Duolingo vs HelloChinese: which is better for learning Chinese?

Which is better, Duolingo or HelloChinese?

For a beginner who'll pay, HelloChinese. For anyone who won't, Duolingo, used well. The two apps differ most on price, depth and what they practise.

Here's how they compare on the things learners ask about most:

Sources: each app's US App Store listing and website, checked 11 October 2026; Duolingo's blog; our word-list count below. Duolingo's App Store page doesn't name its plan lengths.

The rest of this guide shows the evidence for each row. If you'd rather jump to an answer, tell the picker your goal, your target level and whether you'll pay:

What's your goal?

Start from zeroHold conversationsPass the HSKRead ChineseWrite characters

How far do you want to go?

HSK 1HSK 2HSK 3HSK 4HSK 5HSK 6

Will you pay?

Free onlyI'll pay about $70 a year

Our pick

HelloChinese

Built for Chinese: a pinyin course, grammar lessons and handwriting. Its list covers 91% of the words HSK 3 expects.

HelloChinese Premium: $69.99 a year or $11.99 a month on the US App Store.

Add: Train your ear for tones on its own; neither app's speech check is proven. How to learn tones

All 988 words up to HSK 3

Duolingo89%

HelloChinese’s list91%

Together: 99%

Word shares: Duolingo's community word list and the 2021 standard's levels 1–3, the list HelloChinese's team says its course covers, against the 2025 HSK syllabus. US App Store prices, checked 11 October 2026. The rules behind each pick are in the article's sections.

For most goals, the answer is HelloChinese if you'll pay and Duolingo if you won't. Conversation is the exception: neither app is enough on its own.

Duolingo goes further up the HSK lists

Duolingo's Chinese course is bigger than its reputation, and bigger than HelloChinese's. From HSK 3 up, it covers more of every level's words.

Neither company publishes its word list, so we used the closest public data. For Duolingo, that's a community copy of its course from duome.eu, about 6,000 words.

For HelloChinese, it's the list its team says the new course is built to cover: levels 1 to 3 of the 2021 HSK standard, about 2,200 words. Its August update says the course now has 2,500+.

We matched both against the 2025 HSK syllabus, the word lists the new exam uses from 13 December. Here's how much of each level's words each one covers:

Up to HSK 3, both cover most of the words. From HSK 4, HelloChinese's list falls away and Duolingo's doesn't.

The reason is that "HSK 3" changed size. The new syllabus spreads most of the older standard's level 1 to 3 words across HSK 1 to HSK 5. So HelloChinese's list covers new HSK 1 and 2 almost completely, but only about half of HSK 4.

Some chatbots get this backwards. In 17 answers we sampled from four chatbots on 6 October, five put Duolingo's ceiling at about HSK 2 or 3, below HelloChinese.

Two caveats. A word in a course means you met it, not that you can use it. And HelloChinese's real course may teach words beyond its target list, which would lift its numbers a little.

HelloChinese sticks closer to the exam

Word for word, HelloChinese's list is the more exam-focused one. Nine in ten words on its list are on the new exam lists; on Duolingo's, it's three in four.

That's by design. Duolingo builds units around situations, such as ordering drinks or seeing a doctor, and maps its course to the European CEFR scale, up to B2. HelloChinese builds its courses on HSK levels.

So Duolingo needs more words to cover the same ground. It takes about 3,500 of its words to cover as much of HSK 1 to 4 as HelloChinese's 2,200-word list does.

Duolingo also lets you place yourself. When you add Chinese, it asks how much you know, then suggests where to start:

If you're studying for an exam, HelloChinese's words are more likely to be exam words. If you want the widest vocabulary, Duolingo has more.

HelloChinese teaches more of Chinese itself

Duolingo has two tabs just for Chinese, one for pinyin and one for characters. HelloChinese, built only for Chinese, still goes further in what you practise.

The clearest gap is writing. HelloChinese has you write characters by hand, stroke by stroke, in Simplified or Traditional characters. Duolingo teaches Simplified only, and on most phones you type through pinyin.

Duolingo's Hanzi tab practises reading the characters each unit introduces. HelloChinese's listing shows what its handwriting practice looks like:

The rest of the gap shows up across the course:

• Grammar. HelloChinese counts 430+ grammar points, and Premium adds Teacher Talk lessons on grammar and culture. Duolingo teaches patterns implicitly, with optional tips; explaining your mistakes takes its top plan, Max.
• Reading. HelloChinese has 1,000+ graded stories with audio. Duolingo's Chinese reading is mostly single sentences.

Learners who switched say the same in the r/ChineseLanguage threads we read. One put it simply: "It feels made by actual chinese teachers."

If you want to read and write Chinese, HelloChinese is the better teacher.

Speaking and tones: both stop at set lines

Both apps listen to you, but mostly to check lines they wrote. Open conversation is a paid extra on Duolingo, and HelloChinese doesn't say how much it offers.

On Duolingo, most speaking items have you read a sentence aloud, and "Can't speak now" skips them for 15 minutes. Duolingo grades Chinese speech phonetically and doesn't say whether a wrong tone fails.

Its AI conversation, Video Call, came to Chinese on iPhone in January 2026, for Max subscribers. In August, Duolingo said most new Super subscribers get it. Roleplay, its other AI feature, isn't offered for Chinese.

HelloChinese uses speech recognition to check your pronunciation of set lines. Its App Store images now promise AI speaking practice, without saying what it covers:

Its team has been careful here. In 2025, it said it needed to check how accurately AI can judge spoken answers before letting you reply by speaking.

Both apps teach the tones themselves. HelloChinese has a pinyin course for beginners, and Duolingo's Pinyin tab introduces the five tones and the sounds of pinyin:

What neither has shown is that its feedback on your tones is accurate. Neither publishes how well it judges them, and a review of 15 studies found speech-recognition practice helps individual sounds a lot but pitch, which carries tones, only a little. A learner using both apps said it plainly: "I find the tones are hard to learn through duo."

Use either app's speaking drills as practice. For feedback, train your ear with a tone trainer, then talk to someone who answers back.

Free means very different things

Duolingo gives away its whole course. HelloChinese gives away a taste.

On Duolingo, every learner gets the same lessons. Paying for Super removes ads and the energy limit and adds extra practice. Its own paywall puts "Learning content" in both columns:

Super has a two-week free trial on iPhone. Duolingo doesn't publish a price list: its US App Store page lists Super from $9.99 to $119.99 without naming plan lengths.

HelloChinese is free to download, but the lessons run out fast. In a September thread, learners confirmed the paywall arrives after a few lessons; switching to the older course buys a few more.

Here's what each plan gives you, and what it costs:

Sources: each app's US App Store page, checked 11 October 2026; Duolingo's Help and its paywall screens on Mobbin; FluentU's review for what Premium+ adds and its plan lengths; learner reports for the free lessons.

HelloChinese also runs sales: its team says it usually holds them around holidays, and its App Store page lists a $48.99 Premium price.

If money decides it, Duolingo is the only full course you can finish for free. If you'll pay for a year, HelloChinese costs under $6 a month.

Pick by your goal, not the brand

Each app wins different jobs. Here's where we'd send you:

• Best for a free start: Duolingo. The whole course is free, and its streaks and reminders are hard to beat for building a habit.
• Best for a structured beginner course: HelloChinese. Grammar lessons, a pinyin course and a gentle pace, if you'll pay.
• Best for reading and writing: HelloChinese. Graded stories, handwriting and both scripts.
• Best for the widest vocabulary: Duolingo. It covers more of every HSK level from HSK 3 up.
• Best for HSK 4: both together. Between them they cover 95% of the words HSK 4 expects.
• Best for speaking: neither. See the alternatives below.

Habit counts more than people think. Duolingo says learners who reach a week-long streak are 3.6 times as likely to complete their course, though that's a correlation. HelloChinese added its own streaks and achievements in April 2026.

Using both works, and it's cheap: Duolingo costs nothing. Some learners in the threads we read keep Duolingo for a light daily review and use HelloChinese as their main course.

Alternatives to both

If neither fits, pick by what's missing. Most alternatives cost $5 to $15 a month, about what HelloChinese does, and two full courses cost a little less over a year.

Here's what each one costs a month in the US, from the yearly price spread over 12 months to paying monthly:

App	US$ a month	Best for
Duolingo	0	A free daily habit
SuperChinese PLUS	5.00–11.99	A longer course with speaking scores
ChineseSkill Premium	5.00–11.99	Mandarin, Taiwan Mandarin or Cantonese
HelloChinese Premium	5.83–11.99	The gentlest full course
SayMei	5.99	Spoken lessons with an AI teacher
Speak	7.00–17.99	AI speaking practice
Skritter	8.33–14.99	Handwriting
Du Chinese	10.00–14.99	Graded reading

05101520

Sources: each app's US App Store listing, checked 11 October 2026; SayMei's pricing page. SayMei's $5.99 buys 200 minutes of lessons a month. Speak added Mandarin in June 2026.

The cheapest ways to fill each gap:

• A cheaper course than HelloChinese. SuperChinese PLUS and ChineseSkill Premium cost $59.99 a year on the US App Store, $10 less. SuperChinese also sells PLUS for life; our HelloChinese vs SuperChinese guide compares the two.
• Free tools. Pleco is a free dictionary, and Anki is free flashcards on Android and computers. Our flashcard comparison covers both.
• Speaking. A tutor is the classic fix: italki's Chinese tutors charge a median of about $20 an hour, by our tutors guide's count. Our AI apps comparison covers Speak, SuperChinese's CHAO plan and SayMei.
• Reading. Du Chinese and our graded readers comparison cover stories at your level.
• Audio on the go. Pimsleur's lessons are audio-first; our Pimsleur review checks what they teach.

For the whole field in one place, see the best apps to learn Chinese.

Where SayMei fits

SayMei is built for the gap both apps leave: speaking. Its lessons are spoken conversations with Mei Lin, your AI teacher, in your browser, with a transcript in pinyin, characters or both.

You can try it free first. After a week's trial, which needs a card, Premium is $5.99 a month for 200 minutes.

We want to be plain about the limits. SayMei won't replace a course app: it has no app or offline mode, no writing course and no pronunciation score, and its minutes are capped. Pair it with Duolingo or HelloChinese if you want both.

What we couldn't check

• We didn't sign up for or subscribe to either app. Features are what each company says, plus Duolingo screens on Mobbin and what learners report.
• HelloChinese's own word list isn't public. Its numbers here are for the list its team says the course is built on.
• Duolingo's word list is community data. Duolingo doesn't publish one, and duome.eu is a fan site.
• Duolingo's paid prices aren't labelled. Both companies also run sales, so the price you see may differ.
• Nobody has published how accurately either app judges tones.

What to do next

• Decide what you'll pay. If nothing, use Duolingo; if about $70 a year, HelloChinese.
• Try HelloChinese's free lessons first. A few lessons will show whether its pace suits you.
• Use the HSK lists as your map. Our HSK word lists show what your app skipped at your level.
• Train tones on their own. Neither app's speech check is proven for tones; our tones guide shows how.
• Talk to someone who answers back. Repeating set lines won't make you conversational.

When you're ready to talk, try a lesson with Mei Lin.