This is a China-based system, including Mainland pronunciation and simplified characters.
Lower-level videos go through the basics, while higher level ones start with some random little interviews with people in China, then go through everything that was said.
Besides the videos themselves, I found there are excellent supplementary materials. These include flashcards for the vocab in each video, with a toggle to turn on/off the Mandarin/pinyin/English, but unfortunately simplified characters only.
For each video, there’s also a files of notes that you can download (with simplified and traditional characters), audio file of the notes, practice quiz, and an FAQs section where real students can ask questions about the content in the video and they answer them.
The website also has a handy pinyin chart and tone pairs with audio for every tone and a blog with Chinese language related stories, including little audio buttons for all the Mandarin words used.
Overall, I was quite impressed with how much you get here. I only wish that there were resources like this when I first started learning Mandarin.
However, one downside for me is that there’s no accountability. It would be up to me to get through the lessons. They do offer cute avatars, XP points, daily goals, and study stats to motivate you. But for a busy person like me, these may not be enough to motivate me to keep logging on and actually doing the work.
This website will be better for visual learners and for absolute beginners. But for real speaking practice once you get past the basics, I still recommend getting a real-life tutor.
I’d also love to see a Taiwan (and traditional Chinese character) version of this website.
HelloChinese
If you’re looking for a Chinese learning app, there are many to choose from, but HelloChinese (download for Android / Mac) stands out as the most popular, with over 10 million users.
Again, this is based on Mainland Chinese pronunciation and phrases, but does have an option in the settings to switch to traditional characters.
After signing up for the app (free at first), I found that it takes users through a multi-faceted approach to learning especially aimed at brand new learners.
This included descriptions to better understand how the language works, little animations, sounds, videos of native speakers, and a function that allows you to record your voice and it evaluates your speaking.
Under the “Learn” tab, the lesson units come in sequences, so I had to complete one unit to move onto the next, unless I challenged a group of units by clicking “Take a shortcut” and passing the test.
Under the “Stories” tab, I could read stories in Mandarin (with simplified characters and pinyin), and tap on sentences to show their English translation. I could also save words from the stories for later review under a different tab.
Under “Immerse”, I found short videos that come with lists of keywords, audio version, and exercises. I found the videos a little awkward. The audio doesn’t match their lips well, as they were clearly recorded separately. Also, I only got five videos for free and they were super basic level.
Like Yoyo, this app motivates users with XP points, streak learning challenges, badges, and the like. It also adds some fun touches that made me laugh a few times, like little “too bad” sounds or an old Chinese man reminding me to practice more.
Reading online reviews from users of this app, it seems that many people really like it and say it’s better the Duolingo, the extremely popular language learning app.
On HelloChinese, you can get through the basics and watch a handful of videos with the free plan. The Premium Plan (16.99/month or 99.99/year) unlocks all the lessons, stories, and videos, while Premium+ (26.99/month or 199.99/year) includes more features and immersive lessons.
I tried the Premium plan to see if this app could be useful for me coming in with a higher level of Mandarin. This is when I started to get annoyed with the app.
All the lessons on the first page of the app are too easy for me, but I don’t see any way to skip to a higher level. This means I also wasn’t able to check how many lessons or levels they have in total.
The higher-level stories are more suitable for me, but I found that I still can’t access many of them unless I go to Premium+. As for the immersive videos, I was shocked to find that paying for Premium still didn’t give me access to any more than the free plan did. The only way to get any of them (besides the 5 free ones) is by paying for Premium+.
Overall, I think this app is well-suited to beginners looking for an app learning experience. If you complete every lesson in the course, you will supposedly come out at Mandarin HSK level 4, which is basic conversational.
However, coming in as an intermediate user, I didn’t find much use in this app, especially as I am more interested in practicing speaking (not listening or reading). For my level, I get much more benefit from practicing with a real tutor.
I was also quite disappointed that paying for Premium didn’t unlock more videos or allow me to easily jump ahead to more difficult lessons.
ChinesePod
Before any of the above websites or apps existed, there was ChinesePod. I discovered ChinesePod when I first moved to China in 2008 and I loved it.
In the beginning, ChinesePod really was just a podcast. The recordings range from 10 to 20 minutes and fall under 6 levels: Newbie, elementary, pre-intermediate, intermediate, upper-intermediate, and advanced.
It has been a long time since I listened to these, but I remember they usually opened with a small dialogue between native speakers, and the dialogs are truly authentic, including all the little sound participles used by native speakers. They even have background noises to simulate real-life environments – you don’t always get to speak Chinese is a quiet, empty room after all!
Then, the two podcast hosts would analyze the whole conversation sentence by sentence, discussing the vocabulary, phrases, sentence patterns, often providing examples of other ways to use them. At the end, you’d hear the conversation again and really get it.
The hosts are often one male native English speaker (who also has a high level of Mandarin) and one native Mandarin speaker (who also has a high level of English).
The lessons are fantastically done. I would learn so much from them – not just vocabulary, grammar, and listening practice, but also a lot of cultural stuff.
And I’m not talking like Chinese culture 101 type stuff, but they really go deeper with topics like modern dating trends, pop culture, and more. Some are very practical, like learning about today’s digital currencies, doing banking, and so on.
The hosts have a great rapport, were sometimes funny or cute, but mainly they just manage to share a ton of useful information without every being boring.
When I moved from China to Taiwan just four months into my Mandarin learning journey, I still used ChinesePod for a while because they are just so good. However, eventually I had to abandon it because the language is just too China-specific and different from Taiwan.
For every lesson I tackled, I’d have to later take my list of new words and phrases to my tutor or language exchange partner in Taiwan, only to find that many of them just aren’t used or said like that in Taiwan. My tutor would sometimes laugh at how “Chinese” it sounded.
This was a lesson for me in just how different Taiwanese Mandarin is from Chinese Mandarin.
Recently, I checked out the ChinesePod website (back in the day there was no website – you just downloaded the audio lessons). Unsurprisingly, there are a plethora of new features and options available now.
They still have their core of podcasts (audio-only) but now have lessons with videos, the ability to make and review vocabulary lists, a forum, goal setting, and more.
The craziest thing is that you can listen to all of their podcasts FOR FREE! Going Premium ($29/month or 249/year) gets you dialog transcripts, lesson vocabulary and grammar, exercises, downloading capability, and it removes the ads.
I highly recommend these podcasts for anyone going to China, but I’d still recommend getting a private tutor as well to put the new things you learn into practice.