Duolingo vs HelloChinese for learning Chinese

Duolingo is a general language app with one Chinese course among dozens. Its strengths are habit and reach: every course is free, the lessons are short and game-like, it runs on the web as well as on phones, and if you also want Spanish or Japanese it is the same app. In April 2026 Duolingo said most learners of its Chinese course can now study up to CEFR B2 (a Duolingo Score of 129), where most had previously stopped at A2.

HelloChinese only teaches Mandarin, and its features are built around that: HSK-based courses, a Pinyin course for newcomers, handwriting practice for characters, more than 1,000 graded stories, over 2,000 native-speaker videos, and both Simplified and Traditional Chinese. It describes itself as an app for beginners that takes you from scratch to a conversational level.

Both apps have speaking exercises checked by speech recognition, and neither publishes a separate score for tones.

Duolingo has written about how it checks Chinese speech. Because Chinese has so many homophones (他, 她 and 它 are all “tā”), in 2020 it moved Chinese speaking exercises to phonetic grading: “any character whose pronunciation is close enough will be considered a match”. That fixes unfair failures; it also means the check is built to accept a close-enough pronunciation, not to diagnose your tones. Duolingo’s own April 2026 guide to tones asks learners to do that work themselves: replay the audio, guess which tone you heard, check your guess against the pinyin, and repeat and exaggerate what you hear “even if it’s not a speaking exercise”.

For conversation, Duolingo Max (a subscription tier above Super) adds Video Call for Chinese learners. The coached version, Video Call with Falstaff, launched in January 2026 for Max subscribers on iOS and gives real-time feedback in your own language. That is conversation coaching rather than a pronunciation score.

HelloChinese’s listing says its speech recognition “corrects your pronunciation”, and its Pinyin course teaches the sound system first, but it does not describe what the feedback looks like or whether a wrong tone is flagged separately from a wrong consonant or vowel. It does not advertise an AI conversation partner.

A quick way to check any app’s speaking feedback in its free lessons: say a word you know with a deliberately wrong tone (mǎ instead of mā, for example). If the app still marks it correct, its speaking check is not listening closely to your tones; if it flags it, note whether it tells you the tone was the problem or only that the word was wrong.

If HSK levels matter to you, HelloChinese is organised around them (“systematic courses based on HSK levels”), though it does not publish how far its courses go. Duolingo describes progress in CEFR levels and its own Duolingo Score instead, so you will need to map that to HSK yourself.

For characters, HelloChinese has handwriting practice and supports both scripts. Duolingo shows pinyin next to characters and, since October 2026, has Component Sessions that teach the building blocks inside characters (氵 for water, 火 for fire) from the start of the Chinese course, on iOS first.

For reading and listening, HelloChinese lists 1,000+ graded stories and 2,000+ native-speaker videos. Duolingo says its expanded courses, Chinese included, add advanced Stories, DuoRadio episodes and lessons aimed at understanding news, movies and jokes.

Duolingo is the more generous free option: every course is free, and the free app shows ads. Super Duolingo removes the ads and adds perks such as unlimited energy and a monthly streak repair, with a 14-day free trial; the US App Store lists Super items from $9.99 to $119.99 without naming their durations. Max, a tier above Super that adds the AI Video Call, is priced separately; check it in your own store.

HelloChinese is free to download, but its listing and website do not say which lessons stay free. HelloChinese Premium is listed at $11.99 a month, $25.99 for three months or $69.99 a year for US customers, and the listing notes that prices in other countries may vary.