Horrible app
App constantly crashes so I can’t even log in. Site also has issues creating an account, says an account exists but when you try to reset password no email ever comes.
Should Have Read the Reviews First
Paid $30 for one month access because the podcast is so good. The app doesn’t recognize my account, crashes, and there is no way to get help, complaint, or ask for a refund. I will have to contest the charge with Apple or my cc company instead. Terrible service.
Crashes during account setup
Requires email address before accessing any content, crashed during attempt to create account.
Paid for Subscription, Got Nothing
I’m extremely disappointed with the ChinesePod app. I paid $30 for a monthly subscription, but the app doesn’t even recognize my paid account, leaving me unable to use the service I paid for. The app is full of bugs and basic functionality doesn’t work properly.
What’s even worse is that I’ve tried contacting customer support multiple times and received absolutely no response. Paying customers deserve better communication and a working product. Right now, this feels like a complete waste of money.
Would not recommend until they fix their app and improve customer support.
What’s even worse is that I’ve tried contacting customer support multiple times and received absolutely no response. Paying customers deserve better communication and a working product. Right now, this feels like a complete waste of money.
Would not recommend until they fix their app and improve customer support.
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Very useful
I made my first leaps towards fluency with ChinesePod - just takes consistent listening and self discipline!
good but impossible to cancel
chinese pod has a great selection of language learning and is a great way to learn. however it got very expensive to maintain and is impossible to cancel, the FAQ page has 0 pages. after some research you simply ‘delete account’, the customer service is not great.
Abysmal quality
The app is riddled with bugs, borderline unusable with frequent outages. Design is poor and deficient in every way possible relative to what a modern app should look like. Can’t even submit the feedback (broken submission form). Content is good, but the delivery is just not there and not worth the hassle.
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Great Material, Terrible Support
The content on Chinespod’s app and website are fantastic. However, the app and website constantly experience performance issues, rendering them both useless. It is a shame because I used to love it. Unless the bugs are fixed, you are better off spending your $250 membership elsewhere.
Great content. Bad interface.
Top notch materials. And thoughtful lessons. But interface is glitchy. Sometimes it stalls or freezes. And there’s issues with the subscription registration — I paid for a subscription but the interface doesn’t reflect that. Just not smooth experience.
Terrible User Interface
The UI is very terrible. You can’t look at the dialogues or vocabulary when you listen to the audio. Also, the play button doesn’t always work. Also the rewind and seek buttons are permanently stuck at five seconds you can’t adjust it which is quite frustrating. Also, you have the option of downloading an episode, which is great. However, there is no option to use that downloaded episode except you go off-line. What that means is, if you are online, the App forcefully tries to stream that episode.
This is terribly disappointing because the podcast is actually very good. However, I will no longer be using it because the user interface is too stressful to use and headache inducing.
This is terribly disappointing because the podcast is actually very good. However, I will no longer be using it because the user interface is too stressful to use and headache inducing.
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Avoid this company
I had an account recently and was checking to see if there were any current promotions running. I input some codes that I found online to see if they were a part of currently running sales, and they did not work, fine with me. However, a few minutes later, I got an email from the company without any context, asking me if there was anything they could help me with in my account. The email was extremely vague, and I was under the impression that I was being watched, as if they did not like that I was trying promotional codes (?). That’s something I do anytime I buy something online, because I’m always unaware if companies are running sales. Anyway, I replied back, asking what prompted the message, since the company did not say as much, and several days later, I have not received a response from them. Very unprofessional. Then a few days later, I wanted to create a new account and try to delete my previous account to erase my history and start fresh with a new subscription. I wasn’t able to find a delete option so I signed in and out a few times trying to figure out how to remove my old account. Now today, my new account has been mysteriously deleted. It seems that for some reason this company is being passive aggressive and not communicating with customers directly. They also seem to have strange feeling about customers interacting with their account. I mean I’m a person messing around in my account, yet they’re acting like I’m a hacker or something .. very odd. If they had any problem with my account activity, they did not say as much to me directly. I can only conclude they are as in decline as everyone has been saying. Little do they know, they lost a customer. I often like to try promo codes or make fresh accounts with many online services, and I’ve spent good money in the process. If a code doesn’t work I drop it and pay full price. So what did the policing get them? Take your money elsewhere, is my best advice!
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Freezes
How terrible is it that an app you paid $30 a month for is broken and freezes constantly on the iPhone. Terrible.
Zombie app billing
I had no idea this app was still billing me because it didn’t show up in my Apple subscriptions and they never haven’t sent receipts. Now I can’t figure out how to cancel it!
Once a great platform, now sadly neglected
I’ve used ChinesePod for over 6 years and can confidently say the learning materials are top notch, and among the best you can get for advanced learners. There is a huge variety of media and advanced topics that will vastly help you improve your cultural understanding and vocabulary. Sadly, these last few years, the platform itself has been severely neglected. There are no new advanced and media lessons, and even ones they were sporadically producing for a while were not nearly as good as older lessons. But worse, the web site and iOS app have regular stability and performance problems: some lessons don’t load at all, some take a long time or hang. Even more frustrating is that there are billing issues and I was incorrectly marked a free account, even though I still have almost half a year left. Support staff responded to a few of my messages and said they were investigating, but since then completely have ignored my messages and never followed up. It looks like nobody is actively maintaining or supporting ChinesePod anymore, which is such a shame. While the materials are still great, sadly technical problems are plentiful and nobody is there to support you when you have problems now. In a word, YMMV.
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Amazing content but super buggy
They’ve got amazing content no matter what level your Chinese is at but the app is super buggy and needs to be force closed and reopened for various tasks. Probably better to use their website?
Update is Trash
Many of the episodes won’t play since the update a few weeks ago. Frustrating. Don’t sign up or spend your money on this trash. Sadly the content is amazing. But it doesn’t matter how good the content is if the app crashes when trying to access it
Cancelled But They Still Take Money
I used this app for a while but cancelled. However, they were still taking payment from me, even after I deleted my account. I had to cancel my card and contact my bank to start a dispute.
Terrible app and buggy interface!
This is the worst app I’ve ever used. The interface is terrible and constantly freezes-so I have to keep restarting all the time! It’s a shame, as ChinesePod used to be a great resource for learning Chinese. The company obviously doesn’t care about the User Experience or User interface which is shocking for an app in 2025 😳
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UI so bad it makes me not want to learn
App constantly logs me off my account every 2 days or so even if i ask it to remember me. Navigating through the app is also a fairly bad experience (UI looks out of the early 2010s). Simple things like bookmarking a lesson requires the user to wait instead of handling the post request in the background. Overall the app is really clunky and creates such inconvenience for users that it increases the resistance to learn chinese. Given this is a paid service, i find it quite difficult to justify.
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Update 2.0.0
The 2.0.0 update is unworkable. Lessons won’t load, the app consistently crashes, and I keep having to re-login. I will be suspending my subscription until these issues are resolved.
