I love Du Chinese!! I think they absolutely nailed everything with this app: the stories are actually appropriate to each level (in my humble understanding, I'm not Chinese lol); there is free access to the stories for a few days after each story is released; obvious context for learning; it's original content; has integrated SRS flashcards system.... I wish every language had an app like Du Chinese.

@wenisme9670

2 жыл бұрын

How do you know there are new stories released?

@hectorpg1181

4 ай бұрын

It’s great but it’s also super expensive, impossible to use in a long term period

@Xiaodai777

3 ай бұрын

​@@hectorpg1181 very expensive

i use du chinese almost everyday to practice chinese. i find the stories very engaging.

Hey! I think you should do a compilation of apps and other sources which you think are the best for learning Chinese from 0. In any case, thank you for the informative videos. Much love from Spain!

Reading, perfect ! I speak Chinese perfectly (like the pronunciation) but my vocabulary is of a 5 year old and I can’t read that well *anymore*

@ABChinese

2 жыл бұрын

That's how I was for a long time! 😂

@renee_ray9483

Жыл бұрын

It took a 5 year old 5 years to get to that point tho!!

@strawberryseafoam

Жыл бұрын

@@renee_ray9483 I am that 5 year old. I took 5 years to get to that point then I got stuck there for like a decade

Use code "ABChinese" to get 10% discount! ➡️ www.duchinese.net

@angelagilbert

2 жыл бұрын

Ok where can I buy that book?

@ABChinese

2 жыл бұрын

@@angelagilbert The first book I showed? That book is older than me, so I have no idea😂

@angelagilbert

2 жыл бұрын

@@ABChinese if you give me the title and author. I bet I can find it somewhere..so please 🙏

@angelagilbert

2 жыл бұрын

Also bought the subscription. I am impressed. Also so useful. My reading ability is in the intermediate category. I didn't even know. My pronunciation is upper elementary. Mt ability to understand what is being said without reading along...um let's not talk about it..it's a work in progress

@ABChinese

2 жыл бұрын

Title: 365夜狮子故事 Editor: 朱彦 Main Author: 李璐蕾 Publisher: 少年儿童出版社，1994 Let me know if you end up finding it somehow!

Thank you for this video… I took the plunge after trialing the app and subscribed annually. Honestly, this is the learning modality I didn’t realize I was missing in my self-study. As usual, wonderful content. 谢啦!

I love your channel so much! Just started learning Chinese recently but I have been watching your videos for a while. Your content really helps!

This review is just on time! I am binge watching Chinese app reviews to try and narrow down which Black Friday offers I should pay for :) :)

@Nick-os5rt

2 жыл бұрын

Out of curiosity, what other apps do you think would be good? I'm brand new to the language and it's the first that I'm attempting to learn and would love some tips on where to start

Thanks to your channel and your effort to review these chinese learning apps Ive taken your advice and actually been improving lately. I think stories that you can adjust the speed and see direct translations with it are amazing and thats why I got a HelloChinese subscription. Cant wait to try Du! Thank you :)

i was looking EXACTLY FOR IT thank you so much for bringing it up

This is a great video!!! Thank you for all your recommendations, keep going!🤗

That's so geat resource to learn Chinese. Many thanks!🙏

I absolutely love Du Chinese. It is irreplaceable!

It's an amazing app. In fact, it's the only one I paid for. And you can choose the traditional characters version. The only thing that may not be that good is the accent of the person who reads (especially the woman), too northern for my ears used to Taiwanese sounds. :P I also believe the only way to learn new words is using them. Otherwise, they won't stick to your mind. And, for a visual person like me, the only way to remember words is learning the characters. So reading is the best way for me. The graded texts are the best, because you don't have to stop reading all the time to look for words you don't know.

@hectorpg1181

4 ай бұрын

It’s too expensive to use it for a long period of time

Oh my god, this is amazing, I've been looking for this kind of app. And it aligns with my purpose for learning chinese, reading light novels

The problem I've with the "Learn vocab in context" approuch is how overwhelming even simple text are at first. I find it really helpful to learn the vocab I need without context at first before seeing it in a sentence shortly after. The click on word, click on save, go study it somewhere else workflow just feels quite clunky. Though it might be more helpful when the amount of words needed to be learn in each story is much lower.

@ABChinese

2 жыл бұрын

I would not try to learn every word you don't know if your level is not high. It's more important to get maximum exposure, so read as much as possible. When you run into words you don't know, look at the definition real quick and move on. Don't worry about studying it. If it is a common word, you will naturally run into it again in your reading and that will serve as review. Does that make sense?

@sevret313

2 жыл бұрын

@@ABChinese Thanks, yeah it makes some sense. While learning words first do make things easier, I'm not actually sure if I I'm saving any time over just repeating each sentence several times which I often would need to do anyway unless it's quite trivial. To not be afraid of not knowing everything is good advice, but a bit hard to follow at times. EDIT: I'm learning Japanese, but the KZread algorithm still sent me here and I do find the subject interesting as Chinese and Japanese has some of the same difficulties in this area, compared to let say German where it's much easier to jump on the "just read" train.

@adapienkowska2605

2 жыл бұрын

I think, outside the textbooks, most beginner content is still a little too difficult. They introduce a lot of new vocabs while if you don't know more than 1-5% of the vocab the text is unreadable.

I use this app daily, but I really hoped for your review 😍😍😍😍😍and I think the same, reading is the best to learn languages 🤗

I may try this one 😸 I also find it interesting that I only learned a little bit, years ago, and there are some words that have stuck in my brain. Like 弟弟, I could hear that in this video and my brain went "this video mentions a little brother"

@ABChinese

2 жыл бұрын

Yes, that's what I'm talking about! (I kinda rambled when I recorded that part of the video haha)

I will definitely try this app! I just subscribed, been lurking for a while. 谢谢你啊

@ABChinese

2 жыл бұрын

Haha thanks for subscribing!

太巧了！我刚刚下载了这个APP 看起来很有用！

I use DuChinese all the time. I have like 1,000 saved words or more. I’ve learned a ton from them

I wouldn't have gotten it without you. Thanks.

I will definitely check out this app as I am always looking for Chinese reading material.

Always excellent! Thanks again!

@ABChinese

2 жыл бұрын

Thanks for the encouragement Gordie!

Thanks for making these! So hard to know what apps to invest time (and money). Appreciate your channel.

I subscribed to Dong Chinese based on the review on this channel. I highly, highly recommend it for beginners. I barely use the video features though. Just use all the media as a supplement. The beauty of Dong Chinese is learning to read and write based on a custom frequency list that build sentences for learning in context. No flash cards! I used the free trial and got hooked, so got a discount from this channel and very reasonable with a year subscription. For just reading, I feel I will also give Du Chinese a shot too, once I get a few hundred characters under my belt. Good review, btw!

thanks this "Du Chinese", i like it! ❤

I just started using Du Chinese and noticed there is an option to adjust the pinyin and character sizes. With the right settings this can solve any spacing issues.

Love Du Chinese!!!

LingQ is a story learning system like this, and they have content for all sorts of target languages. I can't say how good their Korean content is but I still remember my first stories in it. LingQ first party content is read by actual native speakers, which resolves the pronunciation issues seen with many of these apps. Also, LingQ lets you import audio and transcripts, and do poor own synchronization.

@derekbroussard

9 ай бұрын

I second LinQ. But. I also bought my own books at a local Korean bookstore. A couple kid books and now reading goosebumps. It’s super easy just to take a picture of the page and scan a whole chapter in a few minutes.

An actual good app!

This is great! I've been putting in hours on Hello talk and hanbook HSK's, just using pleco screen reader everywhere. It only goes so far reading how some words are put together. Gonna add this one to the repertoire

Thank you very much, I Just downloaded the app and I will start with the cat-story.

I love your videos

我很喜欢你的视频。它们非常有趣。谢谢

你又帅又可爱🥰😍

I will try this app! thanks for the video! Just one thing, at the start I barely heard you over the music, if you could lower it a bit it would be much clearer :)

@ABChinese

2 жыл бұрын

Got it! I'll pay attention to the volume next time;)

I liked the story of the cat

I actually decided to pay for this app after seeing your video, plus, with black friday I got 50% off so it was niice! It's the first time I pay for an app. Though I'm conviced that it's worth it and that I will be able to speak good chinese with it and to impress my chinese boyfriend haha

@Bynv9957

2 жыл бұрын

heey!! exactly! i was waiting for black Friday and got an amazing discount! got 50% for the year. best investment. and also, this is the first time I have paid for an APP. Actually I was thinking, "do I really need the app?" then i´ve opened youtube and this video came to me! best decision ever

@Abdullah-uv8jc

2 жыл бұрын

@@Bynv9957 Yeah exactly, I was like "is it worth it to pay 60€ for this" but I think it's way better to pay for this then to buy language learning books. I have so much books I never opened once. So yeah, it's also the best decision I've ever made for me haha

@Bynv9957

2 жыл бұрын

@@Abdullah-uv8jc I have a lot of books, I like to diversify my learning. and I live in Brazil, what makes it "expensive" to get an app subscription, just for curiosity, even with the black Friday offer, the investment is half of our minimum wage... but BEST INVESTMENT! :)

My favorite story so far was the human chair

The app designer should've just decreased the font size or chosen a font that was more narrow, but it still seems well-done. Edit: oops - you said that later in the video haha. Good review!

I’d want to know a similar app for korean too for now in terms of learning from context, i’m learning from TTMIK’s dialogues books, they also have short stories books too

@derekbroussard

9 ай бұрын

LinQ. Especially if you can find your own books. It’s a great app for reading. It’s my main study buddy!

Do you have any sufferings for listening compréhension and tones? You read the story with so much heart 😀

❤❤❤❤

Thanks man! Finally, a decent and methodological sound way to learn Chinese. Can it toggle into traditional characters?

@ABChinese

2 жыл бұрын

Yes! I forgot to show that in the video, but it's under settings

@markcarson3215

2 жыл бұрын

@@ABChinese Actually you did show it briefly in the app but it asks you right in the beginning g which one you want to go with. The fact that this is coupled with sound/audio is double powerful in learning. And excellent point about the straight memorizing of characters from ancient China (sarcasm) that is basically still the main way it’s done in China today. Waste of time. Is it the best app you have seen for learning Chinese naturally?

@ABChinese

2 жыл бұрын

Hmmm, what do you mean by naturally? This could be considered naturally because there is no curriculum...

@markcarson3215

2 жыл бұрын

@@ABChinese “Naturally” in that learning your second language should be how you learnt your first language. Lots of reading and listening input.

I like to find synopsis of Chinese dramas I watched and print them out and read them.

I want du Japanese, du korean, du Spanish, etc 😅😅😅

I just found the app yesterday I'm really satisfaction with it's functions. Well i do think it would have been better if the translation was beneath the Chinese characters. But well that's the best reading app i came across so far so that's alright. Funny I'm fact I'm reading that the Wo shi mao story😂😂

Hello do you have any tips for remember the tone when we write the hanzi please lemme know thank you

Your recommendations have been spot on. Using Du Chinese & it’s very helpful at my stage of learning . . . Also, I have always observed that leaps in comprehension only occur when students read stories & learn in context. I never could explain this to students - though - who invariably put more faith in boring test prep courses. Your explanation about how it is impossible to learn how to use new vocabulary deftly unless you see it in different contexts - as you do when you read stories - helps a great deal. I will use this with my students who are learning English. They are all convinced that these test prep courses will improve their English proficiency . . . None of the research supports test prep course, but the marketing is formidable . . . Only one point of clarification: I am not sure I completely understand your “pool of memory” explanation. I get the drift, but I might have difficulty explaining this to my students. I’m sure you are right about this, though. Your explanations really are overall excellent. And your materials are great. Thanks for providing great teaching here.

@ABChinese

2 жыл бұрын

Thanks for your comment! I’m away from my computer but if I remember correctly, the “pool of memory” I was saying is referring to increasing your actual understanding of a new word and how it’s used. Each time you see it in a different context you’re adding to the pool. I was trying to point out that one word is FAR more complex than the 3 or 4 definitions a dictionary will give you so you have to expose yourself to the word as much as possible in different context.

@hamiltonpaul73

2 жыл бұрын

@@ABChinese Ah that is super helpful. This is an important piece of a puzzle for me to understand precisely why reading stories is so irreplaceable for acquiring a new language. Really appreciate it! I will definitely be interested as you develop new content.

Summary: Comprehensible input is the effective way to acquire language. Also, language is acquired subconsciously.

DUolingo is coming for your family😊

Does anyone know where I can get that book he shows around 1:10? 365 Nights - Stores to Learn Characters? Even a PDF!! I would love that book so much. I can't find it anywhere online!

Genuine question: what is the advantage of this app vs purchasing a Kindle version of a Mandarin Companion Graded Reader?

@Bynv9957

2 жыл бұрын

this app "reads" to you, you can hide the pinyin if you want, reads faster or slower... many options!

Have you ever encountered the Mandarin Companion books? I am using those, along with the Integrated Chinese 4th ed. textbooks, to learn basic Mandarin. I'm not terribly consistent with it, partially because I have nobody to speak with around me and partially because I'm so busy at work. I watch some Chinese television and get discouraged with how different the language is. The PRC once tried to enforce a standard Mandarin accent for the airwaves but that ship has sailed, it seems. I'm so tired of regional accents making Mandarin into this mutant thing. lolololol

Do you have an ISBN for the 365 Nights book? I have a friend who suffered a stroke and needs something low tech… TIA

Hi ,can you make video about new HSK ?

Has Du Chinese gotten rid of the discount code? There's no field to enter the discount code :(

Abchinese im question to you, this is a chinese learning Du Chinese is all correct?

你是祖国华人 或者 国外华人【美国华人】我是英国人但是我太太是中国杭州人， good videos😄😃😀🙂🙃😉😉😉🤠🤠🤠😎😎😎😎😎😎😎😎😎

Hi I would like to learn to speak Chinese. I dont want to speak line by line but fluently. How can I do that. How can you help me to achieve this.

pls do bing chilling

Is this app better people who study Hanzi

is your r in ren because youre from north/ south ?

The children's book, 365 nights, where could I buy something like that? Can you give me a lead? or anyother children's book that is similar. Thanks!

I'm not advertising folou but please try it when you have the time but be warned it has a lot of speaking exercises

It’s great app but it’s also super expensive, impossible to use in a long term period for a reasonable price

I like your point about the characters being spaced to fit the pinyin. One thing I would like is to see a hyphenation added for combo words. Otherwise, if I'm just reading it (and not listening) then I don't know which sounds should be combined, and which ones require a brief pause between them. 我真的不知道。The pinyin for this sentence would have a hyphen between 知 and 道. Zhī-Dào.

du Chinese once said"一个猫“ that's not right, so I thought I'm going to learn more wrong sentences, then I deleted it.

Is it available in Traditional Chinese?

@ABChinese

2 жыл бұрын

Yes, you can toggle to traditional!

@belhazardiman8575

2 жыл бұрын

Great cause I use traditional chinese instead of the simplified.

hello abchinese can you try hanbook? please

@ABChinese

2 жыл бұрын

Yes! Currently in contact with the developers;)

Great video. Allow me to give an advice, the background music is too loud, for us, non native english speakers, make it harder to undestand what are you saying. Congrats

@ABChinese

2 жыл бұрын

Yep! You’re the third person to say that so I’ll definitely lower the volume a bit next time

Informative video. BTW, Du Chinese did not give me the 10% discount using your code.

@ABChinese

7 ай бұрын

Just to confirm, you used ABCHINESE and it didn’t work?

@Don_Modern_Ancestor

7 ай бұрын

@ABChinese, That is Correct. "ABChinese" to be exact. This was for a 12 month sub at $119.99. I expected 10% off it. There was no error generated nor any indication on the receipt that the code was used/applied. I wanted you to be aware.

@ABChinese

7 ай бұрын

Thank you for the heads up! I'll connect with them and see what's going on.

@ABChinese

7 ай бұрын

Can you reach out to them at info@duchinese.net? They can get it sorted out for you! I also noticed they have a Black Friday sale going on so maybe you can jump on that 😉

@Don_Modern_Ancestor

7 ай бұрын

@@ABChinese I'll do that. Thanks.

我是猫。我想吃东西 🙃

"Du Chinese" is "you Chineseperson" in German

@FruityHachi

2 жыл бұрын

😂 true

Lol Du is a german word

@acr2051

2 жыл бұрын

Yep. In this case it's 读 though.

Learning on the phone is really annoying, because of the ads.

The pitfall of all of these applications is not having a native human reader. If they fully control the content there's no reason not to. Bad habits die hard. My strongest memories for Chinese were formed listening to hospital dramas, with 80% of the words glossed over. Studying off lists is silly indeed, even when it feels more manageable for beginners, they are not helping their learning. Typesetting ruby is very difficult. I work on typesetting software and this is a highly specialized problem. The Taiwanese system for phonetic notation typesetting is much easier, as the 注音 always go beside the character to its right, whether the text is horizontal or vertical.

@asane510

Жыл бұрын

Du Chinese texts are all human read. Not TTS.

@asane510

Жыл бұрын

*native speaker human.

Made in China

If I could, I'd give you 10k likes. By watching you I wonder who your parents are, how they brought you up, how they live, what they do. If I have children, I'd want then to grow up into the same kind of personality you are. But I have no clue 🐣

I like your videos, however your background music it annoying to the point of not watching.

Henan cannot be your hometown, because it's a province, similar to a US state :))

It's a great concept but the whispering narration is grating on my ears. It's like nails on a chalkboard. Why can't they just read the dialogue like normal people?

I started using this app 3-4 months ago, and i'm still traumatised by the cat story 🥲 It's so cute and yet so sad, i wasnt excepting that ! (love it tho)