Top 10 Best Apps for Learning Italian in 2026

Which Chinese learning app is right for you? That sounds like the wrong question until you realise most learners pick apps the way people pick snacks. They choose whatever looks easy, then wonder why their Mandarin stalls.

The better question is this. What gap are you trying to close right now? Beginners need structure. Early intermediates need more sentences and more context. Learners who can read a bit but can't write need a different tool again. If you try to solve all of that with one app, you usually end up with a long streak and weak real-world skills.

That’s why the best apps for learning italian, if we’re being honest about this brief, aren’t the point here. The useful comparison is for Mandarin, because the tools below fit a balanced Chinese study system instead of pretending one app can do everything.

This guide ranks ten strong Mandarin apps, but it shows how they fit into a study stack. Some are best as a daily backbone. Some are specialist tools you use for one job only. Some are worth paying for. Some are only useful once you’ve outgrown beginner courses. I’ve focused on what works in practice, what wastes time, and which combinations give you reading, listening, speaking, vocabulary, and character retention without turning study into app collecting.

1. Pleco

If you learn Chinese seriously, you install Pleco early and keep it for years. It isn't the flashiest app in this list, but it’s the tool I’d least want to lose.

Pleco starts as a dictionary, yet that undersells it. It becomes your lookup tool, your character recogniser, your quick reader, and often your flashcard system too.

Why it earns a permanent place

The biggest strength is reliability. You can search by pinyin, English, handwriting, and, with the right add-on, your camera. That matters in Chinese because you’ll constantly hit unknown characters in menus, screenshots, messages, and books.

A few features make Pleco hard to replace:

• Offline access: You can use core functions without a connection, which is useful for travel and for distraction-free study.
• Flexible lookup: Handwriting input saves you when you can’t type the character.
• Flashcards with SRS: If you want one app to handle both lookup and review, Pleco can do it.

The trade-off is obvious. The interface feels dated. New learners sometimes open it and think it looks too dense. They’re not wrong.

Practical rule: Don’t try to master every Pleco feature in week one. Start with dictionary lookup and handwriting input, then add flashcards later.

For a study stack, Pleco sits underneath everything else. HelloChinese teaches you a lesson. Mandarin Mosaic gives you useful sentences. Du Chinese feeds you reading practice. Pleco catches the words you still don’t know.

2. Mandarin Mosaic

What should you use after a beginner course if native content still feels too hard and flashcards alone are not sticking? Mandarin Mosaic fits that gap well.

Its strength is simple: it teaches vocabulary through sentences built around one new word at a time. For Mandarin, that matters. A word you "know" in isolation often falls apart when the sentence order shifts, a measure word appears, or the tone pattern changes in connected speech. Learning through controlled sentences cuts a lot of that friction.

Best for learners stuck between beginner and real reading

This is the app I’d look at once a structured beginner course starts to feel too tidy, but graded readers still feel heavy. It gives you repeated exposure without asking you to build and maintain your own sentence deck.

That trade-off matters. Anki gives you more control, but control creates admin. Mandarin Mosaic removes a lot of setup, which makes it easier to keep using during a busy week. If you are comparing those two approaches, this Mandarin Mosaic vs Anki comparison lays out the difference clearly.

A few things it does well:

• Sentence-based review: You absorb vocabulary with grammar, collocations, and natural word order.
• Low setup burden: You spend more time reviewing and less time building cards.
• Level-aware progression: Material stays close to what you partly know, which is usually where the best gains happen.

The limitation is clear too. It does not replace a full beginner course, and it will not teach pronunciation from scratch. Learners still need a base in pinyin, tones, and core sentence patterns before this method starts paying off.

In a study stack, Mandarin Mosaic works best as the retention layer between lessons and real input. HelloChinese can handle structured teaching. Pleco can catch unknown words. Mandarin Mosaic helps turn half-known vocabulary into usable Mandarin. Add a speaking app or tutor on top, and the stack becomes much more balanced than relying on any one app alone.

3. HelloChinese

For complete beginners, HelloChinese is one of the cleanest starting points available. It gives you structure without the empty gamification that weak apps rely on.

The main advantage is balance. Lessons don’t just throw words at you. You get pinyin, characters, listening, grammar, and speaking practice in the same flow. That’s much closer to what a beginner needs.

Where it works best

If you’re starting from zero, HelloChinese is easier to recommend than most broad language apps because it explains more and guesses less. Chinese punishes vague teaching. You need to know what tones are doing, why a sentence is ordered that way, and how characters differ from pinyin. HelloChinese usually handles that well.

A few practical wins:

• Structured lessons: You always know what to study next.
• Speaking practice: Speech recognition pushes you to say things, not just recognise them.
• Character support: The app helps beginners who are nervous about moving beyond pinyin.

Its weakness shows later. Once you move past the lower to mid-intermediate range, many learners need denser input and more flexible material than the app offers. That isn’t a flaw so much as a limit of curriculum apps in general.

If you want one app to carry your first phase, this is a strong candidate. I wouldn’t rely on it alone forever, but for the first stage of a Mandarin study stack, it does a lot right.

4. Skritter

If writing Chinese characters matters to you, Skritter is the specialist tool on this list. Nothing else here matches it for active handwriting practice.

Most apps treat characters as something you tap, match, or vaguely recognise. Skritter makes you produce them from memory, stroke by stroke. That’s harder, and that’s exactly why it works.

The right tool for a narrow job

Skritter is excellent if your goal includes handwriting, exam prep, or stronger character retention through production. It’s less useful if you only care about reading and speaking.

What I like about it:

• Active recall: You can’t coast on recognition.
• Stroke order feedback: Good habits form early instead of being fixed later.
• Cross-device sync: Easy to keep using regularly.

What I don’t like is equally straightforward. It’s a subscription tool with a narrow focus. If you expect it to teach you conversation or broad grammar, you’ll be disappointed.

One caution: Don’t let character writing eat your whole study routine unless handwriting is one of your goals.

A smart way to use Skritter is as a 10 to 15 minute daily companion. Pair it with a main curriculum app like HelloChinese or sentence-based review in Mandarin Mosaic. That way, writing supports your Chinese instead of replacing it.

5. The Chairman's Bao

At some point, beginner lessons stop being enough. You need more reading, but native news is too dense. The Chairman's Bao fills that middle ground well.

It gives you graded news articles with audio, clickable support, and level-appropriate vocabulary. That combination matters because reading Chinese improves faster when you can stay in the text instead of constantly leaving it to look things up.

Best for learners who want current topics

Some people stay motivated by stories. Others prefer useful, real-world material. TCB is stronger for the second group.

Why it works:

• News-based reading: You see language tied to actual events and themes.
• Audio with text: Good for shadowing and repeated listening.
• Built-in support: Tap-to-translate keeps momentum going.

The downside is that it isn’t a step-by-step course. You still need your own system for review and progression. If you treat it as your only resource, you may end up reading articles without fixing recurring weaknesses.

TCB fits best once you already know the basics and need more volume. For a study stack, it pairs well with Pleco for lookup and Mandarin Mosaic or Skritter for retention work after reading.

6. Du Chinese

Du Chinese solves a different motivation problem from The Chairman’s Bao. If news feels like homework, this app is often easier to stick with.

Its library leans into stories, dialogues, and narrative content. For many learners, that makes extensive reading much more sustainable. You aren’t just decoding language. You’re following something.

Better for reading flow than raw breadth

Du Chinese has a clean interface and sensible reading controls. You can show or hide pinyin and tap for help without breaking the experience too badly. That matters because Chinese reading practice falls apart when every line becomes a lookup exercise.

Its strongest use cases are:

• Story-based reading: Easier to stay engaged for longer sessions.
• Natural audio: Good for reading while listening.
• Level control: Helpful if you want manageable challenge instead of overwhelm.

The trade-off against TCB is simple. Du Chinese is often more enjoyable, while TCB may feel more tied to current affairs and practical media language. Neither replaces the other completely.

If your main issue is consistency, I’d pick Du Chinese before TCB. Enjoyment counts. Learners underestimate that all the time.

7. Pimsleur

Some learners can recognise a lot and still can’t speak without freezing. Pimsleur is built for that specific problem.

Its method is audio-first and recall-heavy. You listen, answer, repeat, and retrieve phrases on cue. The format can feel old-school, but it trains a useful skill that app learners often neglect, producing Mandarin out loud without a script.

Strong for speaking rhythm, weak for literacy

Pimsleur is easy to fit into a commute, walk, or chores. That alone makes it valuable for busy learners who struggle to protect desk time.

Its strengths are practical:

• Hands-free study: Good for dead time in your day.
• Pronunciation focus: Better than apps that barely require speaking.
• Recall under pressure: You have to produce, not just recognise.

Its weakness is just as important. Pimsleur won’t teach you to read or write Chinese in any serious way. If you use it alone, your spoken confidence may outpace your literacy badly.

For a more detailed take on those trade-offs, this review of Pimsleur for Mandarin learners is worth reading.

Use Pimsleur as a speaking lane inside a broader stack. HelloChinese plus Pimsleur works well for beginners. Mandarin Mosaic plus Pimsleur works well for early intermediates who already know the basics but need faster oral recall.

8. LingQ

LingQ is powerful, but I wouldn’t give it to most absolute beginners. It shines once you’re ready to learn through lots of input and can tolerate some mess.

The app lets you read and listen to large amounts of content while tracking unknown words. In theory, that’s excellent. In practice, it demands self-direction and patience with an interface that many learners find cluttered.

Best for self-directed immersion

LingQ starts making sense when you want to move beyond curated beginner lessons into broad reading and listening. You can work through library content or import your own material, which turns it into a kind of content aggregator for your Mandarin input.

That flexibility is the selling point:

• Importable content: Study around your interests.
• Known-word tracking: Useful for learners who like seeing progress.
• Audio plus text: Good for high-volume input.

The trade-off is that LingQ doesn’t hold your hand. If you need a neat path and clear next steps, it can feel chaotic. Some learners thrive in that. Others stop using it after three days.

I’d only put LingQ into a study stack once you’re already comfortable learning independently. Before then, graded readers and sentence-based review are usually a cleaner route.

9. HelloTalk

No app in this list gives you what HelloTalk gives you. Real people. That’s also why it’s one of the least predictable tools here.

You use HelloTalk to text, send voice notes, and sometimes call native speakers. The built-in correction tools lower the barrier to actual exchange, which is useful when your Mandarin still feels fragile.

Valuable, but only if you use it deliberately

The best part of HelloTalk is exposure to natural phrasing. Textbook Chinese and real chat Chinese aren’t the same, and this app lets you notice that quickly.

What it does well:

• Real conversation: You test what you can say.
• Corrections in context: Better than correcting isolated drills.
• Slang and natural phrasing: You hear what people really use.

What often goes wrong is obvious. Learners drift into casual scrolling, collect contacts they never message, or spend all their time chatting in English. That’s not the app failing. That’s poor use.

Set a clear rule for yourself. Send one voice note, one text exchange, and one correction request each session. Otherwise the app turns into social media with language branding.

HelloTalk isn’t a main study app. It’s a practice environment. Use it after you’ve learned something elsewhere, then test whether you can use it with another person.

10. Duolingo

Duolingo is the easiest app here to start and one of the easiest to outgrow. That doesn’t make it bad. It just means you should be honest about what it’s for.

The app’s Chinese course is fine as a habit builder. If you need a low-pressure way to start touching Mandarin every day, it can help. The game layer gets many complete beginners over the hardest hurdle, which is opening the app.

Good for momentum, weak for depth

Here, practical trade-offs matter. Duolingo is strong at making study feel light. It’s weak at giving the explanations Chinese often needs.

Its main benefits are clear:

• Fast start: You can begin immediately with almost no friction.
• Daily habit support: Streaks and short lessons help consistency.
• Beginner-friendly interface: Less intimidating than denser tools.

Its problems are also predictable. Character learning is shallow, grammar support is limited, and the audio can leave learners with weak pronunciation habits if they rely on it too heavily. If you want a fuller breakdown, this Duolingo Chinese review covers where it helps and where it falls short.

I’d also treat its speaking features cautiously. If you care about dictation, transcription, or spoken input quality more broadly, dedicated tools outside the language-app category often do better, including some of the options discussed in this guide to best voice to text software.

Use Duolingo for momentum, not mastery. It’s a starter app, not a complete Mandarin plan.

Mandarin Learning App Feature Comparison

Which app deserves a place in your Mandarin study stack?

A comparison table helps, but only if it answers the practical question: what job should each app do, and where does it fall short? That matters more than feature lists. Several of these tools are excellent on their own, yet they overlap badly if you stack them without a plan.

Use the table below to build a balanced system. Pair one structured course app, one reference tool, and one app for real input or speaking. Add a writing app only if handwriting is one of your goals.

One pattern shows up quickly. No single app covers structured learning, lookup, reading, speaking, and writing equally well. Learners get better results by combining complementary tools than by expecting one app to carry the whole workload.

From App User to Mandarin Speaker

The best apps for learning Chinese are the ones you’ll keep using after the novelty wears off. That sounds obvious, but it’s where most learners go wrong. They pick based on branding, nice illustrations, or what feels productive for three days. Then they end up with overlapping tools that all teach the same beginner material.

A better approach is to build a study stack with distinct jobs.

For a beginner, a practical stack looks like this:

• HelloChinese for structured lessons
• Pleco for lookup and support
• Pimsleur for speaking and listening during dead time

That gives you a curriculum, a reference tool, and active speaking practice.

For an early intermediate learner, I’d shift to:

• Mandarin Mosaic for sentence-based vocabulary and grammar growth
• Pleco for quick lookup
• Du Chinese or The Chairman’s Bao for reading volume
• HelloTalk once or twice a week for real use

That stack closes the common gap between “I’ve studied a lot” and “I can handle more Chinese”.

If writing matters, add Skritter in a small daily block. Keep it contained. Ten focused minutes is usually enough. If immersion is your goal and you’re comfortable navigating your own content, swap in LingQ later.

A simple weekly workflow helps more than downloading another app. For example:

• Monday to Friday: 20 minutes of your main app, 10 minutes of review, 10 minutes of reading or listening
• Twice a week: one speaking session through Pimsleur or HelloTalk
• Weekend: longer reading session, catch-up review, and a bit of free exploration with native content

That’s enough. You don’t need a heroic routine. You need one you’ll still follow next month.

One final point. Don’t expect one app to teach Mandarin completely. Chinese has too many separate skill tracks for that. You need pronunciation, characters, vocabulary in context, listening volume, and some form of active output. Different tools handle those jobs differently well. The strongest learners usually accept that early and build a system around it.

If you’re choosing today, start with the smallest effective stack. One main app, one support app, one practice app. Use them consistently, then adjust when your next bottleneck becomes obvious. That’s how you move from collecting apps to speaking Mandarin.

If you want a smarter core app for your Mandarin study stack, Mandarin Mosaic is a strong place to start. It helps you build vocabulary and grammar through real sentences instead of isolated flashcards, which makes review more useful and daily study easier to sustain.

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