Chinese for Beginners
Coursera
Immerse yourself in the captivating world of Chinese culture and language with our ABC Chinese course for beginners. This comprehensive course provides an introduction to Mandarin phonetics and essential daily expressions, enabling learners to achieve a fundamental understanding and confidently engage in basic conversations. Our carefully crafted curriculum covers practical topics and real-life situations, ranging from exchanging personal information and discussing daily schedules to conversing about food, prices, city life, weather, and hobbies. The diverse selection of reading materials and interactive activities ensures a rich and stimulating learning experience, piquing learners' interests throughout the course. No need to worry about learning Chinese characters – this course focuses on speaking skills, making it accessible and enjoyable. Elevate your learning with a thrilling bonus feature: virtually travel to China and hone your speaking skills with our immersive game, playable on a VR headset or desktop. Embark on a scavenger hunt, talk to vendors, encounter fellow travelers, and explore a traditional market, all while applying your Chinese skills in a real-world environment.
More resources on Mandarin Chinese
ChinesePod
Dialogue-based Mandarin lessons where hosts play a short native-speed conversation, then unpack its vocabulary, grammar and cultural context line by line. The beginner channel covers survival topics; paid tiers add transcripts, exercises and intermediate or advanced streams.
魏晉風流 — Weijin Fengliu: Shishuo Xinyu Explorer
A free Chinese-language reading and visualization website for Shishuo Xinyu, a collection of anecdotes about people in early medieval China. Readers can compare original passages, modern Chinese translations and Liu Xiaobiao's annotations, then explore historical figures through a relationship network, timeline and family views. Useful for readers with strong Chinese skills studying classical literature and Wei-Jin history. The original text comes from Wikisource; structured data and translations include AI-assisted work and may contain errors, so readers should check against the source text. Publicly accessible without registration. Suggested topics: classical Chinese literature and Chinese history.
LingQ
Reading and listening platform where learners import or choose texts with audio, look up unknown words inline and track vocabulary as it moves from new to known. It supports daily comprehensible-input practice and steady vocabulary growth across dozens of languages.
Pleco Dictionary
Mobile dictionary for Chinese with handwriting and audio input, stroke-order diagrams, example sentences, and an optional flashcard system. Learners look up unfamiliar characters encountered in reading and build review decks from saved entries.
Chinese Zero to Hero
Course platform organised around the HSK proficiency levels, pairing video lessons with graded vocabulary, grammar notes, and practice exercises. Students follow a structured path from HSK 1 upward and can gauge readiness for the official exam.
Pimsleur Chinese (Mandarin) Level 1
Thirty half-hour audio lessons built on graduated-interval recall, prompting you to produce spoken Mandarin before hearing the correct answer. Focus is conversational speech and tones rather than characters, so you finish able to handle basic everyday exchanges.