So I took a free beginners Chinese language course on Coursera last year that was offered by Peking University. It was great, but pretty limited. After that I started using Transparent Language from a Humble Bundle deal I saw. It's ok, but it expires in August and I wanted to see what else is out there. Paid is ok, but I wouldn't want anything too absurdly pricey.
Are there any in particular you all would recommend?
I really rate HelloChinese. It’s a DuoLingo-esque app.
It’s good for entry level Chinese. It’ll take you through grammar and vocab for the first few HSK levels, give you specific topics to learn when you’re done with the HSK, and recently introduced stories (as in, stories to read, not the Facebook garbage).
If you want to talk to Chinese speakers, use HelloTalk.
I did see HelloChinese in my searching and people seem to like it. I feel that apps like DuoLingo and Transparent that cover multiple languages often use a cookie-cutter approach that ignores a lot of nuance of a specific language, so something like HelloChinese looks much more ideal.
Much thanks for the recommendation. I'll definitely check that out.
These are the apps I use too.
I started with Duolingo but the lack of writing exercises, and the addition of the cartoony voices made it useless for a tonal language with a unique writing system. HelloChinese has been much better in my experience and gave me enough of a background to start learning informally through music, chatting, etc.
HelloTalk is a lot of fun. I probably spend most of my time there helping Chinese people with their English, but I've also made a couple friends who I have bilingual conversations with every day. I'll usually learn at least a couple new words each time.
Both have free versions with limited features, but I've found it worthwhile to pay for both.