Comparison

Learn Chinese vs Duolingo

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

Learn Chinese

This app makes learning Mandarin vocabulary fun for young children with over 500 words, pictures, and sounds. It features interactive modes and professional voiceovers to aid memory and engagement.

Highlights
  • Over 500 words, pictures, and sounds
  • 10 learning categories
  • Video flashcards
  • Professional native Mandarin voiceovers
  • Question mode for interaction
  • Large text and buttons
Features
Read full description

Building strong Chinese (Mandarin) vocabulary has never been so exciting for preschoolers and toddlers. * 10 Categories - All in 1 App! * Over 500 words, pictures, voiceovers and sounds! * Kids tested - they love it! Parents tested - they love it! * Building vocabulary has never been so much fun * Video flashcards in animals and transportation categories * Large words and letters * Large icons and buttons * Professional native Mandarin voiceovers recorded in production studio * High quality images * Real sounds where applicable * Question mode for parent-child interaction * Great memory building exercise * FREE! Categories include: Food items, Animals, Transportation, Numbers, Colors & Shapes, Clothing, Household items, Body Parts, Outdoor items, Music Instruments/Arts & Learning. EFlashApps Chinese Mandarin Educational Baby Flash Cards features over 500 high quality images with text and voiceovers. There are additional real sounds where applicable (such as a lion's roar or an ambulance siren) to enhance visual and auditory learning and memory simultaneously. Parents have the option to turn voiceovers off during parent-child learning session and turn voiceovers on when the child is self-learning. They can enable Question Mode to display 4 images and ask the child to click on the right answer. Complexity of words is perfect for ages 1 to 4 so two or more young siblings can play together and even teach each other!

About

Duolingo

Learn languages, math, music, and chess through fun, bite-sized lessons. Build vocabulary, grammar, and real-world skills with a science-based methodology. Track progress and stay motivated with a global community.

Highlights
  • Bite-sized language lessons
  • Speaking, reading, listening, writing practice
  • Math skills development
  • Music reading and playing
  • Chess strategy and gameplay
  • Progress tracking and rewards
Features
Read full description

Learn a new language, chess & more with the world's most downloaded education app! Duolingo is the fun, free app for learning 40+ languages through quick, bite-sized lessons. Practice speaking, reading, listening & writing to build your vocabulary & grammar skills. Designed by learning experts & loved by hundreds of millions worldwide, our lessons make learning effective & fun and help you prepare for real conversations in Spanish, French, Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Italian, German, English and more. And now, you can learn CHESS on Duolingo! Whether you're a total beginner or looking to level up your game, you'll love learning chess the Duolingo way. Play matches and fun chess lessons for all levels, no matter the language - chess, ajedrez, xadrez, schach, Шахматы, الشطرنج. • Chess: Learn the moves, level up your game & play matches in our Chess course. Learn the basics, solve fun chess puzzles & improve your strategy with guided lessons. Whether you're new to chess or already play, our course is designed to help you have fun and build real skills. Checkmate! • Math: Forget lectures and math worksheets! Built by learning experts, our Math course makes math feel like a game. Boost learning and fight the summer slide with standards-aligned math lessons for elementary school, middle school, and high school students. • Music: Learn how to read music & play songs in our Music course, no instrument needed! Using an on-screen keyboard, you'll learn bit-by-bit. Whether you're learning a language for travel, school, career or your brain health, you'll love learning with Duolingo. Why Duolingo? • Duolingo is fun & effective. Game-like language lessons & fun characters help you build speaking, reading, listening, & writing skills, plus enjoy fun chess & competitive online chess in one app. • Duolingo works. Designed by learning experts, Duolingo has a science-based teaching methodology proven to foster long-term knowledge retention across language lessons & chess lessons alike. • Track your progress. Work toward your learning goals with playful rewards & achievements when you make practicing language lessons or chess online part of your daily habit. • Join millions of learners. Stay motivated with competitive Leaderboards as you learn languages & play chess online alongside our global community. • Every course is free. Learn Spanish, French, German, Italian, Russian, Portuguese, Turkish, Dutch, Irish, Danish, Swedish, Ukrainian, Esperanto, Polish, Greek, Hungarian, Norwegian, Hebrew, Welsh, Arabic, Latin, Hawaiian, Scottish Gaelic, Vietnamese, Korean, Japanese, English, & even High Valyrian! And now, learn Math, Music & improve your Chess skills with fun, bite-sized lessons. What the world is saying about Duolingo: "Far & away the best language-learning app." - The Wall Street Journal "This free app & website is among the most effective language-learning methods I've tried… lessons come in the form of brief challenges, speaking, translating, answering multiple-choice questions, that keep me coming back for more." - The New York Times "Duolingo may hold the secret to the future of education." - TIME Magazine "Duolingo is cheerful, lighthearted & fun." - Forbes "I Can't Stop Playing Duolingo Chess." - Wired If you like Duolingo, try Super Duolingo for 14 days free! Learn a language fast with no ads & get fun perks like Unlimited Energy & Monthly Streak Repair. If you choose to purchase Super Duolingo, payment will be charged to your Apple account, and your account will be charged for renewal within 24-hours prior to the end of the current period. Auto-renewal may be turned off at any time by going to your settings in the App Store after purchase. Any unused portion of a free trial period, if offered, will be forfeited when the user purchases a subscription to that publication, where applicable. Privacy Policy: https://www.duolingo.com/privacy Terms of Service: https://www.duolingo.com/terms

Screenshots

Learn Chinese3 screens
Duolingo4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is rating: Duolingo at 4.7 against Learn Chinese's 3.3. Duolingo also leads on update cadence (every 5 days vs every 6 months) and ratings volume (5.6M vs 8). Learn Chinese's advantage is ads (none vs shown) and iOS requirement (15.6 vs 17.0). On price, review sentiment, in-app purchases and monetization model there is nothing between them.

Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Both are free to download. Learn Chinese sells 1 one-off in-app purchase and Duolingo sells 16 in-app purchases, starting at $9.99 per month. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

Duolingo holds the better App Store score, 4.7 against 3.3. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Duolingo has 5.6M ratings behind it against 8, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 59% of Learn Chinese's written reviews are positive against 65% of Duolingo's.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Learn Chinese ships an update every 6 months, Duolingo every 5 days. Both last shipped on November 1, 2026.

Scorecard6 real differences · 5 level
Learn Chinese versus Duolingo: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterLearn ChineseDuolingo
PriceFreeFree
Rating3.3 (8 ratings)4.7 (5.6M ratings) — better
Positive reviews59.2% of reviews64.7% of reviews — better
Number of ratings85.6M — better
Update frequencyEvery 6 monthsEvery 5 days — better
AdsNo — betterYes
In-app purchasesYesYes
MonetizationFree with in-app purchasesFree with in-app purchases
Best chart rank—#1 — better
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPod — betteriPhone, iPad
Requires iOS15.6 — better17.0
Further details — not scored
Size89 MB490 MB
Age rating4+4+
DevelopereFlashApps, LLCDuolingo, Inc

Customer experience

Learn Chinese

All ratings7 ratings
Positive42.9%
Neutral28.6%
Negative28.6%
Written reviews71 reviews
Positive59.2%
Neutral22.5%
Negative18.3%

Duolingo

All ratings5,540,071 ratings
Positive94.2%
Neutral2.5%
Negative3.4%
Written reviews30,718 reviews
Positive64.7%
Neutral9.6%
Negative25.6%

User reviews

Learn Chinese

From 8 App Store ratings

What we love

  • 👍 Great for learning Mandarin
  • 👍 Clear pronunciation
  • 👍 Fun for kids
  • 👍 Good for beginners
  • 👍 Lots of categories

Room to improve

  • 🐛 Incorrect characters
  • 🐛 Audio/picture mismatch
  • 🐛 App freezes/locks up
  • 🐛 Ads are intrusive/scammy
  • 🐛 Small characters

Duolingo

From 5.6M App Store ratings

What we love

  • 🤩 Fun and entertaining learning experience
  • 🎉 Motivating streak and league features
  • 🎨 Cute and engaging animations
  • 📚 Effective for learning vocabulary and basics
  • 🤖 Useful AI-powered features like voice lessons

Room to improve

  • 🤖 Issues with voice recognition and pronunciation feedback
  • 🤑 Aggressive monetization tactics and paywall for key features
  • 🤯 Frustrating heart/health system that penalizes mistakes
  • 🤔 Lack of grammar explanations and focus on just memorizing phrases
  • 🤷‍♀️ Inconsistent app experience across platforms

Bugs and requests

Learn Chinese

Reported bugs

13 issues
  • App locks up on intro screen
  • Categories won't open after purchase
  • Some Chinese characters are wrong (e.g., number five)
  • Audio doesn't match pictures (peanuts/pancakes, peanuts/pear)
  • New update makes app unusable
Show 8 more
  • Button too close to ads
  • Numbers section sometimes doesn't move
  • VoiceOver not working in free version
  • Food category flashcards and audio mismatch (pancake, peanut, pear, peas)
  • Animal category: starfish wrong
  • Vehicle category: bulldozer named bicycle
  • Pronunciation error for 蝙蝠
  • Flashcards with missing audio or flashcards without audio

Requested features

8 requests
  • Add Pinyin option
  • Larger characters
  • Option to hide English text
  • Traditional Chinese characters
  • More vocabulary categories
Show 3 more
  • Better safeguards against scam ads
  • Tap image to repeat sound
  • Sentence structure help

Duolingo

Reported bugs

3 issues
  • Freezing or crashing during lessons
  • Incorrect translations or answers marked wrong
  • Inconsistent behavior of certain features like leagues

Requested features

5 requests
  • Add more languages, especially less common ones
  • Improve grammar lessons and explanations
  • Allow more flexibility in navigating the course content
  • Provide better feedback and corrections for mistakes
  • Sync progress and features consistently across app and web

In-app purchases

1 purchases

Learn Chinese

One-time1
  • Mandarin Baby Flash Cards Ad-Free$1.99
16 purchases

Duolingo

Subscriptions10
  • Super Duolingo7 Days trial$9.991 Month
  • Super Duolingo7 Days trial$12.991 Month
  • Super Duolingo14 Days trial$12.991 Month
Show 7 more
  • Super Duolingo2 variants$59.991 Year
  • Super Duolingo14 Days trial2 variants$79.991 Year
  • Super Duolingo14 Days trial4 variants$83.991 Year
  • Super Duolingo7 Days trial$83.991 Year
  • Super Duolingo7 Days trial4 variants$95.991 Year
  • Super Duolingo1 Month trial$119.991 Year
  • Super Duolingo7 Days trial$119.991 Year
One-time6
  • Chest of Gems$0.99
  • Barrel of Gems (1200)$4.99
  • Chest of Gems (1200)$4.99
Show 3 more
  • Cart of Gems (3000)$9.99
  • Barrel of Gems (3000)$9.99
  • Cart of Gems (6500)$19.99

Questions

Is Learn Chinese free?
Learn Chinese is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is Duolingo free?
Duolingo is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Which has better reviews, Learn Chinese or Duolingo?
Duolingo is rated higher. Learn Chinese averages 3.3 out of 5 from 8 ratings, while Duolingo averages 4.7 from 5.6M ratings.
Do Learn Chinese or Duolingo have ads?
Duolingo shows ads; Learn Chinese does not.
Which is updated more often, Learn Chinese or Duolingo?
Learn Chinese ships an update every 6 months, and Duolingo every 5 days. Most recently, Learn Chinese was updated on November 1, 2026 and Duolingo on November 1, 2026.

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