Learn Mandarin online completely free — unlimited practice, no time limits, no subscription.
Free forever. No card required.
Free Mandarin lessons, unlimited practice, tone guide included.
How a session works
xiǎng
想
want to
Words → phrases → full sentence. Every time.
1B+
native speakers worldwide
#1
most natively spoken language on earth
2nd
world's largest economy
3,000
characters needed for daily fluency
The world's most spoken language
Over one billion people speak Mandarin natively. China's economy has grown into the world's second largest, and Mandarin fluency is increasingly valuable in business, tech, and diplomacy. Learning it now is a long-term investment.
More approachable than it looks
Tones are the main challenge — and they're learnable. In return, Mandarin grammar is simpler than most European languages: no past/future verb forms, no gender, no case endings. Wekos teaches tones through audio-first drilling from day one.
The Wekos method
Every word and sentence comes with pinyin romanization so you can focus on meaning and pronunciation before characters. You'll hear a full sentence before you understand every word — meaning comes from context.
Characters without the overwhelm
The 50,000-character myth is just that — a myth. Modern Mandarin fluency requires around 3,000 characters, and Wekos builds toward that methodically: pronunciation and meaning first, characters alongside.
Measure words, taught with the noun
Mandarin counts nouns with a classifier — 一个苹果, one piece of apple — and which one a noun takes has to be learned with the noun rather than worked out. Most courses postpone this and most free apps never cover it. Wekos shows the classifier in front of every countable noun it teaches, in pinyin as well as characters, and you can tap it to see what that one is for: 张 for flat things, 条 for long ones, 只 for animals.
Progression built in
Categories are ordered so each Mandarin session builds on the last. Wekos saves your place when you leave, and review sessions pull what you are due for. You always know what to open next.
What learners say
"Three weeks in I had a real conversation with a stranger and didn't freeze. I'd been 'learning' on and off for two years before this."
Jamie R.
Three weeks in
"The slang is labelled by region, so I stopped mixing up phrases from places nobody around me is from. People actually understand me now."
Elena V.
Living abroad
"I can see myself moving through the course — greetings, then verbs, then real conversation. I always know what comes next."
Nate H.
Restarted after Duolingo
"I grew up hearing it at home and still stalled on the grammar. Drilling it inside full sentences, in order, is what finally made it stick."
Camila R.
Heritage speaker
Unlimited practice
Every other free tier meters you somehow — hearts, energy, a lesson cap that hands you a countdown and an upgrade button. Wekos has no cap at all. Drill Mandarin for ten minutes or three hours, every day, and nothing stops you.
Hearts that run out
Make as many mistakes as you need
Energy bars and cooldowns
Never wait to practice again
A daily lesson cap
Practice all day if you want
Pay to keep going
Keep going. It is free.
Mandarin on Wekos is not a free sample. The tone guide, both voices and every sentence are included.
Interactive tone guide
An audio pitch graph you can see and hear at the same time, open at any point mid-session. Mandarin has 4 tones; Cantonese has 6.
Classifiers, taught with the noun
Every countable noun comes with the measure word it is counted with, in front of it — 一個蘋果, because 一蘋果 is not a sentence. Tap it to see what that one is for. Most courses leave this for later and most free apps never cover it.
Romanization alongside, not instead
Pinyin, jyutping and romaji sit beside the characters rather than replacing them — including on every quiz option, so a question tests whether you know the word and not whether you can already read the script.
Particle guide
The particles that never map cleanly onto English, laid out side by side with audio for each one.
Free, and unlimited
No daily cap, no hearts to run out, no energy bar, no cooldown, no subscription. Drill for ten minutes or three hours, every day. Nothing stops you, and there is nothing to buy at any point.
A sequenced course
Sixteen units per language, each one a grammar step rather than a theme. Every unit carries its sentences, its vocabulary sets, a story and a quiz.
Sentences, broken down
Every word, then every chunk, then the whole sentence, then five variations of it. The variants change one piece at a time, so the pattern is what stays constant.
Three playback modes
Auto plays hands-free for commutes. Semi-manual loops one item until you have it. Manual gives you control of every rep.
Adjustable repetitions
Seven reps per item by default, anywhere from two to fifteen. Turn it up to grind, down if you are moving fast.
Native audio, both voices
Every word and sentence recorded by a male and a female speaker. Pick one and hear it throughout, at whichever speed lets you hear the word boundaries.
Say it out loud
Cards that listen while you speak, using your own device’s recognizer. Scored on whether you were understood — never on whether you sound native. No audio ever leaves your phone.
Spaced review
One session follows the repetition schedule; a second ignores it and goes at whatever keeps catching you out. Neither asks you to decide what to practice.
Quizzes that mix backwards
Each unit ends with a quiz graded on the server, carrying questions from earlier units — so passing means it stuck, not that you finished it this afternoon.
A story per unit
Dialogue revealed a line at a time and read aloud, with the comprehension question placed after the line that answers it.
Conversation, on your phone
Eight scenarios with a partner who stays in character, speaks only the language, and will not correct you mid-sentence. It runs on the device, so it is free, private and works offline.
Grammar on demand
Explanations arrive after you have already seen the pattern in a real sentence — never as a lecture up front — with live conjugation tables beside them.
Slang cards
Calibrated to your generation and labelled by region, so you learn the version people actually use where you are — not an average of everywhere.
Color-coded parts of speech
Nouns, verbs and adjectives tinted so sentence structure is visible at a glance. Switch it off when you no longer need it.
Your vocabulary, searchable
Every word you have actually learned, in one place, with the note and the slang you picked up alongside it.
Skills and levels
A score per format — recognizing, recalling, listening, spelling, being understood — and a shareable record at A1, A2 and B1.
Start where you are
A short placement test puts you in at the right unit if you already know some of the language. Decline it and start at unit one.
Stories read in character
One story per unit, revealed a line at a time and read aloud — a man’s lines by the male voice, a woman’s by the female — with the translation a tap away.
Save a unit for offline
Every word, sentence and clip in a unit, on the phone in advance, for a commute with no signal.
Pick up where you stopped
Leave in the middle of anything — a drill, a vocabulary set, a story — and you come back to the card you left, not the start.
One account, three apps
iOS, Android and the web share one set of progress, so a unit finished on the train is finished on your laptop.
Your first real Mandarin conversation starts here.
Free forever. No card required.
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