📚 DuChinese review 📚

Do I think it is worth it after 1 year using it? (Includes my favourite stories!)

Hello there!

As you know, reading in your target language can be extremely beneficial for language learning. However, it can also feel very overwhelming, specially if you just started learning the language.

For this reason, today I will be reviewing a wonderful resource that I tested in the last year that I believe is invaluable for beginner Chinese students 😃

For those who are short on time, there is a summary at the bottom of this post 😉

And now… let’s begin!

I would like to clarify that this post is not sponsored by DuChinese and that I am simply writing this to help other fellow students make a decision about whether or not they wish to invest in this app 😊

📚 General info 📚

DuChinese is a Mandarin reading resource with the following characteristics:

• Platforms: Android, iOS, web.

• Character sets: Simplified, Traditional.

• Available levels: Newbie, Elementary, Intermediate, Upper Intermediate, Advanced, Master (corresponds roughly to old HSK).

• Native audio: Yes.

• Offline access: Yes, with prior download.

• Is it free? No, if you want to access all of the content, you need a subscription.

💸The problem: the price tag💸

Now, you might have read the title of this post and thought: “But it’s too expensive!”😵. Well, you are not alone. I think so too every time I look at their subscription prices:

However, if you buy the one year subscription on their Black Friday sale (mine was 86 USD, this year it’s 60 USD), it is really worth it💡. If you compare the amount of content you get to what you usually pay for a graded reader ( Mandarin Companion is 8-12 USD, Rainbow Bridge is 3 USD) you will realize it is actually a pretty good deal.

To give you an idea of what I mean, between the end of November 2022 and the end of July 2023, I read using DuChinese a total of 157,098 characters. Assuming 400 characters per page equals a page, this corresponds to 393 pages. Isn’t that crazy? Who would have thought I would be able to do this starting as an absolute beginner? 😮

In comparison, the Rainbow Bridge graded reader that I read (女娲的故) only had 2,373 characters (6 pages). If you do the calculations, the price per character of this graded reader was x2.3 times DuChinese’s!😶

🪄How to make the most of the app🪄

• 🏆Set reading objectives.

  Of course, the trick is that you do not use the app, you will not make a benefit out of it. For this reason, I strongly recommend setting a daily/weekly reading objective.

  In my case, when I had just started out I began with one chapter/article per day. Then, this turned into two. Currently, my daily minimum reading objective is 500 characters, but I am thinking of increasing it to 1,000 after I take the JLPT in December.

• 📚Read mostly series, not articles.

  Another tip is to actually read stories instead of articles, since you will get repeatedly exposed to that story’s specific vocabulary, making it stick more easily. I would say this is the main advantage of this app over Dot Languages.

• 🎧Read while listening.

  It has actually been proven by several studies that reading while listening is beneficial for increasing reading speed and comprehension, as well as improving vocabulary acquisition. I have also noticed my listening skills have improved quite a lot thanks to using this method. Finally, this will allow you to stop relying on pinyin earlier, improving your character recognition.

  

• 🛑Don’t force yourself to read things that do not interest you.

  If after a few chapters a series is really not working for you, just drop it. Reading something you find boring will kill your motivation. Of course, you also need to be realistic about how interesting a story can get when you have limited vocabulary. But even so, I believe for the lower levels this app has enough content to allow you to drop a series and move on to something more interesting.

💖Some of my favorite stories💖

In case you are in need of some ideas, here are some of the stories I enjoyed the most from the app:

🗒 Summary 🗒

I believe this app is a great investment for any Mandarin Chinese beginner, as with daily usage it ends up being cheaper than graded readers, specially when taking advantage of the current Black Friday 50% off promotion.

✅ Strengths ✅

• Varied content covering a wide range of topics. 🌈

• Two types of “lessons” available: single articles or series of several chapters that allow repeated exposure to new words.

• Native audio included for every single lesson with adjustable speed.👂

• Extremely user-friendly interface.

• Downloadable lessons and audio for offline access.🌐

• Internal popup dictionary included.

• Word lists can be exported and then imported into Anki. This includes the sentence the word was on!🔖

• Cool stats are available to track your progress. 😎

  

❌ Limitations ❌

• Expensive, specially without yearly subscription and no discount. 💸

• Some lessons can be a bit boring. 😪

• Limited usefulness and content for intermediate-advanced levels ⚠️. People studying HSK 4 and above might be better off reading long graded readers and native material. This is the reason why I stopped using the app, as I wanted to move onto longer graded readers and children’s stories.

• Sometimes the sentences from the word lists that get exported are too long, making them not that useful for flashcards.

Note: DuChinese has a flashcard system and they also recently included a grammar functionality option. However, since I have not used either of them I cannot comment on how useful they are.

And that’s it for this review! Feel free to let me know what you thought about it by leaving a comment ^^

See you soon with more valuable content,

~𝙽𝚊𝚝𝚑𝚊