Du Chinese – Read Mandarin 读中文

First, this is a fantastic app and I’m excited that I can read so much interesting content at my level. I am a heritage speaker and always dreaded reading Chinese growing up. I was so happy that I could read the Three Kingdoms Romance since they made an easy abridged version. The level, the translation, the hidden pinyin, and the read-aloud options all made for a really enjoyable reading experience. Some recommendations: 1. There is so much content though and it is hard to find things (unless I save them). I wish they had a section where it was just all Chinese literature since those are so important for understanding and connecting to Chinese culture. 2. Include the title, chapter, and author of the novels in Chinese. I see that I’m reading “The Three Kingdoms 1: The Beauty Trap” but I don’t know how to say that in Chinese. 3. Add the other classic novels please! The Three Kingdoms Romance is one of four great Chinese novels, but where are the other three? Anyways, thank you for putting this app together!

I learn many new words and the audio is very helpful as well

Went from newbie to intermediate reading in a couple weeks. Convenient way of listening while reading. Like that it keeps track od the new words. I prefer the longer stories over the short stories so I wish there was much more in the intermediate level but theres still a lot. Some of the stories are very interesting but not all. I feel like its helped my vocab improve drastically which is the point so I would recommend.

Tried lots of apps to learn Chinese and found this one to be the most effective combining reading and listening is very help. Most useful for me so far and has helped me to make good progress and I enjoy reading the stories even though they are silly and basic at my level. That is a good thing.

I grew up speaking Mandarin, but was basically illiterate. In just 13 months of using this app, I’ve learned over 2,000 characters, easily read at HSK level 5, and can even make nuanced cultural and historical references, all thanks to Du Chinese. My relatives are nothing short of blown away. They have the best user interface bar none, with dictionary definitions and sentence translations available at the touch of a button. Their articles are also actually interesting, informative, and relevant. There is no easier or better way to learn how to read (or should I say du?) Chinese.

Reading, listening, vocab. It has it all. Loved the 藏花 story. I want more of these serial productions!

Du Chinese was recommended by my Chinese teacher and I’m so glad he did because I’ve been getting a lot out of it. I like listening to the stories first and writing down my summary of the story and then going back and reading out loud to myself. My in-class reading out loud has noticeably improved since I started reading more using Du Chinese. It’s really helpful for me play sections of the narration while I’m reading to compare my cadence, emphasis and pronunciation to the narrator’s. The help with pronunciation and cadence has been an unexpected boon, I really thought Du Chinese would mostly just benefit my listening and reading comprehension. Highly recommend!! Also the iPhone app is very nice to use.

Each Chinese character is linked to the Pleco Chinese Dictionary which includes how to write the Chinese Character with the correct stroke order. Du Chinese has many stories to learn from and some short lessons. You may setup flash cards and practice learning that way as well as reading the text. The app will read the text for you and highlight each character as it read the characters. You may download the lessons to listen to them while you do something else. I find it most beneficial when I let the app read it once and then I go back and read it myself highlighting the words as I go to learn the Chinese characters. I can turn on and off the English Translation as will as the pinyin so I can read the text without the hints. This is a very well designed app. With good support. When I contact their support team I find they are most helpful and responsive to suggested text I would like to study in Chinese. I highly recommend this app to help you learn Chinese.

I recognized about 1000 characters when I started using this app, and began with the upper-intermediate level lessons. After 6 months I finished all the master level lessons (about 300) and recognized ~3000 characters. Excellent. But now I have no more to read

Lessons are designed to reinforce new vocabulary through repetition, and smart flash cards can be automatically created and reviewed in the app or exported to Pleco, Anki, etc.