Free Chinese (Simplified) learning resources
31 free resources, checked and categorised.
No trials, no paywalls, no sign-up required.
Chinese separates cleanly into two problems, and treating them as one is what makes it feel impossible. The grammar is genuinely simple — no conjugation, no tenses, no gender, no plurals. The writing system and the tones are the whole difficulty, and they are largely independent of each other.
Start tones on day one, in whole words rather than in isolation. Tones learned late are extremely hard to fix, because you will have spent months building muscle memory for the wrong shape. Do not treat them as an advanced topic.
For characters, learn them as combinations of repeating components rather than as pictures to memorise. Most characters contain a part hinting at meaning and a part hinting at sound; once you see that, the several-thousand-character mountain becomes a few hundred pieces recombined.
Pinyin is a useful bridge and a trap if you stay on it. Move to characters early, keep a dictionary that handles handwriting or component lookup, and expect reading to lag speaking for a long time.
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Recommended Chinese podcasts.
A course for beginners, by the Benjing University.
A course for beginners who already know a thing or two.
It's full of great advice for how to study the language at all levels, and also hosts monthly challenges that rotate between reading, listening, speaking, and writing. The articles can be searched by level (beginner, intermediate, advanced) or by skill (listening, reading, speaking, writing, vocabulary). I've been referencing this blog for at least 5 years now and I love it so much!
Reviews of Chinese language learning sites and other useful resources.
Learn to read Mandarin Chinese in 30 days without pinyin! You'll have LIFETIME access to the first 3 Phases of the program + their respective flashcards (from level 1 to 13).
"A lively introduction to Mandarin Chinese in 10 short parts with video clips from the Real Chinese TV series."
News from China and Taiwan with useful vocabulary.
"40 online lessons with audio, including reading, speaking, writing, modern vocabulary, grammar, calligraphy, examples and exercices. All texts and dialogs in mp3 format for download."
A Facebook group.
Free books in Chinese.
Learn it there, practise it here
Free resources are great for input — reading, listening, explanations. They are weaker at the two things that actually move you forward: speaking Chinese (Simplified) out loud, and remembering what you met once. That is what OwnSlides is for.
Say it out loud
Talk to an AI tutor that answers back, or join a live room with other learners and native speakers.
Practise what you read
Turn a grammar point or article into exercises, so it moves from recognised to usable.
Keep the words
Save new words to My Words and let spaced repetition bring them back before you forget them.
This directory began from a community-built list of free language resources — a year of collecting and checking by Joanna (u/chlebka) and dozens of contributors who suggested links, shared freely. See the original list. We have since expanded, re-checked and re-categorised it, and we keep the per-resource credits where the original list recorded them.