ChineseSkill - Learn Chinese Reviews

by Mscrys6

Only been using this a few days, layout is similar to Lingodeer, material is nice well laid out.
However, on the first lesson, it’ll sound out some words showing pinyin and then it’ll give two squares and sound out a word. I assume you’re supposed to pick the square that contains the pinyin to go with the pronunciation, but I can’t actually see any pinyin. It’s literally just a screen with the Panda and audio and two blank, white squares. I’ve been guessing my way through these. Please fix this !!

okay so i have to edit to two stars because this bug keeps occurring. It also happen in the story reading exercises, when it asks you a question but the entire question doesn’t show up so i’m still just guessing the answer. very annoying and make app impossible to use. it’s a reoccurring problem and app would be great if only this was fixed

by Cuaycx

I gave ChineseSkill 5 stars when I first started using it but knocking off 2 stars today due to the most recent May 2019 update. I had been using ChineseSkill for 6 months already and really enjoyed it and appreciated the fact that the developers had a great mission to help people learn the Chinese language. It was the most comprehensive free app and I tested well over a dozen apps before settling down with this app. After the update, they’ve now locked a lot of the “Immersion” content using a paywall subscription. This feature used to be completely free and set ChineseSkill apart from all the others. With this move, it’s now a mediocre app that’s just as good as the others.

Don’t get me wrong. It’s still good and I still appreciate it. But their move to a paywall subscription model means I need to use other apps to supplement my learning process. This makes them just at par with the others, and therefore, deserving of a mediocre rating.

Time to begin (again!) my search for a best-in-class app...!

by Computerzandbks4ever

ChineseSkill is okay, but I still prefer HelloChinese and DuoLingo (which I've used for other languages).

ChineseSkill doesn't have as many different styles of questions, mostly just multiple choice and typing, so it's not nearly as engaging of a learning experience. It also starts to feel a bit too repetitive.

The sound effects are really annoying. I really don't like that unpleasant cash register-like sound.

Moreover, the test out feature is ridiculous. I already know a fair amount of beginner Chinese, so I didn't want to be stuck doing frustratingly simple exercises like "I am a girl" and "he is a boy." However, I failed the first three times I tried to test out because I didn't know "peach", "sun", and "round." It seems like the test out feature requires you to know everything already, which means the whole app is pointless.

Also, I really don't like having percentages at the end of lessons. When I see I, I feel like I've failed a test even though it's just an app.

The illustrations for vocab words are very well done. Sometimes the meaning is not as clear as the tacky stock photos used in HelloChinese, but they're a little more pleasant to look at.

After answering a question correctly, I wish the translation shown under "good job!" was bigger and easier to read.

by Angel226

I’ve tried this and duolingo for a few days, and although duolingo seems to be more well known (could be just marketing), I like this app app more. (My background is that I am Cantonese Chinese, and I know how to speak and understand some really basic Mandarin but am not a native Mandarin speaker.)

Duolingo was way too repetitive, i was on the first lesson “greetings” and it repeated the same two words (“hello”) throughout 2-3 long lessons which was such a waste of time. this app is not as mind-numbingly repetitive and even when it does try to teach you the same word/sentence a few times it will do it in a few different ways. Also, I really appreciate that this app teaches not only the sounds of the words but also shows you the pinyin and how to write the words in Chinese characters, which duolingo does not do.

They are both fun apps, and I can see how they’d be a fun and easy way to teach people completely new to the language. But since I already know how to speak and understand some basic mandarin, and I am looking to increase my vocabulary more quickly in order to be able to carry conversations and would also like to learn how to read and write chinese, I think I need to take a more advanced maybe university level course, like on Coursera or something.

by Tohru_honda

I could give ChineseSkill 5 stars because of how well made it is. It tests reading, listening, speaking, and writing...all that without straining/stressing the learner. With the lesson explanation, I feel more confident and comfortable concluding each lesson, and not guessing the rules (the way duolingo does). Also the panda animation is cute.

However I deducted 1 star because I ultimately believe that to better acquire a language more efficiently, an app should begin with more every day emotional expressions of needs and emotions. I would prefer to express myself first with ‘i am hungry’ or ‘i am really sad’ rather than the vocabulary for countries, foods.

Nonetheless, I still highly recommend ChineseSkill for beginners, because I cannot stress enough how I have enjoyed learning through it, and how it is satisfying rather than frustrating, with all its features.

by Davibertolini

I started learning mandarin some years ago after a trip to China. At first I had a teacher with whom I learnt the basics, then because of traveling I started following a course with an app, but did not follow through. I started studying Chinese again, but didn’t want to pay for something I wasn’t sure I would commit (avoid past mistakes). So I downloaded Chinese skill and I’m very pleased with the way its structured to teach. I actually donated what I was paying on the other app because the quality of the content and the structure is great for me!

In any case, I recommend that everyone should study a bit of pinyin history and an overview of the sounds, which I have not found in any app, those are best taught by a real person.

Only gave 4 stars because it’s not iPhone X ready, hopefully more people use it, find it valuable and donate for ChineseSkill to thrive as it deserves!

by Iamgirl1

I like it because it has a lot of different ways you can learn. If you feel like practicing vocabulary you can or you can do the basic lessons. I love that part. I think I’m learning more words than hello Chinese from ChineseSkill. Hello Chinese looks better and has a much smoother user interface. The way you draw the characters in HC is so much better than the way you do it in ChineseSkill. But I feel like there is more to learn and do in ChineseSkill. One thing I wished they’d improve on is showing what I’ve learned by darkening it out like in hello Chinese. Now I can’t tell what lesson I’m on anymore. The notes in ChineseSkill are really really good, I like that. Compared to duolingos Chinese this is much much much better. DL is better for Spanish in my opinion. ChineseSkill could be number one if they worked on it more. It is however pretty good now as I use it almost every day. Like I said before, the vocab practice part is the most useful in my opinion.

by Lavenderlily3

Hi!

I love ChineseSkill, but however, the new lesson format is very annoying!! There is no way to turn off English translations in the new lessons! I already KNOW what the characters mean, and if I am supposed to be learning to read Chinese and not English, I need to be able to only see Chinese characters if I want. Giving English translations every darn time WILL NEVER HELP a person learn to read Chinese. We need to be able to test our reading skills by NOT seeing English(or other language that a person’s native language is.) over or under the characters. Why did you guys ADD English to everything?? The old lessons were not like that. Please fix the new lessons to be English free! It is not immersion when my native language is always in my face when I don’t want it to be. A person should be allowed to choose whether they want translations or not. If we can choose to have pinyin, both pinyin and characters or just characters, then we should be able to turn on and off the English translations as well. The ONLY place any English translations should be permanent in, are in the green/red boxes, where corrections are given after we give an answer. Otherwise, English(or other people’s native language) should be an option in the non-green/red box areas and not permanent. I tried to find a way to turn them off, but there is no way. PLEASE FIX IMMEDIATELY! Thank you! I will change to 5 stars once this is fixed.

by SecretestSoul

I like ChineseSkill so much!! I speak four languages and took two years of Chinese in high school - so I wanted to brush up and keep improving my language, but I found Duolingo wasn't helpful because it asked you to say really weird things that you would never say, like "my shoes are in the hat" - which you would never use..! I love that ChineseSkill has so many different exercises.

The only thing I'm realizing is that I'm only using the pinyin, which helps me pronounce it, but not actually learn the signs.... maybe that could be an added exercise? That would make it even better!! (And as someone suggested before, a speaking exercise where you have to pronounce it right, since that's so important because of the tones you might actually say something else...)

Thank you so much for this wonderful app and for making it free for people who love studying languages!! :)

by Medstar1

I know English and Spanish and am now learning mandarin with ChineseSkill. I am almost 30 and so learning a new language is not as easy as it was when I was in high school. I like ChineseSkill because it uses different teaching styles to cater to variable learning needs. For example, it uses video (a new feature), symbols, audio, and recall as well as recognition. You can switch settings to see only pinyin or pinyin+ characters. There are games as well that you can play if on a time crunch. I took a break from ChineseSkill for a few months and upon coming back I’ve found I remember almost everything needing only a few refreshers- A true testament to the effectiveness of their teaching strategies! Love it and will continue to learn mandarin using ChineseSkill only!

by Mrjko

I am fluent in Cantonese but also wanted to learn conversational Mandarin. After a quick search in ChineseSkill Store, ChineseSkill came up at the top of the search results. I read the reviews and decided this is ChineseSkill to start my journey to conversational Mandarin. I’ve only been using ChineseSkill for a month and have made progress. The keys to success are be consistent, go slow, and do the reviews after each lesson before moving on. I devote an hour a day to review and/or new lessons. So far I am able to form simple sentences and order at my local Chinese restaurant. For me, that is a win. One anomaly is when I got to the lesson on numbers and measurements there was no teaching lesson. Instead, I was thrown into the sentence quizzes. I muddled through but also noticed there is no audio for some of the fill in the blank sentences so I didn’t know which word is said to pick from. All in all, this is a great start for those who want to learn Mandarin.

by Dastan Muwafaq

I'm a big fan of the simple format of ChineseSkill. One of my most hated things in life is programs that confuse the user. ChineseSkill goes above and beyond to ensure you do not get confused. The best example of this is the clear and concise wording of their lesson notes. Many teachers and professors have a problem of over-complicating material for students by using confusing or unorthodox wording.

The developers really go out of their way to ensure your pronunciation is correct. I highly recommend saying words out loud (when noones around, of course) because the trick to learning this language seems to be the difficult pronunciations.

Last bit of advice: make sure you download the Pinyin keyboard for your iPhone before starting a lesson. Pinyin is basically Chinese in Latin characters.

by Kram7771

Overall this is a great app that is engaging and tests out the many facets it really takes to learn another language. I like how sometimes I have visuals (whether that’s a picture flashcard or a Chinese character), fill in the blank to practice listening skills, the ability to click on a word and character combination for vocabulary recall (I really like how the characters and pinyin are side by side 谢谢/xie xie), etc.

The suggestions I have are minor but I think would be very helpful. When you get an answer RIGHT I wish it would show the whole sentence in Chinese (and its pinyin) AND correct English translation. It would also be great if you could still get an opportunity to HEAR the sentence AFTER you have answered (whether you got it right or wrong) so that it can help you learn it more because it’s great to be able to hear and read the answer over again (whether right or wrong).

Another cool thing would be if you could incentivize ChineseSkill so that it is even more like a game. Most people like mini challenges and earning things. DuoLingo already has something similar to this. Maybe you can earn a wrong answer back if you get three right in a row. Or after doing a set number of lessons (or minutes spent using ChineseSkill maybe per day) you could win different pandas, 元 （fake), or a dragon.

Anyway, those are just a couple of things that I thought would maybe help make this great app even better. 谢谢你们。再见👋。

by Samya Mymy

I love ChineseSkill I always thought Chinese would be hard. Ever since I was a kid I wanted to lean a whole bunch of languages and, I did what I wanted to so I downloaded a whole bunch of apps to learn the languages. So far this is the best app! It shows pictures to help you if u don’t know the word it is so good and it starts u off with words u would use on a daily basis and to start a easy sentence. I fell a little fluent if u say something I might know what your saying. And I have only been using ChineseSkill less than a week. I can also right pretty good some of the letters are hard but they do help u with that. The last thing is the pronunciation I fell like I am picking up really well. I would like to say thank you to who ever made ChineseSkill it is very useful.

by Admin-lbc-zg

I love ChineseSkill a lot Isaí has helped me in many ways but I feel like your competitors are HelloChinese, and Chineasy both of which I use, I use Hello Chinese because I like the speaking part because it catches any mistake you make, and I use Chineasy to memorize the Chinese words and vocabulary, and I use your company because I really like the way that the grammar is explained and your lesson notes are great, the reason I brought up stuff about the other companies is because I would love it if an app could be made that combines all of the things I mentioned and I feel like ChineseSkill might have the most promising future to it. It is set up really similar to Duolingo which I use for Spanish but there Chinese course is horrible. Over all I love ChineseSkill and would recommend it to anyone.

by Theonlykemi

Ice committed to learning mandarin and ChineseSkill is making it a lot easier than I expected.

Pros- there are sections that analyze your speech and lets you know which words’ pronunciation you need to work on. There are also sections where you have to write using a pinyin keyboard for the right characters, so you’re basically forced to learn the characters from the beginning— this is much easier than when I studied Japanese in school and kana came a few introductory lessons later. The class notes section breaks everything down for you with clear and understandable information that details grammar, use of particles, sentence structure, etc.

Cons: I’ve yet to find any.

by SmallBunnyxo

I’m an american living in china and I’ve always wanted to learn mandarin. I used duolingo for a while but I found that it was quite hard and confusing and the lesson structure was really bad for chinese. It taught hanzi without pinyin and didn’t teach writing at all along with teaching obscure words and characters that were quickly forgotten.

I just started using ChineseSkill and I already love it so much more, I’m considering buying the lifetime subscription. It teaches reading, writing, native listening, conversational speaking, pinyin + characters (with the option to turn off one or the other) and the lesson structure is a lot easier to follow. The only recommendations I have are to have more matching between pinyin and hanzi because for me, I can speak and listen well, but I can’t read or write easily. Also, to put an explanation for certain grammar or structural words especially like 在 or 要 which have multiple implications depending on the sentence.

by RafeHavok

Overall I love ChineseSkill! I’ve been using it for a month and a half, and I’ve found that it’s an incredibly useful tool to assist with learning! Everything they teach is done in a very comprehensive way and of the mini games are very helpful! It’s also easy to access and practice vocabulary you’ve previously learnt! However, I have noticed a small issue when you try to draw certain characters. This has occurred with the character ‘red’(红) as well as with about 3 others characters that I’ve come across. The issue makes it impossible to draw the last stroke of a character, and it only occurs when you attempt to free draw the character along the provided guided lines. From what I can discern, it seems ChineseSkill believes certain characters have one fewer stroke than they actually have, which causes this glitch. I hope you’ll consider fixing this problem! It doesn’t impact the overall experience of ChineseSkill too much, but it’s somewhat of an inconvenience!

by Scarlettt2020

I normally neglect rating apps because I’m lazy, but I would be selfish if I didn’t review this one. The reason is because this is one of THE best apps I’ve ever downloaded. The sheer variety of learning modes alone makes it the best app for learning Chinese for English speakers. You can practice everything - vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation, writing; and you can practice all of it in a variety of ways - flash cards, stories, typing, listening, speaking, and games. I hope I don’t jinx anything by saying this, but I would pay for this if it wasn’t all FREE. I’ve learned more mandarin through it than Duolingo. Thank you for making such a detailed app and I can’t wait to learn the other languages. 谢谢

by Impatient & Particular

Duolingo finally came out with Mandarin and I was so excited to check it out. Turns out I prefer Chinese Skill. Chinese Skill wisely incorporates pinyin into the lessons so whether you’re focusing on speaking or reading you can learn.

Granted, Duolingo staggers things well so you’re learning new stuff mixed in with phasing out stuff from previous lessons, which is not only a great memory technique but also helps you identify/eliminate the new/old vocab being rotated in...

However, Duolingo seems aimed more at people who already speak some mandarin and are just segueing to character recognition. After a year living in China, I can go back and blast through Duolingo whereas I had no idea what was going on with it at first because it’s character focused. The introduction segment of Duolingo teaches Chinese names/characters with their backward order which seemed totally useless and confusing for a beginner’s lesson.

Now I do Duolingo until I “die”, then do Chinese Skill until I can’t retain anything else. I miss the “correct” sound of a panda happily chomping his bamboo snacks and other stuff they changed with the update lol but it’s still my favorite mandarin app. :)

by Fence Post

First thing that will strike you about this program is how close it is to LingoDeer. It’s clearly been built from the same platform swapping out the deer for a panda, but the differences run deeper than that and not in the panda’s favor. The content is oriented around the HSK exams, which is nice and it has some cute arcade game features. However, when you opt in for the full version, you’ll find that some of the key features, such as dialog practice, don’t work (at least not on a Mac). If you follow the directions to leave feedback through ChineseSkill , you’ll find that it crashes. You’re also out of luck if you want to hear how a male pronounces words, because they only offer a woman’s voice. I appreciate that they offer characters in both simplified and traditional for those of us interested in traveling in Taiwan, but the traditional characters are not maintained for all features, so you end up getting a mix (this is also a problem with LingoDeer). I’m sure they will eventually get the kinks worked out, but I’d wait a while before investing in the full version. In the meantime, I’d highly recommend using LingoDeer. I’ve tried all the major language apps for Mandarin and for my money, it’s the best, especially if you’re interested in learning traditional characters.