HelloChinese vs Duolingo: which should you learn Chinese with?
Pick one — they do the same job. Both are course apps that decide what you learn next, so running two buys the same sequence twice. HelloChinese is the stronger course for Chinese itself, teaching tones and characters from the start; Duolingo is the stronger habit. Neither checks your tones.
Which job each one does
Every study plan that works covers five jobs — sequencing, lookup, retention, input and correction — and no app covers all five. Two tools doing the same job are a choice; two doing different jobs are a pair. Each side below is the same assessment as its row in the full comparison table, including what it is missing.
HelloChinese
In this pairing: The course. It decides the order, and it teaches tones and characters as part of that order from the first lessons — which is the one thing a beginner cannot do for themselves.
Good at: Being an actual course. It introduces tones and characters from the first lessons instead of postponing them, and it decides the order for you — which is the single thing a beginner cannot do for themselves.
What it is missing: It thins out well before you run out of language: past the intermediate levels there is much less here, and learners routinely finish it and find themselves with no obvious next step.
Use it if: You are starting from nothing and want someone else to choose what comes next.
The early lessons are free; the rest of the course and the review tools sit behind a subscription.
Duolingo
In this pairing: The habit. Short lessons and a streak get you to open it every day; the Chinese itself is lighter, most of all on tones and speaking.
Good at: Getting you to turn up. The streak and the five-minute lesson are the best habit mechanic anyone has built for language study, and the Chinese course costs nothing.
What it is missing: Tones and speaking. That is the most repeated criticism of its Chinese course in the 2026 review round-ups, and characters arrive as shapes to recognise rather than as things you can build or write.
Use it if: Your problem is consistency rather than material — and you pair it with something that drills tones.
Free with ads; the paid tier removes them and lifts practice limits rather than adding course content.
Where HelloChinese and Duolingo differ
| HelloChinese | Duolingo | |
|---|---|---|
| Cost | Free tier + paid | Free tier + paid |
| What it is built around | A course designed for Mandarin, so the lessons are shaped around what is hard about it. | One method applied across dozens of languages, with Chinese as one course among many. |
| Tones | Taught inside the lessons from the start, with speaking exercises alongside. | The most repeated criticism of its Chinese course in the 2026 review round-ups is that it is thin on tones and speaking. |
| Characters | Introduced from the first lessons as things to learn, not postponed. | Arrive as shapes to recognise rather than as things you can build or write. |
| What keeps you going | The course itself: it is structured enough that the next lesson is always obvious. | The streak and the five-minute lesson — the best habit mechanic anyone has built for language study. |
| Where it runs out | Past the intermediate levels there is much less, and learners who finish it often have no obvious next step. | Its Chinese stays light in the places Mandarin is hardest, so the gaps show up later as tones nobody checked. |
What both of them are missing
Neither tells you your tones are wrong. Both can play you the right tone and both can listen through speech recognition — but a recogniser answers "was that understood?", not "was that tone right?", so a flat third tone in a word it can guess is marked correct. Check your tones against something that measures pitch.
If you can only have one
HelloChinese, if the goal is Chinese you can use: it teaches the two things Mandarin is hard for — tones and characters — instead of postponing them. Duolingo, if your real problem is that you keep stopping, and you pair it with tone practice from somewhere else.
Want the whole plan rather than one decision? The full comparison sets 17 ways to learn Chinese side by side, and its four-question picker turns your goal, time, budget and device into an ordered study plan.
Frequently asked questions
HelloChinese or Duolingo: which is better?
Pick one — they do the same job. Both are course apps that decide what you learn next, so running two buys the same sequence twice. HelloChinese is the stronger course for Chinese itself, teaching tones and characters from the start; Duolingo is the stronger habit. Neither checks your tones.
Should I use HelloChinese and Duolingo together?
Not usually. Both do sequencing, so the second one repeats the first and costs you time, money or both. Choose one and spend what you save on a job neither of them does.
What do HelloChinese and Duolingo both leave out?
Neither tells you your tones are wrong. Both can play you the right tone and both can listen through speech recognition — but a recogniser answers "was that understood?", not "was that tone right?", so a flat third tone in a word it can guess is marked correct. Check your tones against something that measures pitch.
Which should I choose if I can only have one?
HelloChinese, if the goal is Chinese you can use: it teaches the two things Mandarin is hard for — tones and characters — instead of postponing them. Duolingo, if your real problem is that you keep stopping, and you pair it with tone practice from somewhere else.
Which is better for a complete beginner, HelloChinese or Duolingo?
HelloChinese. A complete beginner's first real problem is tones, and it treats them as part of the lesson from the start, while Duolingo's Chinese is lighter exactly there. Duolingo's advantage is getting you to turn up — which matters, but it is the easier of the two problems to solve some other way.
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