HelloChinese vs SuperChinese: which Chinese app should you pick?

HelloChinese describes itself as a beginner’s app that takes you “from scratch to a conversational level”. It is the broader of the two for input: game-based lessons, self-adaptive learning games, more than 1,000 graded stories, over 2,000 videos with native speakers, handwriting practice and spaced-repetition review. It is also the one to choose if you need Traditional characters, since it supports both scripts.

SuperChinese is built around scenarios and speaking. Every unit is one practical situation, the lessons are written by native Chinese teachers, speaking starts in the first lesson and every unit ends with speaking practice. A level test in the app places learners who already know some Chinese. Its main course runs from complete beginner to intermediate (HSK 5), and the same developer makes a separate app, SuperTest, for HSK exam preparation.

This is where the two differ most, at least in what they document. HelloChinese’s store listing says its speech recognition “corrects your pronunciation and makes speaking Chinese a breeze”, and its website says it helps you “nail your pronunciation”. Neither page says what the feedback looks like: whether it marks the whole sentence, each word or each character.

SuperChinese is specific. Its FAQ says each lesson asks you to record the line and returns a pronunciation score immediately, “color-coded down to the individual characters you got wrong, so you can see which sound to fix”. The optional pinyin course before Level 1 covers initials, finals and tones, and pinyin stays next to the characters throughout the course. Its FAQ lists “speaking practice with pronunciation scores” among what PLUS unlocks, so expect only part of it in the free lessons. The CHAO plan, which includes everything in PLUS, adds unscripted role-play (ordering bubble tea, checking into a hotel) after which the AI tutor explains what sounded unnatural and why: that is feedback on phrasing, not on tones.

What neither developer documents is a score for the tone on its own. A red character tells you where the problem is, but neither app says whether it separates a wrong tone from a wrong consonant or vowel in the same syllable, or shows you the pitch you actually produced.

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.

HelloChinese says its courses are “systematic courses based on HSK levels” and include a Pinyin course for newcomers, but it does not publish how far they go. Its depth is in reading and listening: graded stories at your level and native-speaker video.

SuperChinese publishes its map: 8 levels of 24 units, over 1,000 lessons of about 10 minutes, covering HSK 1 to HSK 5 in the Main Course, with an HSK vocabulary course in its Discover tab reaching HSK 7–9. Its FAQ is clear that the course “teaches the language rather than the paper”: it is not an exam drill. (The App Store description still quotes an older “over 400 lessons, split into 9 levels”; the figures here are from the developer’s current FAQ.)

Both have a pinyin course for beginners and both let you download lessons for offline study. HelloChinese also tracks your progress across devices.

Both are free to download. SuperChinese says plainly what that covers: a selection of lessons from the Main Course and Discover, “enough to judge whether the teaching suits you”, but “not the whole course”. HelloChinese’s listing and website do not say which lessons are free, so open the app and look before you subscribe.

On the US App Store, HelloChinese Premium is $11.99 a month, $25.99 for three months or $69.99 a year; Premium+ items are listed too, but the store does not say what they add. SuperChinese PLUS comes as a monthly, a yearly or a one-off Lifetime plan (listed at $11.99 a month and $139.99 lifetime, with yearly items between $42.99 and $59.99), and the AI conversation plan, CHAO, is listed at $24.99 a month or $109.99 a year. Several items on both lists share a name with different prices and no stated duration, which usually means regional or promotional variants, so treat these as a range rather than a quote.