Chinese Study Books: The Best Textbooks and Readers by Level

There's no single perfect Chinese study book. What works is a small set of books that each do one job: a textbook to give you a path, a grammar reference for when you're stuck, graded readers for lots of easy reading, and a good dictionary. This guide lists the books that are actually worth buying in each category, with their authors, publishers and editions, and which level each one suits.

If you've already got your books and want to know how to study with them, see our guide to how to learn Chinese from books. This post is about choosing them.

A Starter Shelf

Most self-taught learners need four things, and no more to begin with:

• One textbook series, followed from the start, for structure: dialogues, vocabulary, grammar and exercises in a sensible order.
• One grammar reference to look things up in. You don't read it cover to cover.
• Graded readers at your level, for reading volume. You'll get through several, so buy them a few at a time.
• A dictionary, which for most people today means the Pleco app rather than a printed book.

Character books, vocabulary books and exam papers are optional extras. Add one when you have a specific need, such as an HSK exam date or characters that won't stick.

Textbooks

A textbook is the backbone of self-study, so choose one series and stick with it. These are the most widely used:

• Integrated Chinese (4th edition, Cheng & Tsui, 2017) by Yuehua Liu, Tao-chung Yao and colleagues. Four volumes taking you from beginner to intermediate, each with a textbook, workbook and character workbook, and audio. It comes in Simplified and Traditional editions and is one of the most widely used university textbooks, especially in the US. It's clearly laid out and good for adults studying alone.
• HSK Standard Course (HSK标准教程, Beijing Language and Culture University Press), edited by Jiang Liping. Nine volumes, one each for HSK 1 to 3 and two each for HSK 4 to 6, with matching workbooks. It follows the vocabulary and grammar of the six-level HSK exam closely, which makes it the obvious choice if you're working towards a test. The trade-off is that the dialogues can be dry.
• New Practical Chinese Reader (新实用汉语课本, Beijing Language and Culture University Press), chief editor Liu Xun, now in its 3rd edition. A thorough multi-volume course for adults, built around a group of international students in China. It's popular in university courses and has textbooks, workbooks and character workbooks.
• A Course in Contemporary Chinese (當代中文課程, Linking Publishing), from National Taiwan Normal University's Mandarin Training Center. Six volumes in Traditional characters, with pinyin and zhuyin. The best choice if you want to learn Traditional characters or plan to spend time in Taiwan.
• Chinese Made Easy (轻松学汉语, Joint Publishing, Hong Kong) by Yamin Ma. A colourful series written for secondary school students, widely used for GCSE and IGCSE Mandarin. Good for teenagers, or adults who like a gentler pace.

Whichever you choose, check that it comes with audio (most now use a QR code or a download rather than a CD), because you can't learn tones from the page alone.

Grammar References

Chinese grammar is mostly word order and a set of particles and patterns, and a good reference explains each one with examples. Pick one of these:

• Modern Mandarin Chinese Grammar: A Practical Guide by Claudia Ross and Jing-heng Sheng Ma (Routledge, 2nd edition 2014). Organised partly by grammar point and partly by what you want to do with the language (such as making comparisons), which makes it easy to use. There's a companion workbook.
• Basic Chinese: A Grammar and Workbook and Intermediate Chinese: A Grammar and Workbook by Yip Po-Ching and Don Rimmington (Routledge). Short units, each with an explanation and exercises, so you can study grammar actively rather than just look it up.
• Chinese: A Comprehensive Grammar by the same authors (Routledge). A full reference for advanced learners and anyone who wants the detail.
• The Chinese Grammar Wiki from AllSet Learning, edited by John Pasden. The online version is free and organised by level; it's also published as the Chinese Grammar Wiki BOOK (Elementary, covering A1-A2, and Intermediate, covering B1) if you'd rather have it on paper or as an ebook.
• Mandarin Chinese: A Functional Reference Grammar by Charles Li and Sandra Thompson (University of California Press, 1981). A classic linguistics text. It's thorough, but it's written for linguists, so it isn't where a beginner should start.

For a list of which grammar points to learn at each stage, see our level-by-level Chinese grammar syllabus.

Graded Readers

Graded readers are stories written with a limited vocabulary, so you can read whole books at your level instead of decoding one sentence at a time. They're the step between textbook dialogues and real Chinese.

• Mandarin Companion: three levels, Breakthrough (150 characters), Level 1 (300 characters) and Level 2 (450 characters). Levels 1 and 2 are mostly adaptations of classic novels, such as The Secret Garden, retold in a Chinese setting. Available in Simplified and Traditional characters.
• Chinese Breeze (汉语风, Peking University Press): original stories in eight levels, from 300 to 4,500 words, with audio. A good series to read through in order.
• Imagin8 Press: graded readers by Jeff Pepper and Xiao Hui Wang, including a long series retelling Journey to the West (西游记, xīyóujì), roughly HSK 3 to HSK 5 level, with free audiobooks on the publisher's YouTube channel.

Choose a level where you already know nearly all the words. Reading research suggests that knowing about 98% of the words on a page (one unknown word in fifty) is what lets you read comfortably without a dictionary; at 95% it's already hard work. If you're looking up a word in every sentence, drop down a level.

Character Books

Textbooks teach characters as they come up in the lessons. If you want a more systematic approach, these books teach the components and give you a way to remember them:

• Remembering Simplified Hanzi (Books 1 and 2) by James Heisig and Timothy Richardson (University of Hawai'i Press). A story-based mnemonic method that builds characters from components. There's a matching Remembering Traditional Hanzi. It teaches meanings and writing, not pronunciation, so use it alongside a course.
• Tuttle Learning Chinese Characters by Alison and Laurence Matthews (Tuttle). Mnemonics for the first 800 characters, each with stroke order and example words.
• Reading and Writing Chinese by William McNaughton (Tuttle). A long-standing reference to the most common characters, with their components and stroke order.
• Chinese Characters: A Genealogy and Dictionary by Rick Harbaugh. Traces characters back through their components, which is useful once you're curious about why characters look the way they do.

Whatever you use, learning the common components helps enormously. Our guide to radicals in Chinese covers the ones worth knowing first.

HSK Exam Preparation

If you're taking the HSK, the main things to buy are:

• The HSK Standard Course textbook and workbook for your level (see above), which match the exam's word lists.
• Official past papers (HSK真题集, hsk zhēntí jí), released by Chinese Testing International, the organisation that runs the exam. Doing full papers under timed conditions is the best preparation for the format.

Most HSK books are written for the long-running six-level exam. A new nine-level version, often called HSK 3.0, launches worldwide on 13 December 2026 at the time of writing, and some books will be revised to match it. Check which version a book covers before you buy. Our post on whether to take the HSK explains both versions.

Dictionaries and Vocabulary Books

• Pleco (iOS and Android). Not a book, but the dictionary almost every learner uses. The free version includes several dictionaries, handwriting input and example sentences; paid add-ons include more dictionaries and a camera character recogniser.
• Oxford Chinese Dictionary (Oxford University Press). A large English-Chinese and Chinese-English dictionary, if you want a printed one.
• ABC Chinese-English Comprehensive Dictionary edited by John DeFrancis (University of Hawai'i Press). Words are listed in pinyin alphabetical order, so you can look up a word you've heard without knowing its characters.
• 现代汉语词典 (xiàndài hànyǔ cídiǎn, Contemporary Chinese Dictionary, The Commercial Press, 7th edition). The standard Chinese-Chinese dictionary, for advanced learners.
• A Frequency Dictionary of Mandarin Chinese by Richard Xiao, Paul Rayson and Tony McEnery (Routledge, 2009). The 5,000 most common words, ranked by frequency, each with an example sentence. Handy for deciding which words to learn next.

Which Books for Your Level

At the advanced stage, move on to books written for native speakers. Yu Hua's To Live (活着, huózhe) is a common first novel because its language is plain; Liu Cixin's The Three-Body Problem (三体, sān tǐ) is much harder going.

Pairing Your Books with Audio and an App

A book on its own is silent, and it gives you only a few examples of each new word. Two things fill those gaps: the audio that comes with your textbook or reader, and a way to review the words you meet in more sentences.

Mandarin Mosaic works well alongside a textbook. Its HSK-levelled lessons give you native-speaker-checked sentences with one new word where possible, so the words from your book keep turning up in fresh contexts. You can also add sentences from the book you're reading as custom sentences, and the app adds tap-to-look-up meanings, lifelike text-to-speech audio and spaced repetition reviews. Our guide to spaced repetition explains how the reviews are scheduled.

Common Questions About Chinese Study Books

How many Chinese study books do I really need?

Fewer than you think. One textbook series, one grammar reference and a few graded readers will take most learners a long way. Buying books feels productive, but an unread shelf doesn't teach you anything. Add a character book or exam papers only when you have a specific reason.

Should I use books with pinyin or only characters?

Beginners need pinyin to learn pronunciation and tones, so use books that include it. From around HSK 3, look for materials that put pinyin at the back or leave it out, so you start reading characters directly. Many graded readers, including Mandarin Companion, keep pinyin out of the main text and use a glossary instead.

Are ebooks as good as printed books?

Both work. Printed books are easier to concentrate on and write in. Ebooks, especially inside a reader app such as Pleco, let you tap any word to look it up, which saves a lot of time with graded readers. Many learners use a printed textbook at a desk and ebooks on the go.

How do I know when I'm ready for the next book?

For graded readers, move up when the current level feels easy and you rarely need the glossary. For textbooks, move on when you can do the review exercises at the end of a volume without looking back at the lessons. Reading several books at one level before moving up does more for your fluency than racing through the series.

Want the words from your study books to stick? Mandarin Mosaic teaches Chinese through real sentences with one new word at a time, with audio and spaced repetition built in, on iOS and Android. Try Mandarin Mosaic free.

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