The best apps to learn Chinese through stories and news (video)
Du Chinese, The Chairman's Bao, Mandarin Companion, Maayot, LingQ, free readers and SayMei compared on price, library size, pictures and who reads the audio.
Chapters
- 0:00Start
- 0:22The short answer
- 1:13The cheapest options
- 1:46The biggest library
- 2:16Who reads the audio?
- 2:44Do pictures help?
- 3:09The apps, one by one
- 4:37Where SayMei wins and loses
- 5:10Harder than their labels
- 5:43What to do next
Transcript
Start
To read a story without help, you need to know about 98% of its words. So we measured our own level 1 books. Know only the HSK 1 words, and you'll know about 70% of the words. From SayMei Guides, by Mei Lin: the best apps to learn Chinese through stories and news. 12 apps, compared.
The short answer
The short answer: Du Chinese has the most graded stories read by people, at $14.99 a month. For the news, The Chairman's Bao rewrites it for your level, from $11 a month. Mandarin Bean is free, and recorded by teachers. And our own SayMei Stories is the cheapest full story library, at $2.99 a month. Each app leads on one thing, and none leads on everything. Pinyora: free, with every line explained. Mandarin Companion: books you can hold, and audiobooks. Maayot: one short story a day. LingQ: read whatever you like. Readibu: real novels, after graded readers. HelloChinese: stories inside a full course. And SayMei Dialogues, also ours: free daily listening.
The cheapest options
The cheapest plan here is ours: SayMei Stories, at $2.99 a month. There's no yearly plan, so a year costs $35.88, and every other subscription here costs more. Of the paid apps that say people record their audio, The Chairman's Bao has the lowest monthly price: $11, or $6.42 a month on its two-year plan. And plenty is free: Mandarin Bean, Pinyora and Readibu cost nothing to read, and SayMei Dialogues is free with no account.
The biggest library
The Chairman's Bao has the biggest library: more than 10,500 lessons, each a news story rewritten for learners. Funny thing: it gives three different counts on three pages, so we use the middle one. Then come SayMei Dialogues, with 3,512, and Du Chinese, with more than 3,000 readings. Each maker counts in its own unit, so treat this as rough. And if you read every day, size and freshness matter more than a few dollars a month.
Who reads the audio?
Who reads the audio? Six of the twelve say people record it, from Du Chinese's voice actors to Mandarin Bean's teachers. Readibu uses text-to-speech. Does it matter? We think a trained human reader is the safest model to copy for tones and natural rhythm. And in one study, 64 beginners read graded readers for 26 weeks, silently or with the audio. The audio group improved more in reading speed and comprehension.
Do pictures help?
Do pictures help? Du Chinese's sample story opens with a full-width painted illustration, and The Chairman's Bao and Mandarin Bean use photos. Every one of the 812 chapters of SayMei Stories is illustrated. Pictures help a beginner guess what a scene is about. But they won't teach you words. To our eyes, Du Chinese's art is the most polished on any public page we opened.
The apps, one by one
Now, one by one. Du Chinese: 4.9 stars from 4,578 App Store ratings. Skip it if price decides for you. The Chairman's Bao: its lessons come with keywords, grammar notes and exercises. Skip it if you'd rather read stories. Mandarin Bean: free, with ads, on a website rather than an app. Pinyora is free too, and graded against the HSK 3.0 lists. But 102 stories go quickly. Mandarin Companion: 18 books you can hold, most of them retold classics, with pinyin left off on purpose. Maayot: one short story a day, so skip it if you like to binge. LingQ turns anything you import into a lesson. Skip it if you're a beginner who wants stories written for your level. Readibu opens real Chinese web novels, free. Nothing is simplified, so skip it below about HSK 5. HelloChinese has more than 1,000 stories inside a full course, but it doesn't say who voices them. Readle Mandarin covers news and stories for HSK 1 to 4. It had six App Store ratings when we checked. The last two are ours. SayMei Stories retells Chinese legends and classics like Mulan and Journey to the West, and every chapter ends with five questions. SayMei Dialogues adds five new conversations a day, on this month's topics.
Where SayMei wins and loses
So where do ours win, and where do they lose? They win on price and free listening: 3,512 dialogues, free with no account, is the largest free library we found. They lose on size and range. Stories has 812 chapters, while The Chairman's Bao and Du Chinese each hold thousands of readings. It stops at about HSK 4, and it's browser only. Our first books went up in late September 2026. And by our own measurement, our levels are generous.
Harder than their labels
Remember that 98%? It's Hu and Nation's figure for reading fiction without help. We measured our own books against the official HSK 3.0 word lists. A reader who knows only the HSK words of a book's level knows a median 69.6% of the words at level 1, rising to 88.8% at level 4. No SayMei book reaches 95%. That's why every line carries pinyin, English and audio. Maayot and Literate Chinese both show your fit before you read.
What to do next
So, what next? Try two free samples first, to hear the audio and see the pictures. Pick by what you'll read most: stories, news or real novels. Listen while you read. And choose stories where you know nearly every word. Until you do, lean on the pinyin, English and audio. You can talk with Mei Lin for free: your first lesson is 10 minutes, with no account and no card. Chapter 1 of every SayMei story is free too, and the full comparison is on the page at saymei dot app.