Editor’s Note: This ChineseClass101 Review is up to date as of September 16, 2024. Note that there are affiliate links in this post, but we ONLY recommend products that we have used and genuinely like!
With over 1.1 billion fluent Mandarin Chinese speakers in the world, learning it yourself is a no-brainer if you have any business or personal ties to Asia. Given that China is a manufacturing giant and its economy is the second largest in the world—behind the United States—learning Chinese is definitely a worthwhile investment. For these reasons and many more, learning Chinese could lead to many successes, both now and in the future.
ChineseClass101 Review: Summary
Price: Varies based which monthly subscription you choose (Basic, Premium or Premium PLUS).
Operating System: Web Browser and Mobile App for Android and iOS
Application Category: Language Learning Software
Our Verdict
Quality of Learning Materials:
Quantity of Lessons:
Effective and Efficient:
Teaches Useful Chinese:
Price:
Overall Score: 4.2
Pros
- The quality of lessons continues to improve with each new batch of releases
- Easily accessible on any device
- Loads of interactive tools and extra learning features
- Topics are incredibly diverse and interesting, relevant to todays culture
Cons
- Lessons are long and can be tedious at times
- The platform can feel disorganised and the lesson structure a bit random
- Does not provide effective instruction on Chinese Characters
ChineseClass101 Review Overview
The Pros: What We Liked About ChineseClass101
When we tested the ChineseClass101 program, we were blown away by the presentation, the level of detail, and the impact it had on quickly improving our Chinese. Our team was already accustomed to the quality of language programs created by the Innovative Language team, and the Chinese edition exceeded our high expectations.
Pro #1: A LOT of Lessons Available
The ChineseClass101 philosophy of learning through immersion and context has proven to be useful to many aspiring Chinese language learners.
The lessons are intuitive, well thought out, and there are a ton of them. They currently offer an incredible 2,425 lessons broken up over five study levels. Because the course is so comprehensive and includes hundreds of hours of content like this, you likely won’t need to purchase any additional programs.
Pro #2: Focus on Real World Understanding
ChineseClass101 seeks to teach the language through real-world scenarios including information about its application, vocabulary, and grammar. Each lesson provides thoughtful context to help the learner understand, along with information regarding China’s cultural norms. We found the anecdotes and topics covered in the lesson conversations to be really interesting, which helps keep you motivated and engaged in the learning process.
Pro #3: Extremely Thorough Lesson Plans
Each module of the ChineseClass101 program is based on a different theme. For example:
- Chinese Holiday Words (10 lessons)
- Lessons for Your Flight to China (16 lessons)
- Top 25 Chinese Questions You Need to Know (28 lessons)
From the beginning to the bonus materials, lessons have been thoughtfully planned out by a multinational team of language experts, and it really shows. Audio and video lessons are thorough, easy to understand, and come with useful supplementary information that teach the dialogue in Simplified & Traditional Chinese, English, & Pinyin.
You’ll first be prompted to listen to the dialogue or watch the video, then read through the line-by-line transcript, listening again to the audio for each line as needed. You are then given a full list of all the new vocabulary along with audio clips and a ‘record yourself’ feature (to compare yourself alongside the native speaker).
Finally, everything is summarised rather succinctly into downloadable lesson notes, covering all the grammar, explanations, and cultural insights.
The range of topics is truly unique and it won’t take much browsing to come across lessons that catch your interest. Ranging from daily routines to must-know slang phrases, there’s enough material to satisfy your appetite, allowing you to focus on the topics that really interest you.
Similar to its more popular sister site JapanesePod101, ChinesePod101 is based on the central concept of podcasts and video content. This makes it an exceptional tool for practicing your listening skills, which is so key to studying Chinese. By following the audio transcript line-by-line and utilising all the comprehensive study tools available, ChinesePod101 makes a very effective and invaluable learning tool to help you master this difficult language.
Pro #4: Brilliant for Building Your Chinese Vocabulary
One of the shortcomings of most traditional methods of learning Chinese is their heavy reliance on memorisation. While this approach may work for some, memorising large sets of vocabulary out of context is a surefire way to leave you feeling demotivated and exhausted.
Unlike other learning platforms such as Duolingo, ChineseClass101 tackles this problem effectively by gradually introducing new vocabulary into the video and audio lessons. This way you start to build up a clearer picture of how and when to use specific words in the correct context.
The reason why this learning method is so effective is because our brains are wired to remember stories and situations. So, each new set of vocabulary comes with an accompanying story and memorable narrative.
The speed function can then be adjusted so that you’re able to slow down and really nail the pronunciation of those new words. You can even record yourself and play it back if you’re brave enough! This technique really helps to fine-tune the tones and specific sounds that may not exist in English.
The Cons: What We Didn't Like About ChineseClass101
Full disclosure: We loved this program, and we think it’s a fun and effective way to learn Chinese. But there are two aspects of the language course that we unfortunately can’t quite advocate for: The teaching of the writing system and the seemingly messy structure to the whole program.
Con #1: Lack of high quality lessons on the Chinese Writing System
The audio and video lesson format can only go so far in teaching Simplified and Traditional Chinese. While the romanization is helpful for learning what Chinese words and phrases sound like and how they are spelled out, there is a lack of lessons teaching each component of the writing system.
To be fair, teaching the Chinese writing system is an incredibly difficult task. Most modern dictionaries contain over 20,000 individual characters and the language constitutes the oldest writing system on the planet. Chinese characters have served as the inspiration for the Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese languages, and Chinese is quite commonly referred to as the world’s most difficult language to read and write. Overall, we’d like to see a bigger focus on the Chinese writing.
Con #2: Lack of Logical Teaching Structure
A common problem we’ve noticed across all the Pod101 products is a lack of structure to effectively guide you through the language in a logical and strategic manner.
The program’s greatest strength is also its greatest weakness. While the customizable lessons do allow you to stay engaged by picking and choosing lessons based on your interests, you sacrifice a methodical roadmap that most traditional textbooks and learning resources rely upon heavily. Therefore, for serious learners it’s almost essential to purchase the Premium PLUS package to avoid getting lost in a sea of lessons.
If you do go for this option, however, then you’ll have nothing to worry about since their personalized learning program is one of the best out there and is tailored to your specific goals, strengths and weaknesses.
What Are The Lessons Like?
As mentioned above, the lessons span 5 different modules across a range of Chinese difficulty levels. The lessons tend to vary depending on the module, but they all share commonalities and they are all structured similarly. They start with a video or audio component and include a lesson transcript below.
Each lesson has a vocabulary section that highlights new words. In the browser version, you can create your own flash cards, add new words to your word bank, take quizzes, and ask questions to the staff.
One function that we really liked is that all of their lessons have a comments section and instructors will almost always reply to questions! This type of feedback is absent in nearly all of their competitors and is another reason why we like their products so much.
Another powerful learning tool is the ability to download the entire lesson plan as a PDF. This feature gives the user the ability to learn in their own style and pace.
To check out the lessons for free, you can either go here or listen to the ChineseClass101 podcast. Either will give you a good idea of the quality, and whether it fits your learning style.
Additional Features
The audio and video lessons are truly the core of the platform. However, there are some really cool bonus features to top it off.
2000 Most Common Words
First, there’s the 2000 most common words—there’s actually 2,062 words, to be exact—and you can narrow it down to the top 100, 200, and so on if you’d like. What I love about this section is that you can filter the words by category. Are you currently learning about clothing? Just click on the drop-down tab, select ‘clothing’, and voilà—you have a list of the most commonly spoken words related to clothing. Each word comes with an audio and pronunciation guide for you to mimic and get the pronunciation spot on.
For each vocabulary item, there’s also a corresponding image and example sentences so that you’re able to learn the words in context. Simply click the plus icon to add a word to your word bank or to one of your flashcard decks. To help you learn Chinese characters, there is also a built-in feature that allows you to zoom in on the characters when you hover over them. The entire interface is very user-friendly and quite fun to browse whenever you have a bit of free time.
Chinese Key Phrases
The next feature worth mentioning is the key phrases section. What sets it apart is that, again, we have several specific examples for each phrase, so you can get a good idea of what context the phrase is used in. I also like that you can toggle on or off the Pinyin or Traditional Chinese characters, which is a great way of testing yourself and getting used to recognising the Chinese characters.
Chinese Dictionary
You can search in both English and Chinese, and each word has an accompanying audio sample at both full and half speed, which is very useful.
Trackable Learning Progress
With the Premium membership you’ll get access to quizzes after every lesson and regular progress reviews which you’re able to track.
With the Basic membership you won’t have this ability, but what you can do is mark every lesson as complete once you’ve finished it and you’ll see how many you’ve completed at the top of your dashboard. Personally, this serves as a really good motivator for me, since I always want to complete an extra lesson to boost my score.
Lesson Notes
If you’re someone who likes to make notes to organise your thoughts, you can do so during the lesson. These will be saved for you to review whenever you want.
Flash Cards
For flashcards I usually use Anki or Pleco; however I can see how ChineseClass101’s integrated flashcard system can be really handy. What I really like is that there are plenty of pre-set flashcard decks covering a variety of interesting topics, from Star Wars Day to bugs and insects, and more.
Unlike other flashcard programs, the images are already pre-assigned, along with sample sentences and pronunciation guides. If you learn best with flashcards, all the functionality is in place to create your own personal flashcard paradise!
ChineseClass101 vs. Competitors
As mentioned in our JapanesePod101 review, we believe Innovative Languages make some of the best language programs out there. That said, they are not the only good option out there.
We believe that an effective Chinese language instruction program should address three critical components of the Mandarin Chinese dialect. Those are:
- Chinese Grammar
While some basic Chinese grammar mimics that of the english language (SVO, or Subject + Verb + Object), Chinese sentence structure tends to deviate significantly from other languages. It’s important that a language program highlights these considerable differences. - Chinese Tones
Tones and voice inflections have a huge impact on the meaning of words and even entire sentences. An effective language program needs to address the tonal/pronunciation aspect of Chinese speech correctly and effectively. - Chinese Characters
When your language requires between 2,000 – 3,000 individual characters just to read a newspaper, you know the the writing system is important. Chinese characters are difficult to learn, however any effective language program should address teaching them.
With these requirements, we can confidently recommend Yoyo Chinese, Rocket Chinese and FluentU: Chinese as paid competitors, and Duolingo as a totally free alternative.
How Much Does It Cost? And Is It Worth The Money?
From my personal experience using ChineseClass101, it’s very apparent just how much thought the creators have put behind the whole platform. I was pleasantly surprised by the user interface and the overall layout. It’s a breeze to navigate between the lessons and hours can fly by as you soak up all the new content.
Even offline you can download the lesson notes and word bank as well as all of the audio files as MP3s so you can listen on the go (which is really awesome, given the sheer amount of diverse audio content being regularly added).
Despite the many worthy competitors to ChineseClass101, it is definitely a valuable learning tool for boosting your learning, specifically in improving your listening skills. It’s the perfect resource to use alongside a more structured textbook or teaching curriculum. For busy people, I can see how it’d be perfect for squeezing in some language learning on the go—during a lunch break, a work commute, or simply while unwinding after a long day.
ChineseClass101 has three tiers of membership; Basic, Premium & Premium PLUS. Anybody considering paying for the paid tiers should first consider their level of commitment to learning Chinese.
Casual learners may consider the Basic plan, while those aiming to learn Chinese quickly should consider Premium. Premium PLUS, the top tier, is recommended for those who are able to make a serious time commitment in order to take advantage of the 1-on-1 instruction.
ChineseClass101 Discount Code
Since we like and use this program ourselves, we reached out to the course creators for a discount for our readers. They’re currently offering Perapera.org readers an incredible 30% off any purchase of ChineseClass101 Basic, Premium, and Premium PLUS. That works out to only $2.80 per month for Basic, $7.00 for Premium, and $16.01 for Premium PLUS. This is a great deal if you’re serious about learning Chinese and want to take your learning to the next level.
ChineseClass101 Review Conclusion: Recommended, But You’ll Still Need A Chinese Textbook
Chinese is a very difficult language to learn and no language learning program will be perfect. However, ChineseClass101 does a great job at providing a structured curriculum while still offering flexibility to choose the way you study.
The 1-on-1 lessons in the Premium PLUS tier offer excellent value, and we believe would be a significant boost in learning Chinese. That said, we still recommend you supplement the course with a dedicated Chinese textbook to really learn the writing system.
All in all, we recommend ChineseClass101 for auditory and visual learners, from absolute beginner to intermediate.
Sign up for a free trial here or use our code to get 30% off Basic or Premium.
Our Editorial Team is a group of language learning enthusiasts who are passionate about testing new apps and finding the best ways to learn a language.
