Chinese from the very first sound: the four tones, a tone trainer, every syllable of Mandarin to tap and hear, and your first 21 words. About 15 minutes a day, free, no sign-up.
How Start from zero works
- Tones first. Every Chinese syllable has a tone, and the tone is part of the word. You hear and see the four tones, then train your ear ten sounds at a time and see the answer right away. In a study by Wang, Spence, Jongman and Sereno (1999), eight sessions of this kind over two weeks raised learners' tone recognition from 69 to 90 percent. Single syllables play slowly at first, with the pitch drawn wide so each shape is easy to hear; switch to Natural under Syllables when you are ready. If you prefer a teacher, the lesson links free video lessons on YouTube.
- Pinyin. Every syllable of Mandarin in one chart: tap one to hear it in each of its tones. The sounds English does not have, such as zh, q, x and ü, come with sounds to compare.
- First words. Hello, thank you, I and you, and the numbers 1 to 10: 21 words from HSK 1 with sound. After that, Characters, Words and Stories take over.
The voices are synthetic speech made with AI (Kokoro v1.1-zh: zf_003, female, and zm_011, male). Pick one under Voice on the first card; every Learn Chinese page then uses it. Your progress is saved only in this browser on this device. Credits, sources and data: About Learn Chinese.