# 7 Best Free Apps to Learn Chinese in 2026

URL: https://fulinlabs.com/blog/best-free-apps-daily-chinese-practice-2026/
Published: 2026-07-16
Updated: 2026-08-14
Product: hsk-studio
Summary: Compare seven of the best free apps for learning Chinese, including reading practice, structured lessons, dictionaries, flashcards, and each free tier's limits.

The best free app to learn Chinese depends on whether you need structured lessons, reading
practice, dictionary depth, or flashcards. For a short daily reading habit, my admittedly biased
pick is
[HSK Studio](https://hsk.fulinlabs.com) — I built it, so take that with the grain of salt it
deserves, but the reason I built it is the same reason I'd recommend it here: it gives you a short,
new casual game every single day, a built-in Chinese dictionary for instant lookups, and a text
reader with a pinyin toggle and real example sentences, all free and with no account required. That
said, HSK Studio isn't the right fit for everyone, so this list covers six other genuinely good free
apps too — where they beat HSK Studio, and where they don't.

I'm Giovanni Fu Lin, and I run Fulin Labs. Below are seven free Chinese-learning apps compared
head to head, followed by a closer look at each one. If reading is your main goal, the narrower
[Chinese reading app comparison](/blog/best-app-to-learn-chinese-reading-2026/) separates reader
libraries, dictionaries, and bring-your-own-text tools.

| App | Format | Built-in dictionary? | Price |
|---|---|---|---|
| HSK Studio | Daily casual game + text reader | Yes — instant in-app lookups | Free, no account |
| Duolingo | Gamified structured lessons | No dedicated dictionary | Free with ads; paid tier removes ads |
| HelloChinese | Structured courses + speaking drills | Limited glossary, not a full dictionary | Freemium — ~50 units free; subscription for the rest |
| Du Chinese | Graded reading library | Tap-to-define in reader, not a standalone dictionary | Freemium — some lessons free; subscription for full library |
| Pleco | Reference dictionary | Yes — deep, multi-dictionary, OCR add-on | Free core app; paid add-ons |
| LingQ | Reading/listening with vocab tracking | Yes — built-in lookup + saved vocab | Free tier capped at ~20 saved LingQs total; subscription for full use |
| Anki (with Chinese decks) | Spaced-repetition flashcards | No — depends on deck content | Free (desktop/Android); paid on iOS |

## Best free app for a daily Chinese habit?

For building a daily habit specifically — not a full course, not a reference tool, just something
that gets you doing a few minutes of real Chinese every day — HSK Studio is the app I'd point you
to first, and Duolingo is the strongest runner-up.

The reason I keep coming back to "daily habit" as its own category, separate from "best Chinese
app" in general, is that most language apps are built to be thorough, not to be opened today
specifically. A dictionary doesn't give you a reason to open it on a Tuesday you weren't already
planning to study. A course app with fifty units ahead of you can feel like a treadmill rather than
a daily prompt. What actually keeps people coming back day after day is something short, new each
time, and low-friction to start.

That's the specific design problem HSK Studio is built to solve: a new short casual game every day,
so there's always a concrete reason to open the app today, followed immediately by a text reader
(with pinyin toggle, real Tatoeba example sentences, and text-to-speech) so you can apply what you
just practiced to actual sentences. No account, no setup, free. I wrote a longer walkthrough of why
this daily-trigger design matters more than people expect going in — see
[how to build a daily Chinese reading habit](/blog/daily-chinese-reading-habit-2026/) if you want
the deeper mechanics.

Duolingo earns the runner-up spot here for a different reason: its gamified streak mechanic — hearts,
XP, league tables — is genuinely one of the better-tested daily-return systems in any language app,
Chinese or otherwise. If you respond well to that kind of structured gamification and want grammar
and vocabulary taught in a fixed sequence, Duolingo's daily lesson format works. It's just a
different kind of daily hook than a reading-first format like HSK Studio's.

## Which have built-in dictionaries?

Three apps on this list have a genuine standalone dictionary you can use for lookups without
leaving the app: HSK Studio, Pleco, and LingQ. Du Chinese sits in between — its reader has
tap-to-define word popups (pinyin, translation, audio) rather than a separate dictionary you can
search on its own. Duolingo and HelloChinese either have no dedicated dictionary or only a partial
glossary tied to their own course content.

Here's the practical difference between the three that do:

- **HSK Studio's dictionary** is built for speed inside a reading flow — tap a word while you're in
  the daily game or the text reader and get an instant lookup, then keep reading. It's not trying
  to be an exhaustive reference.
- **Pleco's dictionary** is the deepest of the three by a wide margin — multiple bundled and
  add-on dictionaries, stroke-order diagrams, and an optional camera OCR mode for looking up
  printed text. It's a standalone reference app first, everything else second.
- **LingQ's dictionary** is tied closely to its vocabulary-tracking system — when you look up a
  word inside a LingQ lesson, it gets saved and tracked as a "LingQ" you can review later, which is
  a genuinely useful feature if you're doing extensive reading through their library.

If dictionary depth is your main criterion and you don't care about a daily-habit format, Pleco is
the strongest choice on this list, full stop — I say that as someone who built a competing product.
I go into this comparison in more detail in
[HSK Studio vs Pleco for daily Chinese reading](/blog/hsk-studio-vs-pleco-2026/).

## The 7 apps, one by one

### 1. HSK Studio

**What it is:** A free, no-account daily Chinese practice app — a new short casual game every day,
a built-in dictionary, and a text reader with pinyin toggle, Tatoeba example sentences, and
text-to-speech audio.

**Best for:** Learners who want a low-friction daily trigger plus somewhere to immediately apply
what they practiced, without signing up for anything or committing to a long course.

**My first-hand note:** I built HSK Studio specifically because I kept falling off other apps once
the "new lesson every day" structure ran dry or started feeling like homework. The daily game is
deliberately short — a few minutes, not a full session — because the goal was to make "today's
Chinese practice" something you can finish before you've even sat down properly. Play today's game
free at [hsk.fulinlabs.com](https://hsk.fulinlabs.com), or read more on the
[HSK Studio project page](/projects/hsk-studio/).

**Where it falls short:** No speaking or pronunciation-scoring drills, no formal grammar
curriculum, and the dictionary is built for quick in-context lookups rather than exhaustive
reference work.

### 2. Duolingo

**What it is:** The best-known gamified language-learning app, with a Chinese course built around
short structured lessons, streaks, and a league/leaderboard system.

**Best for:** Beginners who want vocabulary and grammar taught in a fixed sequence, and who respond
well to streak and XP-based motivation.

**My first-hand note:** Duolingo's Chinese course is a genuinely reasonable on-ramp for absolute
beginners — it introduces characters and pinyin gradually rather than assuming prior familiarity.
The gamified streak system is, in my opinion, still one of the best-tuned "come back tomorrow"
mechanics in any language app.

**Where it falls short:** No dedicated in-app dictionary for looking up words outside the lesson
flow, and the course structure can start to feel repetitive once you're past early lessons and want
more varied, natural reading material.

### 3. HelloChinese

**What it is:** A structured Chinese course app with lessons, speaking-practice drills, and
character-writing exercises, aimed specifically (unlike Duolingo) at Mandarin rather than being a
general multi-language platform.

**Best for:** Learners who want a course built Chinese-first, with more attention to tones, stroke
order, and speaking practice than a general-purpose app usually gives.

**My first-hand note:** Because HelloChinese is built only for Chinese, its lesson sequencing and
example content feel noticeably more tailored to the language's actual difficulty spots — tone
pairs, measure words, character components — than a bolted-on Chinese course inside a
multi-language app.

**Where it falls short:** It doesn't have a full built-in dictionary — you're mostly working within
its own glossary and course vocabulary. It's freemium rather than a time-boxed trial (roughly 50
units of course content are free permanently), but the free units do run out well before the end
of the course, at which point a subscription is the only way to keep going.

### 4. Du Chinese

**What it is:** A graded-reader app with a library of short stories and articles at different
difficulty levels, each with audio, pinyin toggle, and translation support.

**Best for:** Learners who specifically want extensive reading practice across a curated library of
graded content, rather than a game or gamified lesson format.

**My first-hand note:** Du Chinese's leveling system is genuinely well thought out — stories are
graded finely enough that you can find something just slightly above your current level, which
matters more for reading practice than most learners realize going in.

**Where it falls short:** There's no standalone dictionary to search outside the story you're
reading — just the tap-to-define popup inside the reader — and the full library sits behind a
subscription after a free tier of lessons, so it's not really a free-forever option in the way
HSK Studio or Duolingo's core tier is.

### 5. Pleco

**What it is:** The long-standing, most thorough Chinese dictionary app on mobile, with multiple
bundled dictionaries, stroke-order animations, and an optional camera-based OCR lookup add-on.

**Best for:** Anyone whose main need is deep, exhaustive dictionary lookups — translation work,
classical or technical texts, or looking up printed text via camera.

**My first-hand note:** As someone who built a competing reading app, I'll say plainly that Pleco's
dictionary depth is unmatched by anything lighter, HSK Studio included. If your job or coursework
depends on reference-grade lookups, Pleco is the right tool. I cover this trade-off in full in
[HSK Studio vs Pleco](/blog/hsk-studio-vs-pleco-2026/).

**Where it falls short:** No daily-habit format or content loop — it's a reference tool you open
reactively when you already need a lookup, not something that gives you a reason to open it on a
given day.

### 6. LingQ

**What it is:** A reading- and listening-focused app that tracks every word you look up as a
"LingQ," building a personal vocabulary database as you work through imported or library content.

**Best for:** Intermediate-to-advanced learners who want to do extensive reading and listening
with their own vocabulary progress tracked over time.

**My first-hand note:** LingQ's vocabulary-tracking system is its real differentiator — watching
your known-word count climb as you read is a surprisingly effective motivator for sticking with
longer, harder texts than you'd otherwise attempt.

**Where it falls short:** The free tier is fairly limited — roughly 20 saved LingQs total, not per
month, so it's a one-time allowance rather than something that resets — and the interface has a
steeper learning curve than a game-first or course-first app, rewarding learners who are already
committed to an extensive-reading routine.

### 7. Anki (with Chinese decks)

**What it is:** A free, general-purpose spaced-repetition flashcard app, widely used for Chinese
via shared community decks (HSK vocabulary lists, sentence-mining decks, and more).

**Best for:** Learners who already have a source of new vocabulary (a textbook, a reading app, a
class) and want a dedicated, highly customizable tool for long-term retention.

**My first-hand note:** Anki's underlying spaced-repetition algorithm is genuinely excellent for
retention, and it's free on desktop and Android (AnkiMobile is a one-time ~$24.99 purchase on iOS,
not a subscription). But it's a blank tool — it does nothing until you feed it a deck, which is why
I usually recommend it as a companion to a reading or lesson app rather than a starting point on
its own. I go into Anki's setup and tradeoffs in full in
[Flashcard vs Anki for Chinese](/blog/flashcard-vs-anki-chinese-2026/) — this entry is deliberately
short since that's the fuller comparison.

**Where it falls short:** No dictionary, no reading content, no daily-habit design of its own — it
depends entirely on the deck you load into it, and building or curating a good deck is its own
separate task.

## How to combine a few of these

None of these apps are mutually exclusive, and in practice the strongest daily Chinese routine I've
seen (and the one I use myself) combines a couple of them rather than picking just one. A workflow
that works well: play the day's HSK Studio game and read through its text reader for your daily
trigger and reading practice, keep Pleco installed for the moments you need a deeper lookup or OCR,
and if you want structured grammar alongside that, add Duolingo's lesson track on top. Each one is
covering a different part of the day — a couple of minutes of habit-forming practice, an occasional
deep lookup, and a structured lesson track — rather than fighting over the same slot.

If you're deciding where to start today, the lowest-friction first step is
[hsk.fulinlabs.com](https://hsk.fulinlabs.com), and it takes less time to try than it
took to read this list. If it isn't the right fit, everything else on this
list is still exactly where you left it. I've also written a deeper piece on the specific mechanics
of building a daily Chinese reading habit, which is worth a read regardless of which app you land
on: [how to build a daily Chinese reading habit](/blog/daily-chinese-reading-habit-2026/).

## FAQ

### What's the best free app for a daily Chinese habit?

For a short, low-friction daily habit, HSK Studio is the strongest fit — a new casual game every day, a built-in dictionary, and a text reader with pinyin and audio, all free with no account. Duolingo is the best free option if you want structured, gamified lessons instead of a reading-first format.

### Which free Chinese apps have a built-in dictionary?

HSK Studio, Pleco, and LingQ all have a standalone dictionary you can use for lookups outside of a specific lesson. Du Chinese has tap-to-define word popups inside its reader (pinyin, translation, audio) rather than a standalone dictionary app, Duolingo has no dedicated dictionary at all, and HelloChinese leans on its own glossary rather than a full dictionary.

### Do I need to pay for any of these apps?

All seven have a genuinely usable free tier. Pleco's core dictionary is free with paid add-ons (OCR, extra dictionaries). Du Chinese and HelloChinese are freemium — a real chunk of content is free permanently, and the rest sits behind a subscription, not a time-boxed trial. LingQ's free tier caps you at roughly 20 saved LingQs total, not per month. HSK Studio and Duolingo's core experience are free without a required upgrade.

### Is HSK Studio free, and do I need an account?

Yes to both — HSK Studio is free at hsk.fulinlabs.com and doesn't require an account to play the daily game, use the dictionary, or read with the text reader.

### Which app should a total beginner start with?

If you want a habit that's easy to keep for months, start with HSK Studio's daily game plus its text reader, and add Duolingo if you want structured grammar lessons alongside it. Add Pleco later if you need deeper dictionary lookups or OCR.