Duolingo vs HelloChinese: which is better for learning Chinese? (video)
Free Duolingo or paid HelloChinese? HSK word coverage, speaking and tones, characters, free versions and US prices, checked October 2026, plus alternatives.
Chapters
- 0:00Start
- 0:19The short answer
- 1:05Duolingo goes further up the HSK
- 1:59HelloChinese sticks closer to the exam
- 2:28HelloChinese teaches more of Chinese
- 3:13Speaking and tones
- 4:02Free means very different things
- 4:52Pick by your goal
- 5:34Alternatives to both
- 6:20What to do next
Transcript
Start
HelloChinese costs about $70 a year. Duolingo's Chinese course is free. Here's the surprise: the free one teaches about twice as many words. From SayMei Guides, by Mei Lin: Duolingo versus HelloChinese. Which is better for learning Chinese?
The short answer
The short answer. Pick HelloChinese if you'll pay for one app built for Chinese: grammar lessons, handwriting, graded stories and Traditional characters, for $69.99 a year. Stay with Duolingo if you won't pay. The whole course is free, and past HSK 3 it covers more of the HSK word lists. And for speaking? Add something else, either way. So how different are they? Duolingo teaches more than 40 languages, and Chinese is one course. HelloChinese is built for Chinese only. Duolingo's course has about 6,000 words in 310 units. HelloChinese counts more than 2,500 words and 430 grammar points. And only Duolingo runs on the web.
Duolingo goes further up the HSK
Neither company publishes its word list, so we matched the closest public data against the 2025 HSK syllabus, the lists the new exam uses from 13 December. Up to HSK 3, both cover most of the words. Then the lines split. At HSK 4, Duolingo covers 82% of the words, and HelloChinese's list about half. At HSK 5, it's 75% against 30%. Why the gap? Because HSK 3 changed size. HelloChinese's team says its course is built on levels 1 to 3 of the 2021 standard, about 2,200 words. The new syllabus spreads most of those words across HSK 1 to 5. Some chatbots get this backwards. In 17 answers we sampled from four chatbots, five put Duolingo's ceiling below HelloChinese.
HelloChinese sticks closer to the exam
Word for word, though, HelloChinese's list is the more exam-focused one. Nine in ten of its words are on the new exam lists. On Duolingo's, it's three in four. Duolingo builds units around situations, like ordering drinks or seeing a doctor, and maps its course to the European scale, up to B2. So it takes about 3,500 of Duolingo's words to cover as much of HSK 1 to 4 as HelloChinese's 2,200.
HelloChinese teaches more of Chinese
What do you actually practise? The clearest gap is writing. HelloChinese has you write characters by hand, stroke by stroke, in Simplified or Traditional. Duolingo teaches Simplified only, and on most phones you type through pinyin. Its Hanzi tab practises reading the characters each unit introduces. HelloChinese counts more than 430 grammar points, and Premium adds Teacher Talk lessons. Duolingo teaches patterns implicitly, with optional tips. HelloChinese has more than 1,000 graded stories with audio. Duolingo's Chinese reading is mostly single sentences. One learner who switched put it simply: it feels made by actual Chinese teachers.
Speaking and tones
For speaking, both stop at set lines. On Duolingo, most speaking items have you read a sentence aloud, and a button called Can't speak now skips them for 15 minutes. Video Call, its paid conversation feature, came to Chinese on iPhone in January 2026. HelloChinese checks your pronunciation of set lines, and its store images now advertise chatbot speaking practice, without saying what it covers. And tones? Both apps teach them. But neither has shown that its feedback on your tones is accurate. A review of 15 studies found speech-recognition practice helps individual sounds a lot, but pitch, which carries tones, only a little. So use the drills as practice. For feedback, train your ear with a tone trainer, then talk to someone who answers back.
Free means very different things
Free means very different things here. Duolingo gives away its whole course. Paying for Super removes ads and the energy limit. HelloChinese gives away a taste. Learners say its paywall arrives after a few lessons, early in HSK 1. These are US App Store prices, checked 11 October. HelloChinese Premium is $11.99 a month, $25.99 for 3 months, or $69.99 a year. That's under $6 a month. Premium Plus, with every graded story and a characters course, is $149.99 a year. Duolingo doesn't publish a price list. Its page lists Super from $9.99, without naming plan lengths. Both run sales, so your price may differ.
Pick by your goal
So pick by your goal, not the brand. A free start? Duolingo. A structured beginner course? HelloChinese. Reading and writing? HelloChinese. The widest vocabulary? Duolingo. Aiming at HSK 4? Use both: together they cover 95% of the words HSK 4 expects. And speaking? Neither. Habit counts. Duolingo says learners who reach a week-long streak are 3.6 times as likely to complete their course, though that's a correlation. And using both is cheap, because Duolingo costs nothing. Some learners keep it for a light daily review, with HelloChinese as their main course.
Alternatives to both
If neither fits, pick by what's missing. Most alternatives cost $5 to $15 a month. SuperChinese Plus and ChineseSkill Premium cost $59.99 a year, $10 less than HelloChinese. Skritter is for handwriting, Du Chinese for graded reading, and Speak for speaking practice. SayMei is built for the gap both apps leave: speaking. Its lessons are spoken conversations with Mei Lin, SayMei's teacher, in your browser, with a transcript in pinyin, characters or both. The limits: there's no app or offline mode, no writing course and no pronunciation score, and the minutes are capped. So pair it with Duolingo or HelloChinese.
What to do next
So, what next? Decide what you'll pay. If nothing, use Duolingo. If about $70 a year, HelloChinese. Try HelloChinese's free lessons first, to see whether its pace suits you. Use the HSK word lists as your map. Train tones on their own. And talk to someone who answers back, because repeating set lines won't make you conversational. You can practise speaking with Mei Lin, SayMei's teacher, in a short spoken lesson at your level. The full guide, with every source, is on the page at saymei dot app.