Best AI apps to learn Chinese: 9 tutors compared (video)
Speak, SuperChinese, Talkpal, ChatGPT, Gemini and four more AI tutors, compared on speaking, tones, free use and price.
Chapters
- 0:00Start
- 0:21The short answer
- 0:47A course or a partner?
- 1:10Our pick for each goal
- 1:35Price and minutes
- 2:13Can an app check your tones?
- 3:01The 9 apps, one by one
- 5:37A human tutor
- 6:03What to do next
- 6:19Try a free lesson
Transcript
Start
Nine tutoring apps now speak Mandarin. They'll chat with you and correct you, and some say they'll even check your tones. But they suit very different learners, and their prices barely line up with what you get. Here's how to pick one. From SayMei Guides, by Mei Lin: the best speaking apps to learn Chinese. Nine tutors, compared.
The short answer
The short answer: pick by goal. Starting from zero? Speak, at $17.99 a month, has you speaking from the first lesson. SuperChinese adds a conversation tutor, Chao, to a full course. Gemini Live and ChatGPT are free or cheap, but they don't check your tones. And for lessons that follow HSK levels on a budget, there's SayMei. That's ours, at $5.99.
A course or a partner?
It comes down to one choice, more than any other. Do you want a course that tells you what to say next, or a partner you steer yourself? Course-led tutors, like Speak, SuperChinese and SayMei, plan the lesson for you. Conversation apps like Talkpal, Langua and Pingo, and assistants like ChatGPT and Gemini, give you more open talk and less structure.
Our pick for each goal
Here's our pick for each goal. For a speaking course from zero: Speak. For a full Chinese course with a tutor: SuperChinese with Chao. To talk freely and get corrected: Talkpal. For free conversation: Gemini Live. For hours of speaking for little money: ChatGPT Go. And for lessons that follow HSK levels, on a budget: SayMei.
Price and minutes
Price and minutes don't line up. The cheapest way into each app runs from nothing to $24.99 a month. Three options are free to keep using: Gemini Live, ChatGPT's limited free voice, and Talkpal's ten minutes a day. The dedicated tutors' entry plans cost $14.99 to $24.99. SayMei is the exception, at $5.99 for 200 minutes. Use every minute, and that's about three cents a minute. But ChatGPT Go allows up to three hours of voice a day, for $8. Cheap minutes only help if you use them, though.
Can an app check your tones?
Can an app check your tones? Not reliably, as far as anyone has shown in public. Five of the nine say they correct or assess your pronunciation, SayMei included, and we found no public test of any of those claims. Here's the problem. Speech recognition turns your voice into the most likely words. Say 买, buy, with a falling tone, and you've said 卖, sell. A recognizer that leans on context may write 'buy' anyway, because 'I want to buy' is the likelier sentence, and your mistake disappears. In one test, by the blog Hacking Chinese, ChatGPT rated the same native teacher's recording anywhere from six and a half to eight and a half out of ten. So use an app to get lots of speaking done, and train your ear separately.
The 9 apps, one by one
Now, the nine apps, one by one, in alphabetical order. First, ChatGPT Voice. Up to three hours of open conversation a day, for $8. But there's no course, and no reliable pronunciation feedback. Pick it if you want hours of conversation for little money, and you're happy to plan your own practice. Duolingo Video Call: a spoken call with one of Duolingo's animated characters. Already paying for Duolingo? Then it's worth using. But it's not a reason to start, and we couldn't confirm it works for Chinese on Android. Gemini Live: our pick for free conversation, if you have a phone and a Google account. It runs in the Gemini mobile app. There's no lesson plan and no correction mode. But ask it to correct you, and it will try. Langua: the one to choose if you want a say in how you're corrected. Written or spoken? Subtle or explicit? You decide. It suits learners past the beginner stage. Standard is $19.99 a month, less if billed yearly. Pingo AI: a phone-first role-play tutor that says it checks your tones. It starts beginners on pinyin and the four tones, then moves on to role-plays. Pingo Pro starts at $14.99 on the U.S. App Store. SayMei, ours: short spoken lessons with Mei Lin, ordered by HSK level, in a browser, for $5.99 a month. Your first lesson is free, with no account. So where does it fall short? Free practice runs out fast. You get fewer minutes for the money. There are no pronunciation scores, and there's no app. Speak: a speaking-first course, new to Mandarin in June 2026, from beginner to B1. Each unit has a pronunciation lesson, then simulated conversations. Premium is $17.99 a month, or $83.99 a year. SuperChinese with Chao is the only app here that pairs a course built on HSK levels, with character writing, with a conversation tutor. The catch? The tutor is a separate plan, at $24.99 a month, though it includes the course. Talkpal: a general conversation app, and the only dedicated tutor here with a free plan you can keep using: ten minutes a day. Premium is $19.99 a month, or much less on a long plan. But it isn't built around Chinese. There's no Chinese course or HSK path.
A human tutor
An app is cheaper, and always available. But a good human tutor hears your tones reliably. italki lists 974 Chinese tutors, typically $10 to $40 an hour. Preply lists 8,857, at $14 a lesson on average. Our suggestion? Daily app practice for volume, and a tutor every week or two to check your tones and fix habits.
What to do next
So, what next? Decide what you want corrected. Start with a free option for a week, to see whether you'll really talk every day. Then pay for the one you'd miss. And check your tones another way: a tone drill, and now and then, a human ear.
Try a free lesson
Want to start today? You can talk with Mei Lin for free: your first lesson is 10 minutes, with no account and no card. The full comparison, with every source, is on the page at saymei dot app.