15 Chinese Learning Tools For Kids They’ll Actually Enjoy

Learning Mandarin Chinese can be beneficial at any age, but kids are in a prime position to excel.

Setting your child on a Mandarin learning journey can take them to some pretty cool places in the future, and they can have a lot of fun in the process.

Given that there are tons of resources out there for adult learners of Mandarin, I felt compelled to gather the best materials for young learners.

And I’ll let you into a little secret…

A lot of adults can enjoy these too!

Apps

There are many apps available for toddlers and up. Most of them are free or cost very little.

Piggy Picnic

This is a very cute, basic introduction to Mandarin Chinese for toddlers.

Miss piggy will ask you to complete small tasks and challenges, such as counting the fruit and matching pictures together.

You can choose whether to have the vocabulary presented in English, English+Chinese or just Chinese.

This isn’t a comprehensive learning tool and it’s likely your child will get bored of it fairly quickly, but it’s a gentle introduction to Chinese and can be used in combination with other resources on this list.

Age: Toddlers+
Price: £1.99
Available for iOS only

Lingu Penguin

Similarly to Piggy Picnic, Lingu Penguin is seriously cute with great artwork.

There is a range of different settings filled with pictures that your child can press to reveal the Chinese pronunciation. For example, you can go to the farm to find out all of the different animals in Chinese.

You can toggle between Chinese and English at the top of the page.

You can take the quiz to see how much you’ve learned

Age: Toddlers+
Price: £1.99
Available for iOS only.

Chinese Writer

This app focusses on writing characters.

To play this game, simply catch the character before it falls off the screen. Once you’ve caught it, you need to trace it or write it from memory depending on the settings you choose.

This app works great for kids, but you may have to help them out on the settings menu. Also, it’s possible that they might get bored with this app fairly quickly as it’s a bit of a one-trick pony. Nevertheless, it’s a great way to introduce new vocabulary, and it’s free.

Age: 6+
Price: Free
Available for iOS and Android

Skritter

Skritter is the best writing app on the market by a country mile.

As well as being a flashcard app with spaced repetition software, there are loads of customisation options. You can be taught stroke order, writing style corrections, character decomposition, and much more.

You will have access to user-made wordlists on Skritter, such as all of the HSK word lists and all major textbooks.

Perhaps the only downside to Skritter is the price. It’s one of the more expensive resources on this list at $14.99 a month. However, if your child is serious about learning Mandarin, a year’s subscription can bring this down to $8.33 a month.

Nevertheless, I feel Skritter is more than worth it.

Age: 6-7+
Price: $8.33/14.99 a month.
Available for iOS and Android

The following apps do a great job of delivering a Chinese language learning program covering all of the basics, including a stronger emphasis on grammar and sentence structure.

I recommend all of these apps to adults as well, but due to the ‘gamey’ nature and animation throughout, they’re perfect for young learners.

And more good news… They’re all free!

Chinese Skill

My favourite of the 3. Almost identical to HelloChinese in every way, but it has a longer and more detailed course.

Hello Chinese

This app is neater and tidier than Duolingo with better audio and structure. However, it is a short course.

Duolingo

The European language courses on Duolingo are much better than the Chinese. It does the job, but not as well as the other two.

Age 6-7 +
Price: Free
All available for iOS and Android

Books

Books are another great way for kids to learn Chinese and it gets them away from the screen.

The following is a good collection for all age ranges.

Chinese for Kids: 10 First Reader Books with Online Audio, Pinyin, Traditional Characters

Chinese for Kids Set 1 is a set of first readers for children ages 3-8.

Developed with teachers, the Spot Color Immersion Method combines simple sentences, humor, visual cues, repetition and context in just one line of text per page to help beginners learn vocabulary.

If any of you ever read the ‘Bob Books’ series when you were younger, these are a bit like that but in Chinese.

These books will probably require some adult supervision for really young learners who are still getting to grips with reading English as well.

Big Chinese Workbook for Little Hands: 115 Pages of Fun Activities for Kids 4+

This is a great collection of books that introduces new vocabulary, pinyin and stroke order to young learners who still enjoy colouring.

I don’t think these books are really something you could just put down in front of a Kindergartener with a box of crayons and expect them to pick it up and learn on their own. This is because most kids at this age aren’t familiar with pinyin at all, and are still getting to grips with reading English.

But with a little adult supervision, the Kindergarten book could be handled by a 5 or 6-year-old, and the Pre-K by a 3 or 4-year-old. They would be an excellent place for any child to get starting with Chinese.

Chinese For Kids First 50 Characters Ages 5+ (Simplified): Chinese Writing Practice Workbook (Chinese for Kids Workbook)

This is another great writing and colouring books for kids starting out with Chinese characters.

Children can color the black and white pictures and add bright colors to the Chinese characters by tracing with colored pencils, crayons, and colored pens.

This one is something your child could probably use more independently, but only if they have has some experience writing in English as well.

My First Mandarin Words with Gordon & Li Li

This is a great book for you to read to your child as an introduction to Mandarin.

It follows cousins Gordon (an English panda) and Li Li (a Chinese panda) as they try to communicate using simple translations of basic words in different themes.

Children and parents can read along with Gordon and Li Li as they learn basic English and Mandarin words and their correct pronunciation.

Perfect for pre-school kids and older.

Boo Boo’s Chinese Grooves for Kids Vol. 1 – CD Album with Sing Along Book (Bilingual English & Chinese with Phonetics in Zhuyin & Pinyin)

If your kids are really into singing and dancing, Boo Boo’s Chinese grooves will give them the outlet they need to boogie on down and sing their little hearts out!

Here you’ll find a collection of 12 modern Chinese children’s songs all in different genres – pop, hip hop, jazz, rock, R&B, indigenous, and classic melodies.

Karaoke versions of the songs are included with zhuyin and pinyin annotations, as well as English translations.

My First Book of Chinese Words: An ABC Rhyming Book of Chinese Language and Culture

My First Book of Chinese Words introduces young children to basic words and concepts in the Chinese language through colorful rhymes and beautiful imagery.

Parents and young children can enjoy reading this together. The Chinese words in the book are all common, everyday items, and the rhymes are informative and fun.

It’s exceedingly rare for books produced overseas to really gage a good understanding of Chinese culture and avoid stereotypes, but this one does really well (trust me, I’ve lived in China for 7 years).

The Chinese words included are mostly useful, everyday words, and the book uses both pinyin and both simplified and traditional characters. The illustrations are gorgeous, too.

Perfect for children ages 3-8.

Comprehensive Chinese Textbooks

For older children, the main players in the Chinese textbook game are on the cards. I’ve already written a post about the best textbooks for learning Mandarin Chinese here.

Online Courses

Of all the online Mandarin teaching courses out here on the internet, very few are directed specifically towards younger students.

Many will say they are, but they’re actually just one-size-fits-all language platforms that are desperate to get another student on their books.

There is only one I’d be willing to recommend, and that’s Lingo Bus.

Lingo Bus

Lingo Bus is an online Chinese learning platform specifically designed for children between 5 and 12 years old.

They’ve got a well-designed curriculum, engaging materials, and enthusiastic native teachers.

Their services aren’t cheap – it’s $20 for a 25-minute lesson, but there really are a ton of benefits they can offer.

Once you’ve booked a class, you’ll be able to watch a class preview video introducing content for the upcoming class.

Scheduling lessons online is incredibly flexible. If you need to cancel, you can do so with up to 24 hours notice free of charge.

After the lesson, you can replay it for a review. Lingo Bus will also provide additional materials such as flashcards, powerpoints with audio, PDFs, and workbooks.

For a more in-depth review of Lingo Bus, click here.

If you want to catch a brief look at a Lingo Bus demo class, check it out below.

https://youtu.be/SGQ5LBFcLXU

Yoyo Chinese

Out of all of the internet courses on the market, Yoyo Chinese is my favourite. It does an excellent job of covering all bases, with loads of video content, exercises, quizzes, etc. It’s great for learners of all ages. Some of the things I particularly enjoy are:

Short, engaging video lessons. I can’t concentrate for long periods of time and I start to zone out if my study session is more than 10 minutes.
A structured curriculum. This is something missing from my beloved ChinesePod.
Yoyo Chinese hits learning from every angle. Videos, audio, quizzes, flashcards – you name it. They have so many helpful videos available on YouTube for free as well.

PRICE
– Free for the first 20 lessons – this gives more than enough of a trial to see if you’d like to invest in a course.
– Beginner Conversational Course – The complete course costs $129, but if you buy individual levels, the first course costs $10 and it’s $29 for each course thereafter. The total comes to $155 if you buy them individually.