7 Best Free Apps for Daily Chinese Practice (2026)

The best free app for daily Chinese practice in 2026 is, in my own admittedly biased opinion, ClassGame — 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, ClassGame isn’t the right fit for everyone, so this list covers six other genuinely good free apps too — where they beat ClassGame, and where they don’t.

I’m Giovanni Fu Lin, and I run Fulin Labs. Below is the best free apps for daily Chinese practice 2026 lineup, compared head to head, followed by a closer look at each one.

App	Format	Built-in dictionary?	Price
ClassGame	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 — ClassGame 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 ClassGame 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 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 ClassGame’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: ClassGame, 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:

• ClassGame’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 ClassGame vs Pleco for daily Chinese reading.

The 7 apps, one by one

1. ClassGame

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 ClassGame 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 classgame.fulinlabs.com, or read more on the ClassGame project page.

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 ClassGame 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, ClassGame included. If your job or coursework depends on reference-grade lookups, Pleco is the right tool. I cover this trade-off in full in ClassGame vs Pleco.

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 — 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 ClassGame 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 classgame.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.