Ni-Hao

Learn to actually SPEAK Mandarin Chinese — not just tap the right answer. Most language apps let you finish a whole lesson without opening your mouth. NiHao doesn't. Every lesson ends at the microphone, where the app listens to your Mandarin and grades your pronunciation syllable by syllable, tone by tone — then tells you exactly what to fix. WHY TONES MATTER, AND HOW NIHAO TEACHES THEM In Mandarin, mā means "mom" and mǎ means "horse." Same letters, different melody, completely different sentence. NiHao makes that melody visible from minute one: • Every syllable is color-coded by its tone, everywhere in the app • Drawn pitch curves show you the shape of each tone • Say a word and get per-syllable feedback — green for perfect, amber for the right sound with the wrong tone (plus a specific tip like "hǎo dips low, then rises"), red for try again • A Tone Trainer drills mā má mǎ mà until your ear catches the difference • Tone-trap words are built into the course: mǎi 买 (to buy) versus mài 卖 (to sell) A REAL BEGINNER COURSE 8 levels, 48 lessons, 191 words and phrases, 89 example sentences and 8 full conversations. Each level teaches four lessons, then a spaced-repetition refresher, then a conversation you speak out loud. LEVEL 1 — Foundations: the four tones, hello, how are you, numbers 0 to 10 LEVEL 2 — You & Me: names, people, countries, "what is this?" LEVEL 3 — Family: family members, ages, pets, "I have…" LEVEL 4 — Food & Drink: eating, drinking, ordering a meal, "too spicy!" LEVEL 5 — Shopping: bigger numbers, money, prices, bargaining LEVEL 6 — Time: days, weekdays, telling time, your daily routine LEVEL 7 — Places: "where is…", taxis and subways, directions LEVEL 8 — Daily Talk: weather, feelings, hobbies, making a friend CONVERSATIONS YOU ACTUALLY HAVE Order dinner. Haggle at a market. Take a taxi across town. Meet someone new. Your partner speaks, you choose your reply, then you say it yourself — with live pronunciation scoring on your own line. CHARACTERS, WITHOUT THE PANIC Every word shows the character, the pinyin and the English together, so the writing system sneaks up on you instead of scaring you off. The Characters tab collects everything you have learned, and you can trace any character with your fingertip over a guide glyph on a traditional practice grid. REVIEWS THAT ARRIVE JUST IN TIME A spaced-repetition engine tracks how well you know each word and brings it back right before you would have forgotten it. Refresher lessons, checkpoint quizzes, Smart Review, Listening Gym, Speaking Studio and Number Sprint keep old material alive while you add new material. BUILT TO KEEP YOU COMING BACK — KINDLY • A daily streak, XP and badges to chase • One friendly reminder a day, at a time you choose • No hearts, no lives, no punishment. Miss a question and it simply comes back later in the same lesson, until you get it right GENUINELY FREE No ads. No coins or gems. No subscription. No "unlock the rest of the course." No account, no sign-up, no email address. Every lesson is there from the first day. PRIVACY No accounts, no analytics, no tracking and no third-party SDKs. Your progress stays on your iPhone. Pronunciation checking uses Apple's Speech framework, which may send audio to Apple for processing; NiHao itself never collects, stores or transmits your recordings. Speaking is encouraged but never required. If you would rather not talk out loud, a self-check mode and a skip option keep every lesson fully playable. Requires iPhone with iOS 26 or later. 加油 — you've got this.