Free Chinese Lessons


Learn Man­darin for free online. Down­load free audio lessons to your com­put­er or mp3 play­er and start learn­ing Man­darin instant­ly. To learn more lan­guages, please vis­it our com­plete col­lec­tion of Free Lan­guage Lessons.

  • Real Chi­nese - Web Site
    • Pre­sent­ed by the BBC. A live­ly intro­duc­tion to Man­darin Chi­nese in 10 short parts with video clips from the Real Chi­nese TV series.
  • Begin­ner’s Chi­nese — iTunes Free
    • Intro­duc­to­ry audio lessons pro­vid­ed by the Open Uni­ver­si­ty.
  • Chi­nese for Begin­ners — Free Online Video/MOOC
    • This is an ABC Chi­nese course for begin­ners, includ­ing intro­duc­tion of pho­net­ics and dai­ly expres­sions. From Peking Uni­ver­si­ty.
  • More Chi­nese for Begin­ners — Mas­sive Open Online Course (MOOC)
    • Also from Peking Uni­ver­si­ty, this is an advanced course for Chi­nese for begin­ners. Learn­ers will expand vocab­u­lar­ies about per­son­al infor­ma­tion, dai­ly life, food and drink, health, and more.
  • Chi­nese: Start Talk­ing with 1.3 Bil­lion Peo­ple — Mas­sive Open Online Course (MOOC)
    • Intro­duc­to­ry Chi­nese lan­guage course from Tsinghua Uni­ver­si­ty empha­sizes basic lan­guage skills for every­day life in Man­darin speak­ing coun­tries. The course uti­lizes pinyin, the stan­dard sys­tem of Roman­ized spelling for translit­er­at­ing Chi­nese, so learn­ers will find it easy to under­stand and study the lan­guage.
  • Chi­nese Course — Seton Hall
  • DuoLin­go Chi­nese — Web site
    • Bite-sized Chi­nese lessons. Fun, effec­tive, and 100% free.
  • Fall in Love With Man­darin — Mas­sive Open Online Course (MOOC)
    • Learn every­day Chi­nese Man­darin and dis­cov­er Tai­wanese cul­ture in the process. From Nation­al Chiao Tung Uni­ver­si­ty.
  • For­eign Ser­vice Insti­tute Basic Can­tonese — Web site
    • Two text­books (PDF) and 30 audio lessons (MP3).
  • For­eign Ser­vice Insti­tute Stan­dard Chi­nese: A Mod­u­lar Approach — Web site
    • Designed to give a prac­ti­cal com­mand of spo­ken stan­dard Chi­nese with nine sit­u­a­tion­al mod­ules. Each mod­ule con­sists of tapes (MP3), a stu­dent text­book (PDF), and a work­book. In addi­tion to the core mod­ules, there is a resource mod­ule and eight option­al mod­ules.
  • Learn Chi­nese in Your Car — Spo­ti­fy
    • Gram­mar and vocab­u­lary to begin­ners, offer­ing guid­ance in pro­nun­ci­a­tion and lan­guage fun­da­men­tals.
  • Man­darin in Chi­na — Web Site
    • Lessons cour­tesy of the US Peace Corps
  • Slow Chi­nese — iTunes Free
    • A cul­tur­al pod­cast for Chi­nese learn­ers. Fea­tures nar­ra­tives by native Chi­nese peo­ple read in Man­darin at a slow speed (2~3 char­ac­ters per sec­ond). Top­ics vary from lan­guage, knowl­edge, tra­di­tion and cul­ture to opin­ions on social phe­nom­e­na.

To learn more lan­guages, please vis­it our col­lec­tion: Learn Lan­guages for Free: Span­ish, Eng­lish, Chi­nese & Beyond.
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Open Culture was founded by Dan Colman.