Read Bean User Reviews

What users say

Top reviews

Need more grammar tutorials

Very good app need more grammar tutorials

Good quality but money hungry

All the stories are locked and you need to pay for them. They only give you ONE story which is a shame because this app has a lot of potential.

Love

Love the stories. Great for practicing reading and listening.

Disappointed

I was considering subscribing to this app because the AI conversations were amazing. Unless I’m missing something, the new update appears to have removed them entirely. I know it’s a costly feature, but without it there’s nothing particularly special about this app 😔

quit duolingo for this

i’ve finished duolingo chinese but feel like i haven’t learned much. i’m chinese american so i need to be able to express myself accurately with my family. Duolingo definitely covers the basics but Read Bean applies words to real life and allows me to learn vocabulary while learning about culture.

Design issues

Seems like a good idea for app
1) when you search for app it auto corrects to red bean. Not the same
2) is app designed for iPhone? I am using iPad mini and lots of design issues. Not full screen. Some pages are larger than the shrunken screen and you cannot scroll up or down on it.

Response from developer

Hey there, thank you for your feedback! Our app is now optimized to work well for iPad. Hope this helps and you can continue enjoying your experience on a tablet.

Better than Duolingo

I’ve tried using Duolingo for years but never connected with the content. Reading current articles and being able to explore words and phrases on my own has made learning more effective and engaging. Excited to see the app continue to develop and improve. 加油!

Good

Nice UI

great app!

so interactive and helpful

I loveee

Im learning so much for my level!! So cool

Quite enjoyable but crashes all the time

I’m trying this after using duo lingo for a year, and feeling like it’s lacking structure. This app seems to be teaching in a different way. It’s about reading, so there seems to be no pure listening. Which means I probably won’t understand people talking to me, but we shall see.
Some bad points are that it seems to need constant internet, it doesn’t seem to cache anything on the device, like a dictionary and standard pronunciation, which is a small amount of data so it should be downloaded.
Also it crashes all time time… like, every 15 minutes.
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Best Chinese app for ABCs

If you’re an ABC, this is the app for you. It just works and teaches you all the parts you want to learn. Nobody writes anymore, it’s all digital, so just learn to read with this app!

most fun way to incorporate useful chinese into your routine!!

Before Read Bean, I felt like I hit a Chinese learning wall. Watching c-dramas demands 5 hours, I straight up was not advanced enough for news articles, and Duolingo was teaching me useless sentences. As they say, the most important part of learning is staying consistent, and there is no other language app that encourages this consistency as Read Bean.

The lessons are short enough where you can easily incorporate Chinese practice into your daily routine. Because it’s tailored to your HSK level, everything is just challenging enough. Lastly — like the other reviewers mentioned, the content is super engaging. Past topics have ranged from historical topics like Chinese maritime history, to playful topics like why Chinese consumers are captivated by the LABUBU toy series, to topical news like the TikTok ban. Through this relevant content, Read Bean allows you to learn not only the language, but also and more importantly, Chinese culture. That’s (usually?) why most people try to learn languages in the first place!

I’m excited to see where this app will go - nothing is ever perfect, so it’s nice to see the developers releasing such frequent improvements. I’d never thought that I would look forward to practicing Chinese < 3 I’ve definitely noticed myself improving already and I’ve gained so much yap material with my cousins.
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AI-supercharged Chinese learning

Excellent Chinese learning app with an ergonomic UI. AI-powered assistant has been incredibly helpful for learning vocab by actually understanding the shape of characters and the context behind them, rather than repeatedly drilling rote flashcard-based memorization. Stories are interesting and relevant, and spaced repetition for vocab review is helpful for solidifying vocabulary.
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Best way to learn practical Chinese!!

This app has been super helpful in improving my Chinese! The articles and stories feel perfectly customized to the right level of challenging — not too hard that the reading feels interrupted but also not too easy that I’m not learning many new words. The bite sized lessons are perfect for my terrible attention span and the flash card reviews really help me solidify my memory of new words! I love repeating the quick word chest review just to get even more practice in. Improving my Chinese significantly always feel too hard to achieve but this app gives me hope :D not to mention UI is stellar. What a great user experience!! Highly highly recommend!!
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The app to learn reading Chinese in AI time

Chinese are hard to learn for thousands different words. This app makes Chinese learning easier and fun with instant translation and pronunciation. The flipping card reviews enhances the learning experience. The daily feeds let you not only learn and build up the Chinese vocabulary library but also follow the popular trends in Chinese world. Definitely recommend for people wanting to read Chinese and know China, its rich culture and history.
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The Duolingo Killa

Reading is the best way to learn a language, and Read Bean supplies you with interesting Chinese passages at your reading level. Unlike Duolingo, you can learn Chinese in the context of news and stories in the world, which has helped improve my conversational proficiency. This app should have existed years ago.
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Cannot believe I have been missing this my whole life

I’m an American Born Chinese heritage speaker, and I have been trying for years to find ways to improve my reading and vocab. I tried anki, watching dramas, Chinese social media, but honestly there is just no structure at all and I find it hard to really retain anything. Read Bean has totally changed that and has become an indispensable tool for me. In two months I’ve gone from 0 to reading hundreds of words 🙂‍↕️
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great app !

love that i can improve my reading comprehension while learning about chinese history and cultural topics

❤️❤️❤️

really great for building vocab and learning to read short stories! would absolutely recommend for both beginner and intermediate mandarin learners :)