SayMei is an AI Chinese tutor you talk to out loud. Mei Lin, the AI teacher, holds a real-time voice conversation with you in Mandarin: she answers what you actually said, corrects you while you are saying it, and remembers where the previous session stopped. It runs in a browser with nothing to install and nothing to book, and your first live lesson is free without an account or a card.
A lesson is about ten minutes of conversation, built on one grammar point rather than a list of them. Mei Lin opens, you answer out loud in your own words, and she builds the pattern up with you, checks it landed, then makes you use it in a new situation. Because she carries what she learned about you into the next session, a lesson starts from where you got stuck instead of from zero. The library holds 1,000 of these conversation lessons across HSK 1 to HSK 6, including roleplays where she plays the waiter or the hotel clerk and debates where she argues the opposite side so you have to answer under pressure. A course path puts them in order if you would rather be told what to do next.
Listen: AI dialogues with characters, pinyin and English lined up, adjustable playback speed and single-line replay. Remember: spaced-repetition flashcards scheduled by smart spaced repetition. Fix your tones: the Mandarin Tone Trial records you and compares your pitch shape against the target, and the tone pair trainer drills the twenty two-syllable patterns where tones collapse in connected speech, third-tone sandhi and the shifts on 一 and 不 included. Work on paper: free Chinese learning tools and printable practice packs, neither of which asks for an account. And 175 HSK 1 lesson songs if you would rather take vocabulary in by ear.
One thing is metered: live speaking time with Mei Lin. The first live lesson costs nothing and needs no card, and creating a free profile adds a second one. Everything built around those lessons stays free — dialogues, listening and speaking practice, flashcards, the tools, the printable packs and the songs. Past the two free lessons a membership is $5.99 a month for 200 live minutes; the trial terms, rollover rules and top-ups are on the pricing page. What is finite is speaking time rather than availability: there is no calendar, no minimum notice and no cancellation window, so a lesson at six in the morning costs the same as one at midnight.