免费中文课 A free course from the Chinese Language Institute
A free, self-paced path from your first pinyin sound to your first story in Chinese. Six stages, about 20 minutes a day, built from the lessons, tools and graded readers on this site.
Most beginners don't fail for lack of material. They fail because they jump between apps and videos with no order. This free Mandarin course gives you one.
Each stage has a goal, a time estimate, a short list of things to do, and a check that tells you when you're ready to move on. Everything it links to is free on studycli.org, with no account to create.
Complete beginners in Mandarin, and anyone who has tried an app or two and wants a proper sequence. The course uses pinyin and simplified characters, as the HSK exam does.
15 to 20 minutes a day, five or six days a week, for eight weeks: about 16 to 20 hours in all. With 40 minutes a day, about four weeks.
You'll read pinyin with the right tones, know about 150 everyday words, build simple sentences, recognise the 100 most common characters, and read two short stories. That is the foundation of HSK 1.
Stages 1 to 5 are free and self-paced. A website can't listen to you, so Stage 6 is about speaking with a real person: a friend, a language partner or a teacher. Your first 30-minute online lesson with a Chinese Language Institute (CLI) teacher is free; lessons after that are paid.
The HSK is China's official Chinese proficiency exam. The revised standard, often called HSK 3.0, has nine levels, and its HSK 1 covers 300 words. The older six-level HSK 1 covered 150. Regular 2026 test dates still mostly use the older version, so check with your test center before you book. HSK Levels Explained covers both.
Stage 1
GoalHear and say every sound in Mandarin, and read pinyin aloud with the right tone.
Pinyin is the system that writes Chinese sounds in the Latin alphabet, and tones are part of every word. 妈 mā (mother) and 马 mǎ (horse) are different words that differ only in tone. Give this stage two full weeks: habits formed here are hard to undo later.
Stage 2
GoalLearn about 150 of the most useful beginner words by sound and meaning, with their tones.
Start with greetings and survival words, then work through the HSK 1 list in short sessions. Say every word out loud, every time: a word you can only read is half learned.
Stage 3
GoalPut your words into correct, simple sentences: statements, questions and negatives.
Chinese grammar is kinder to beginners than its reputation. There are no verb conjugations, no plural endings and no grammatical gender. What matters is word order and a small set of particles and patterns.
Stage 4
GoalRecognise the 100 most common characters, and understand how characters are built.
Don't wait until you have "finished" pinyin. Many teachers recommend starting characters within the first few weeks, because learners who read only pinyin for too long find the switch harder later. So this stage starts in week 3 with five minutes a day, and grows in weeks 6 and 7. Recognise first; writing from memory can come more slowly.
Stage 5
GoalRead a complete short story in Chinese characters.
This is where the earlier stages come together. CLI's graded readers are short stories written for a specific HSK level. Each HSK 1 story lets you switch between simplified characters, traditional characters, pinyin and a bilingual version, and every new word has audio.
Stage 6
GoalHold a short, real conversation, and find out what to fix in your pronunciation.
You've been speaking out loud since day one, which is exactly right. But talking to a chart or a flashcard is not the same as talking to someone who answers back at natural speed. This stage closes that gap.
About 20 minutes a day, five or six days a week. The stages overlap on purpose: sounds lead into words, characters start early, and you speak out loud every day. Miss a day? Carry on where you stopped. Miss a week? Repeat the last week.
| Week | Focus | Each day | By the end of the week |
|---|---|---|---|
| Week 1 | Stage 1 Sounds and the four tones | 10 min on one row of the Pinyin Chart; 5–10 min reading What Is Pinyin? | You say mā, má, mǎ, mà clearly and can tell them apart |
| Week 2 | Stage 1Stage 2 Tone changes, first phrases | 10 min tone pairs and tone changes; 10 min greetings and basic phrases | You read any pinyin aloud; you can greet, thank and apologise |
| Week 3 | Stage 2Stage 4 Words, first characters | 5 min review; 10 min new HSK 1 words; 5 min characters | About 50 words and 10 characters |
| Week 4 | Stage 2Stage 3 Words, word order | 5 min review; 8 min new words; 7 min Chinese Sentence Structure | About 100 words; simple sentences with 是, 很 and 有 |
| Week 5 | Stage 2Stage 3 HSK 1 grammar | 5 min review; 5 min new words; 10 min HSK 1 Grammar and sentence flashcards | About 150 words; ten sentences about yourself, as questions and negatives too |
| Week 6 | Stage 4 Characters | 5 min word review; 10 min the 100 most common characters; 5 min sentence flashcards | About 50 of the 100 characters; radicals make sense |
| Week 7 | Stage 4Stage 5 Characters, first story | 5 min review; 5 min characters; 10 min My Dad Loves Drinking Tea | 80 or more characters; your first story read in characters |
| Week 8 | Stage 5Stage 6 Reading and speaking | 10 min My Family's Dog; 10 min self-introduction and shadowing | Second story read; your first real conversation in Chinese |
Free tools are very good at explaining, showing, repeating and testing. You can learn everything in this course without paying anything, and many learners go well beyond it on free material alone.
Free tools are weak at three things, and all three matter in Chinese:
That is the gap CLI's online Chinese lessons fill. Every lesson is one-on-one with a teacher based in Guilin, China, so the whole class is about your Chinese: your tones, your questions, your goals. Your teacher can pick up from this course, work from a textbook, or build a plan around what you need.
Yes. Every guide, tool, word list and story in this course is free on studycli.org, with no account and nothing to install. The only paid option is one-on-one lessons with a CLI teacher, and the first 30-minute trial lesson is free too.
You can learn a lot for free. Pronunciation, vocabulary, grammar, characters and reading all work well with free material, and this course takes you through the beginner stage of each. Speaking is the hard part to do alone, because you need someone to talk to and someone to correct your tones. A language partner costs nothing; a teacher gets you there faster.
About eight weeks at 15 to 20 minutes a day, or 16 to 20 hours in total. With 40 minutes a day you can finish in about four weeks. For the bigger picture, most learners need 100 to 200 hours of study before greetings, numbers, ordering food and simple questions feel comfortable. How Long Does It Take to Learn Chinese? has realistic timelines for every goal.
Follow the place where you'll use Chinese. Learn simplified characters for mainland China or Singapore, and traditional characters if your focus is Taiwan or Hong Kong. This course uses simplified, the system the HSK uses, and CLI's graded readers let you switch between the two.
Not to start. You can do this whole course on your own. A teacher starts to matter when you want to speak: tones are much easier to correct in the first months than a year later, and a conversation partner who adapts to your level keeps you talking. Many learners mix both: free tools for words and characters, a lesson or two a week for speaking.
Finish the new HSK 1 list (the other 150 words), then move on to the HSK 2 vocabulary list and the HSK 2 graded readers. The Chinese Study Plan for Beginners maps out the rest of your first year, and HSK Levels Explained shows what each level asks of you.
Keep the same daily rhythm and the same order: words, sentences, characters, stories, and speaking out loud.
For more listening and reading, try CLI's picks of Chinese podcasts, YouTube channels for learning Mandarin and Chinese textbooks.
Open the Pinyin Chart, play the four tones of ma, and say them out loud. That's Stage 1, day one.