We all know the proverb, “you get what you pay for.” Yes, it is true! But that doesn’t mean that you can’t get anything for free. Learning Chinese can be expensive but you can get to learn to some extent for free. If you want to learn Chinese for free, you will get free resources online. Many websites or apps are there that teach Chinese. There are apps or websites which are always hundred percent free, where you can practice speaking, writing, reading, character grammar, and even complete courses online. And for some, you have to pay or subscribe. In general, utilizing only free resources will take longer to compile, organize and be less-user friendly in the end. But there are some free resources which are just as good or better than paid ones. 

In this blog, I will suggest to you some websites and apps that are providing free learning for Chinese.

Memrise – It is basically a flashcard system with a user-created deck. You can create flashcards with text, images, audio, memes, etc. This is a great app, but don’t overuse it, as it has been seen that many people spend a long time learning lots of words but later on they don’t know how to use the words. Memrise has a rating of 8/10

HelloChinese and ChineseSkill – These two apps are very much similar to Duolingo. Both of them are free and have a lot in common with each other and a few minor differences. The apps are easy to use and are full of fun. HelloChinese has a rating of 9.5/10 and ChineseSkill has a rating of 8/10

Anki – It is a flashcard app. It is free on web and android but the IOS version is paid. However, you can just use it in your browser for free.

Busuu – It’s a great app for getting feedback and corrections on your writing. Well Busuu is a paid app, but I would not suggest you to pay for it as the language correction part is free and useful. 

Du Chinese – This is a great app for reading and listening practice. It’s generally a paid but the free version is still very much useful. In the free trial period you can access all the lessons and after the trial, new lessons will be available for a short period of time for free.

Duolingo – It is a software program that offers reasons for various languages including Chinese. 

Chinese Pronunciation Wiki and Chinese Grammar Wiki – These are great and even better than many paid resources. Pronunciation wiki does an excellent job by explaining Chinese pronunciation in the right way. The grammar wiki breaks down the grammar according to level. You will be able to learn what you need to learn and when you need to learn. 

Line Dictionary – It’s an awesome dictionary. It has lots of example sentences and recorded audio. It also has proverbs and quotes.

Slow Chinese – Slow Chinese is a free podcast that includes translations and transcripts. In this, the speech is slowed down to make it easier to understand for all. Here there are various topics that focus on different aspects that are related to Chinese culture and they are very interesting. 

Free Chinese podcasts – Here you will be able to get tons of free listening material in Mandarin Chinese. If you listen to real Chinese podcasts, you will be able to quickly build up your listening ability. 

Tatoeba – It is another great source of Chinese example sentences. It is also a free, community-based project. 

Apart from all these, there are many more apps and websites that provide partial free classes or free resources for learning Chinese. You can learn Chinese grammar, Chinese tones, culture, and many more things. You can take the help of youtube and Chinese videos and audios to learn the language. You can take the help of different community-based apps or websites where you will be able to connect to native Chinese speakers virtually and communicate with them in Chinese. I would advise you to have a look and search on the internet, you can visit different websites that are free. These all will be enough for you to learn Chinese for a long time. And if you can afford to take paid classes then I would suggest you check out Multibhashi, they are providing Chinese classes at a very affordable rate.