Speak app review: is it good for Chinese, and how do Praktika and Talkpal compare?

Only Speak teaches a Chinese course

All three apps let you talk to an AI tutor in Mandarin, but only Speak builds a course around it. Praktika and Talkpal sell one app for every language, with the same tutors, modes and lessons.

Here's how they compare, with SayMei, ours, for reference:

Sources: each app's US App Store listing, website and help pages, and Talkpal's and SayMei's pricing pages, all checked Oct 16, 2026.

If you want to be taught, Speak is the only real choice of the three. If you just want someone to talk to, any of them will do, and Talkpal lets you start free.

Speak's Chinese course runs from zero to B1

Speak launched Chinese in June and called it its most-requested language for years. The course runs from beginner to intermediate, B1 on the European CEFR scale, and teaches Simplified Chinese to English speakers.

Each unit follows the same pattern, Speak says:

• A pronunciation lesson that drills the unit's words.
• Simulated conversations, where you use those words to get something done, at a boba shop, a souvenir stall or in a taxi.
• Explanation cards and short videos on grammar and culture.

Later units move to harder talk, such as negotiating a lease. A restaurant course even has you order by scanning a QR code, as people do across China.

Here's Speak's own picture of its tone lessons, from the launch post:

Speak's roleplays put you in a scene with an animated character. We found no screens of a Chinese one, so here's a roleplay from its French course:

Two gaps stand out. The launch post never mentions HSK, the Chinese proficiency exam, and it promised "more on the way this summer". We found no later post saying what arrived.

Speak's App Store listing is still catching up, too. Its subtitle now names Chinese, but all nine of its iPhone images show the Spanish course.

For a beginner, that's plenty to start with. If you can already hold a conversation, or you're aiming at an HSK exam, Speak has little for you yet.

None of the three shows it can check your tones

We read every page each app publishes about its feedback, looking for one promise: that it tells you when a tone is wrong. Only Talkpal makes it, and only on its blog. We found no independent test of any of them.

Here's what each one says, and where:

Sources: the pages named in each row, read Oct 16, 2026, and listed under Sources below.

Speak comes closest. Its App Store listing promises an assessment of "pronunciation, intonation, and fluency", for every language. But its help page says the Pronunciation Coach, its detailed pronunciation tool, is only for people learning English.

In Speak's other courses, an answer you say aloud gets a green check:

Why is this so hard? Speech recognition turns your voice into the most likely words, and context can cover a slip. Here's a classic one:

• I want to ask you: 我想问你(wǒ xiǎng wèn nǐ).
• I want to kiss you: 我想吻你(wǒ xiǎng wěn nǐ).

Say 问(wèn) with a third tone instead of a fourth, and you've said the second. A recognizer that leans on context may still write "ask", and your mistake disappears.

Speak's own engineers have described this problem. A May 2026 post on Speak's blog explains that speech recognition is built to tidy up what you meant, which hides the slips a learner needs to see.

Research points the same way. A review of 15 studies compared how much speech-recognition practice improved different parts of learners' pronunciation:

Source: Ngo, Chen and Lai's 2024 meta-analysis in ReCALL. The authors call 0.82 a large effect and 0.37 a small one.

Tones are pitch, and pitch is where this kind of feedback has helped least. Those studies were of English learners, so read this as a warning, not a verdict on any app.

Our advice: use these apps to get lots of speaking done, and check your tones another way. Our guide to learning tones shows how to train your ear.

Praktika is a tutor for any language

Praktika is built around lifelike avatar tutors you talk to by voice. Chinese is one of 14 languages it lists, and its help center says it teaches every language at every level, from your first word to mastery.

As far as we can tell from its pages, you get the same app in Chinese as in any other language:

• Avatar tutors with their own personalities, who explain in your own language when you're starting out.
• Lessons sorted by goal, such as travel, careers and job interviews, plus role-plays. Some, like IELTS and TOEFL prep, are plainly for English.
• Lessons from your own material: upload a photo, a PDF or a voice note, and it builds a lesson around it.
• Corrections you can tune to soft, balanced or strict, on pronunciation, grammar and word choice.

Its feedback scores how you sounded. In its own App Store image, an English sentence gets marks for completeness, rhythm and fluency:

The free version is real but small. Praktika's help center says free users get 3 tutors, core practice and basic feedback. Premium unlocks every tutor and mode, and the advanced feedback.

Its price is hard to pin down. The US App Store lists ten Premium purchases from $6.99 to $139.99, and some don't say how long they last.

The clearly labelled ones include $9.99 for a month and $119.99 for a year. Praktika's homepage says about $8 a month, so we'd check the price the app shows you before you pay.

We'd pick Praktika if you want a patient tutor to chat with, and don't need a Chinese course behind it.

Talkpal has the clearest free plan

Talkpal is a general AI conversation app for 130+ languages, Chinese among them. Its free Basic plan is the only one of the three with a stated allowance: 10 minutes of basic chat a day.

Its modes cover a lot of ground:

• Chat and Call modes for open conversation, typed or spoken.
• Word, Sentence and Dialogue modes for drilling vocabulary, grammar and set phrases.
• Roleplays, Characters and Debates for practice inside a scene, with a famous figure or around an argument.

What it lacks is anything built for Chinese. We found no Chinese course or HSK path: its Chinese page is a general sales page, and its Chinese grammar pages are articles, not lessons.

Pronunciation feedback is a Premium feature. On Talkpal's pricing page, the pronunciation assessment tool is crossed out on the free plan. The only example we found in its App Store images is an English sentence:

Only one Talkpal blog post says its speech recognition checks "tone accuracy". Its pricing page and App Store listing promise pronunciation corrections, but never mention tones.

Premium costs $19.99 a month, or as little as $6.24 a month on its longest plan.

Each Premium plan starts with a 14-day free trial, and the page says there's no payment today.

We'd start here if your budget is zero. Ten minutes a day is short, but it's enough to find out whether talking to an AI suits you.

A long plan cuts the price by more than half

Speak and Talkpal charge far less a month if you commit for a year or more. Here's what each costs a month by our sums, from the longest plan to paying month by month:

App and plan	US$ a month	Longest plan
SayMei Premium	5.99	Monthly only
Talkpal Premium	6.24–19.99	2 years, $149.99
Speak Premium	7.00–17.99	1 year, $83.99
Praktika Premium	9.99	Not clear
Speak Premium Plus	13.75–39.99	1 year, $164.99

010203040

Sources: Speak's and Praktika's US App Store listings; Talkpal's and SayMei's pricing pages. Praktika shows its 1-month price only, because its listing doesn't make clear which yearly price you'll be offered. SayMei's $5.99 buys 200 minutes a month; the others don't sell practice by the minute.

If you're unsure, don't buy a year up front. Use a free trial or a free plan first, then commit.

Speak's two plans share the course, roleplays, tutor and review. Premium Plus adds a personal study plan, practice on your frequent mistakes and unlimited custom lessons, Speak's help page says. For a beginner working through the course, we think Premium is enough.

Watch the trial terms. Speak's 7-day trial needs a payment method, and its help page says you're charged unless you cancel at least a day before it ends.

Pick by how you want to practise

The right app depends on whether you want a teacher, a chat partner or a free habit:

• Speak, best for beginners who want a course. It tells you what to say next and builds you up from zero.
• Praktika, best for chatting with a patient tutor. It suits you if you like a character to talk to, with help in your own language.
• Talkpal, best for free daily practice. Its free plan gives you a little talk every day, and its long plans are cheap.
• None of the three, if you're studying for HSK. None follows HSK levels, so pair any of them with our HSK exam guide.

If tones worry you most, add a human ear now and then. A tutor on italki costs about $20 an hour, the median of 783 Chinese teachers we read.

For six more AI tutors, including SuperChinese, ChatGPT and Gemini, read our comparison of the best AI apps for Chinese.

Where SayMei fits

SayMei is our app, and it does one thing these three don't: spoken lessons sorted by HSK level. Mei Lin, your AI teacher, talks with you at your level and corrects your tones and grammar as you go.

SayMei Premium is $5.99 a month for 200 minutes with her.

We'll be plain about where it loses:

• No app. SayMei runs in a web browser, with no offline mode.
• Fewer minutes. 200 minutes a month is about 6½ minutes a day, while Talkpal and Praktika Premium don't cap your practice.
• No scores. Tone corrections happen inside the conversation, with no pronunciation score afterwards.
• Less free time. Talkpal's free minutes every day add up to far more than SayMei's free start.

If you want a course on your phone, Speak does that better. If you want to talk free every day, Talkpal does.

What to do next

• Try before you pay. Start Speak's trial or Talkpal's free plan, and talk every day for a week.
• Test the tone feedback yourself. Say 糖(táng), sugar, when the app expects 汤(tāng), soup, and see whether it notices.
• Buy a long plan only once you're sure. It's far cheaper, but it's a big bet on an app you've just met.
• Check your tones another way. A tone-pair drill or a tutor now and then catches what apps miss.
• Plan for after B1. If you choose Speak, line up something for when its course runs out.

To compare more AI tutors side by side, read our guide to the best AI apps for Chinese.