The best free apps for learning Chinese, honestly

Wordbrush is a free app for iPhone, iPad, and Android that drills the complete Mandarin Chinese HSK 1-3 vocabulary, 2,199 words, into long-term memory. Every word arrives with native-speaker audio, an example sentence, and a breakdown of its characters into components, scheduled by FSRS so you review each word just before you would forget it. It works entirely offline, needs no account, and has no paid tier.

We make one of the apps on this page, so read it with that in mind. What we have tried to do is describe each tool by what it is genuinely for, and say plainly where Wordbrush is the wrong choice. Every claim about another product was checked against that product's own website and app-store listing on 3 September 2026.

Job 1: being taught the language

If you are starting from zero, you need someone to explain how Mandarin works: word order, measure words, aspect, tones. Vocabulary apps, ours included, do not do this and cannot substitute for it.

The main app-shaped options are full courses such as HelloChinese, which is free to start with a subscription for full access and includes grammar lessons, speaking practice with speech recognition, and handwriting, and Duolingo, which says every course is free, carries ads on the free tier, and is unmatched at getting people to turn up daily. Worth knowing if you are exam-focused: Duolingo does not publish an HSK or CEFR level for its Mandarin course.

Job 2: remembering the words

This is where most self-taught learners actually stall. You understand the lesson, and a month later the words are gone. The fix is spaced repetition: software that tracks every word separately and shows it again just before you would forget it.

Wordbrush is our answer to this one, and it is free in full: all 2,199 words of HSK 1, 2, and 3, native-speaker audio on every word and every example sentence, characters broken into components, and FSRS scheduling, working entirely offline with no account. It is the right tool if your problem is forgetting, and the wrong tool if you need grammar, speaking practice, content above HSK 3, or traditional characters.

Anki is the other serious free option, and the more powerful one: free on desktop and on Android, with a one-time 24.99 USD purchase for the official iOS app. It will hold literally any material you want, which is exactly why it needs you to supply that material. If you want to sentence-mine, study beyond HSK 3, or control every detail, Anki is better than we are. We publish free HSK Anki decks with native audio if you want our content inside it.

Job 3: looking things up

You will constantly meet words you have not studied. A dictionary is not optional, and Pleco is the usual recommendation: the app and two dictionaries are free, it works offline after the initial download, and its paid extras are one-time purchases rather than a subscription. Wordbrush has no lookup at all, so this is not a job we compete for.

Job 4: writing characters by hand (optional)

Whether you need this depends on your goals. Plenty of learners read and speak well without writing by hand. If you do want it, Skritter is the specialist, built around handwriting with stroke-level grading; it has a free guest tier for selected decks and a subscription for full access. Wordbrush has an optional writing card covering a few hundred words, which is a much smaller thing.

A free setup that works

If you want a concrete starting point at zero cost: a free course tier for the teaching, Wordbrush for the vocabulary, and Pleco's free tier for lookups. That covers the three jobs that matter most in the first year. Add graded reading as soon as you can manage it, and handwriting only if you actually want it.

If you would rather not install anything, the complete HSK 1-3 word lists with audio and the example sentences are free to read on this site, and the Anki decks are free to download.

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