Chinese stories for beginners: the best free stories, by HSK level

How we measured 704 free stories

We picked eight sites that put graded stories on free public pages, with no sign-in. Then we read their stories: every one on six sites, and 20 per level on Read Mandarin and Literate Chinese.

For every story, we split the Chinese into words and looked each one up in the official HSK word lists of 2025. Names don't count.

The number on this page is simple: the share of a story's words you'd already know if you knew every HSK word up to your level. Reading researchers put comfortable reading at 95% to 98%, as our guide to the science of learning through stories explains.

Below about 90%, you'll lean on the pinyin and English in every line. That's fine, as long as you know it going in.

The best free stories at HSK 1

At HSK 1, you know 300 words. The easiest free stories are short, and some read more like dialogues than tales. These are the ones we'd start with:

• Best first story: Dinner at Our House, Shanhai Story. Two children share the last egg. You'd know 95% of the words, and it's narrated.
• Every word at your level: What Time Is There a Doctor?, Coco. A mother phones a hospital until a doctor is free. All but one word is HSK 1, but there's no audio.
• Audio from a teacher: Buy Clothes, Mandarin Bean. A short shopping diary, with audio the site says its teachers record.
• A legend, with help: The Kitchen God, SayMei Stories. Three short chapters, free in full. You'd know about three words in four.
• A picture book to listen to: I Like to Read!, Global Storybooks. Eight illustrated pages, each read aloud.

For short daily reads, nearly every word of the HSK 1 pieces on Read Mandarin and ChineseGradedReader.com is on the list. Try Making a Phone Call and What Day Is It?, and read three or four in a sitting.

The best free stories at HSK 2

HSK 2 takes you to 500 words. Free stories start to have small surprises in them:

• Best story: Mom's Glasses, Shanhai Story. Everyone hunts for glasses that are on Mom's head. You'd know 94% of the words.
• Strictly at your level: Good Morning, ChineseGradedReader.com. A mother and daughter plan their day, in HSK 1 and 2 words only.
• Audio from a teacher: A Happy Day, Mandarin Bean. Two students spend a Saturday out. Every word is HSK 2 or below.
• A fairy tale, with help: Beauty and the Beast, SayMei Stories. Five chapters, free in full. You'd know about four words in five.

The best free stories at HSK 3

HSK 3 doubles your list to 1,000 words, and free stories begin to carry real feeling:

• Best story: An Old Photograph, Shanhai Story. A grandson finds his grandmother's lost friend. You'd know 94% of the words.
• A story with feeling: An Unforgettable Birthday, Read Mandarin. A lonely birthday, until colleagues bring cake. You'd know 97% of the words.
• A letter home: Xiaomei's Letter, Pinyora. A daughter writes home from Beijing. You'd know 96% of the words.
• Strictly at your level: The Menu, ChineseGradedReader.com. Two friends order dinner, in HSK 1 to 3 words only.
• A legend, with help: Chang'e and the Moon, SayMei Stories. Three chapters, free in full. You'd know 86% of the words.

The best free stories at HSK 4

HSK 4 is 2,000 words. This is where free graded stories get long enough to lose yourself in:

• Best story: The Last Dinner Before Moving, Shanhai Story. Neighbours throw a tenant a farewell dinner. You'd know 98% of the words.
• A parable: The Weight of a Glass of Water, Mandarin Bean. A teacher's lesson on stress. You'd know 92% of the words.
• Plain prose: Managing My Time, Read Mandarin. A to-do list shrinks to three things a day.
• A longer story: The Contest at the Table, Coco. A coach picks one boy for the team, for an unexpected reason.
• A classic, with help: The Hound of the Baskervilles, SayMei Stories. Eight chapters, free in full. You'd know 88% of the words.

Free graded stories thin out after HSK 4. For HSK 5 and up, our guide to Chinese story and news apps compares the paid libraries that go further.

Find a free story at your level

The finder holds all 870 stories we measured: the 704 free ones and our own 166 books. Pick your level, and it lists the easy reads first, taking turns between sites:

Each card links to the story on its own site. Within a site, the stories where you'd know the most words come first, and the longer one wins a tie, so you get more reading for the same effort.

Two sites write within their labels

A typical story on ChineseGradedReader.com or Read Mandarin uses words from its own HSK level or below, 95% of the time or more. On five other graded sites, it's closer to 83%: about one word in six is new. Our own books come out lower still.

Here's the share of words you'd know, for a typical story on each site, at the story's own level and one level up:

Source: our count, 11 October 2026, against the 2025 HSK syllabus. Global Storybooks uses levels of its own; we read its Level 1 as HSK 1, and so on.

The gap isn't the new HSK. About 95% of the words on the old lists sit at the same level or lower on today's, and today's lists are bigger. A story written strictly for the old HSK 2 would still score well.

ChineseGradedReader.com gets there by design: it says it leaves out every word above a story's level. The trade-off is that many of its stories are short dialogues built around one phrase, closer to a textbook than a tale.

So if a site's HSK 2 shelf feels hard, it probably is. Go one level down on that site, or keep the pinyin on.

Free HSK 1 stories are a few lines long

Strict grading keeps stories short. A typical HSK 1 story on the free sites runs 50 to 130 characters.

Here's the median length of a level 1 story on each site:

Source: our count, 11 October 2026. A SayMei book has 3 to 10 chapters.

Short isn't bad: you can finish one over breakfast. But a plot needs room, and the longer stories are where you'll meet more new words.

Who reads the audio

All nine libraries offer audio somewhere, but only six put it on the free page, and the voices differ a lot. Here's what each one gives you, as its maker describes it or as we found it:

Sources: each library's own pages and App Store listings, checked 11 October 2026. ChineseGradedReader.com's play buttons call a text-to-speech service. Read Mandarin says teacher recordings are coming.

Listen to one story before you commit to a site. The tones you copy come from whatever you hear most.

Picture books for children are the hardest

Global Storybooks is a lovely free library: 40 illustrated stories, each read aloud, under Creative Commons licences. But its books were written for children who already speak a language, not for learners of one.

Its easiest book by our count, I Like to Read!, asks again and again: "Who can I read to?"

我可以念给谁听呢？

Wǒ kěyǐ niàn gěi shéi tīng ne?

The verb there, "read aloud", 念(niàn), is an HSK 5 word. Picture books are full of everyday words like that, and of animals and farm life that the HSK lists leave for later.

So a typical Level 1 picture book leaves about half its words beyond HSK 1. The free library StoryWeaver adds 406 more picture books in Simplified Chinese, none of them listed with audio.

Use picture books for listening, with the pictures to carry you. Read them yourself once graded stories feel easy.

Nine free libraries, compared

Here's what each library gives you free, and what it charges for:

Sources: each library's pages and App Store listings, US prices, checked 11 October 2026. Mandarin Bean's Premium is a one-time payment that doesn't renew.

Two more come up often. HSKStory lets you read one story without an account and three with one, then charges $9.99 a month. We didn't measure LeNguia's 230 Mandarin stories, because its site asks automated readers to stay out of them.

Where SayMei Stories fits, and where it loses

SayMei Stories is our own library: 166 books in 812 short chapters, levelled from about HSK 1 to HSK 4. Most are Chinese legends and world classics. Every line has pinyin over the characters, an English translation and audio, and five questions follow each chapter.

A lot of it is free. Chapters 1 and 2 of every book open with no sign-up, and eight books are free in full, at least one per level. One more book is free each week, a different one every Monday, and a free account unlocks three more of your choice, with no card. Everything else costs $2.99 a month, after a free week.

It wins on length and plot. A free book runs 3 to 8 chapters, the kind of story you'd retell to a friend, and the pinyin, English and audio are always there, so you can read above your level.

It loses on grading. Our books are the hardest for their labels of any graded library we measured. Here's the opening of The Kitchen God:

灶王爷住在小宝家的厨房里。他是墙上的一张画。

Zàowángyé zhù zài Xiǎobǎo jiā de chúfáng lǐ. Tā shì qiáng shàng de yì zhāng huà.

"The Kitchen God lived in Xiaobao's kitchen. He was a painting on the wall."

With only the HSK 1 words, "kitchen", 厨房(chúfáng), and "wall", 墙(qiáng), are both new. That's why the help is always on. It also stops at about HSK 4, and it runs in a web browser, with no offline reading.

If you want stories you can read without help, start with the strict sites above. Come to ours when you want a long story and don't mind leaning on the pinyin.

How to read a story above your level

Most stories you'll want sit a little above your level. Here's the routine we'd use, from the research in our stories guide.

Listen first with the pinyin on, to get the plot. Then read it again in characters only, and look up only the words that block the story.

Keep five words for your flashcards, so the next story feels easier. When you rarely look anything up, move up a level.

What to do next

• Find your level in the finder. It sorts every story by the words you'd know.
• Start strict, then add plot. Short stories first, then longer ones.
• Listen before you read. A narrated story is easier on a first pass.
• Read one long story a week, with help.

Not sure of your level? The free Chinese level test tells you in about five minutes.