Mandarin is spoken by more than a billion people, and yet most beginners stall in the first month, not because the language is impossible, but because they pick the wrong starting point. The big early fork is this: do you want to speak first (pinyin and tones, holding a conversation) or read and write first (characters)? Almost every good course leans one way, and knowing which you’re signing up for matters more than the provider’s name.
In this Best Courses Guide (BCG), I’ve pulled together the best online courses to learn Mandarin Chinese, from free university MOOCs to the independent programs the learner community swears by. Whether you’re starting from nǐ hǎo or grinding toward an HSK exam, there’s a clear path here for exactly where you are.
A quick note on scope: this guide is about structured courses: the sit-down, work-through-it programs. If you’re after apps, dictionaries, flashcard tools, and podcasts to build a daily habit around, that’s a different toolkit, and I cover it in the companion Best Mandarin Chinese Learning Apps guide.
Click on the shortcuts for more details:
- Top Picks
- How to Learn Mandarin
- What is the HSK?
- Best Courses for Getting Started
- Best Courses for HSK & Serious Progression
- Best Courses for Specific Goals
- More Free Resources
- Why You Should Trust Us
- Best Courses Guide Methodology
Which Mandarin Chinese Course Is Right for You?
How to Learn Mandarin: The Grammar Is the Easy Part
Mandarin’s reputation for difficulty is only half deserved. The grammar is genuinely simple: no conjugations, plurals, gender, or tenses. The real work is a few new skills and the daily habits around them.
- Nail the tones first. The same syllable in a different tone is a different word (mā mother, má hemp, mǎ horse, mà to scold). Get pronunciation right early; sloppy tones are hard to un-learn.
- Start with pinyin. It spells out Mandarin sounds in the Latin alphabet, so you can speak before you can read. Almost every beginner course begins here.
- Drill characters daily. You’ll need 2,500–3,000 to read a newspaper, and they stick through short daily spaced-repetition review, not weekend cramming. Build an SRS flashcard habit early (see the apps guide).
- Get comprehensible input. Once you have a base, read and listen to Mandarin just above your level. It’s how grammar and rhythm sink in.
- Speak out loud, early. Shadow the audio, talk to yourself, and book a tutor or language partner when you’re ready.
- Pick a goal and a lane. “Pass HSK 3,” “chat on a trip,” “read manhua.” Your goal decides whether to prioritize speaking or characters.
What is the HSK?
The HSK (Hànyǔ Shuǐpíng Kǎoshì, 汉语水平考试) is China’s official Chinese proficiency test for non-native speakers, the TOEFL or IELTS of Mandarin. It’s used for university admission, scholarships, and jobs, and its six levels double as a ready-made learning roadmap:
- HSK 1–2: beginner (CEFR A1–A2). Basic phrases and everyday sentences.
- HSK 3–4: intermediate (B1–B2). Daily life, work, and travel.
- HSK 5–6: advanced (C1+). Newspapers, films, and academic content.
You don’t have to sit the exam to use the framework. Many of the picks below are built around it, so you always know your next step.
Best Courses for Getting Started
If you’re at zero, start here. These three get you speaking and reading your first Mandarin: one flagship university course, and two excellent free options (one with a certificate, one on YouTube) so cost is never the thing that stops you.
Best Overall for Beginners (Peking University)
If you only take one course from this guide, make it Chinese for Beginners from Peking University. With over 1.4 million enrollments, it’s comfortably the most popular Mandarin course online, and it holds up: clear, patient, and built entirely around getting you talking.
The key design decision, and the reason it’s so beginner-friendly, is that it doesn’t ask you to learn characters. Everything is taught through pinyin so you can focus on pronunciation, tones, and speaking from day one. That’s a deliberate speaking-first approach, and it’s the right call for most people starting out.
Across six modules, you’ll learn to handle real, everyday situations in Mandarin:
- Introducing yourself: name, nationality, family
- Talking about your daily schedule, numbers, and time
- Food: ordering, describing, and talking about Chinese dishes
- Shopping: colors, sizes, prices, and bargaining
- Directions and transportation
- Weather, seasons, health, and hobbies
There’s even a bonus VR/desktop game where you practice speaking on a virtual scavenger hunt through a Chinese market. When you finish, the natural next step is the same instructor’s More Chinese for Beginners, which extends the same speaking-first approach with more vocabulary and expressions.
| Institution | Peking University |
| Provider | Coursera |
| Instructor | Xiaoyu Liu |
| Level | Beginner |
| Workload | 27 hours |
| Enrollments | 1.4M |
| Rating | 4.4/5.0 (61) |
| Cost | Paid |
| Certificate | Paid |
Best Free Course with a Certificate (The Open University)
Not sure Mandarin is for you yet? Beginners’ Chinese: a taster course from The Open University is the lowest-risk way to find out. It’s completely free, takes about four hours, and, unlike auditing a MOOC, you get a free digital badge and statement of participation at the end.
It’s a genuine taster: short enough to finish in an afternoon, but substantial enough to teach you how the language actually works. You’ll come away understanding what you’re signing up for before you commit serious time or money.
The course covers:
- The varieties of Chinese and where Mandarin fits
- Pinyin, tones, and how Mandarin sounds are formed
- An introduction to characters: simplified vs. traditional, and how they’re built
- Greetings, introducing yourself, nationalities and professions
- Counting from one to ten
It’s drawn from the OU’s paid 30-credit beginners’ Chinese course (L108), so it’s a taste of proper university-level material with none of the cost.
| Institution | The Open University |
| Provider | OpenLearn |
| Level | Beginner |
| Workload | 4 hours |
| Rating | 4.5/5.0 (provider) |
| Cost | Free |
| Certificate | Free (digital badge) |
Best Courses for HSK & Serious Progression
Once you’re past the basics, or if you’re aiming at the HSK exam from the start, these three give you a real ladder to climb. Two are from top Chinese universities; the third is the program the learner community reaches for when the goal is passing the test.
Best University Course for HSK 1 (Peking University)
Where the flagship beginner course above skips characters to focus on speaking, Chinese for HSK 1 is built around the exam framework, and it’s the first rung of Peking University’s full HSK 1 through 6 series on Coursera. If your goal is measurable proficiency, this is where to start.
It’s genuinely comprehensive: 30 video lectures with dialogue role-plays performed by PKU students, more than 150 common words, around 50 key grammar points, per-lesson quizzes, and actual HSK test papers to practice on. It maps to Level 1 of the official scale and CEFR A1. Characters are introduced too (with 70 basic ones taught via optional videos), so you get a more complete foundation than a speaking-only course.
Topics are organized around everyday communication:
- Greetings, numbers, and personal information
- Family and school/university life
- Time and weather
- Work and hobbies
- Shopping and food
- Traffic and directions, plus a final test
When you’re done, you can continue straight up the ladder with the same PKU team. Here’s the full series, level by level, so you can bookmark your next step:
- Chinese for HSK 1: CEFR A1 · ~38h · beginner
- Chinese for HSK 2: CEFR A2 · ~22h · beginner
- Chinese for HSK 3 Part I: CEFR B1 · vocabulary & grammar · intermediate
- Chinese for HSK 3 Part II: CEFR B1 · exercises & test strategy · intermediate
- Chinese for HSK 4: CEFR B2 · 424 new words · intermediate
- Chinese for HSK 5: advanced · ~2,500-word vocabulary · taught in Chinese
- Chinese for HSK 6: advanced · 5,000+ words · taught in Chinese
If you’d rather enroll in a bundle, Peking University also packages the first courses as the Learn Chinese: HSK Test Preparation Specialization (HSK 1 through HSK 3).
| Institution | Peking University |
| Provider | Coursera |
| Instructor | Yu Bin |
| Level | Beginner (HSK 1 / CEFR A1) |
| Workload | 38 hours |
| Enrollments | 156K |
| Rating | 4.4/5.0 (5) |
| Cost | Paid |
| Certificate | Paid |
Best Structured Multi-Level Path (Shanghai Jiao Tong University)
If you like the idea of one course leading cleanly into the next rather than piecing together your own curriculum, the Learn Mandarin Chinese Specialization from Shanghai Jiao Tong University is the most coherent single package here. It bundles three progressive beginner courses plus a capstone project into one guided path, and it’s explicitly designed to take you toward passing HSK 1 or 2.
Because it’s a specialization, the sequencing is done for you: each course builds on the last, vocabulary and grammar accumulate deliberately, and the capstone gives you something to work toward. It’s a good fit for learners who want the structure of a school course without enrolling in a university.
The path runs through:
- Mandarin Chinese 1, 2, and 3: Chinese for Beginners
- A capstone project that pulls your skills together in a practical task
| Institution | Shanghai Jiao Tong University |
| Provider | Coursera |
| Instructors | An Na and Wang Jun |
| Level | Beginner (targets HSK 1–2) |
| Workload | ~80 hours (8 weeks, 10 hrs/week) |
| Enrollments | 46K |
| Cost | Paid |
| Certificate | Paid |
Best for HSK Exam Prep (Chinese Zero to Hero)
Ask on r/ChineseLanguage which course to use for the HSK, and one name comes up again and again: Chinese Zero to Hero. They’ve built their whole curriculum around the exam, level by level, and it has a reputation for being the most efficient way to actually pass it.
The most accessible way to try them is their Udemy course, Learn Chinese: From Zero to Chinese Hero – Mandarin HSK 1-3, which covers the first three HSK levels in one structured, self-paced package: 600+ words and phrases, grammar, characters, and exam-style practice, with a certificate on completion. Their instructor’s grammar explanations are the part learners rave about most.
If you get on with their style and want to go all the way to HSK 6, their full course library on chinesezerotohero.com covers every level with lifetime access. One honest caveat that even fans repeat: it’s a superb exam-prep spine, but it’s best paired with a textbook or conversation practice rather than used as your only resource.
| Provider | Udemy (full library on chinesezerotohero.com) |
| Instructor | Chinese Zero to Hero |
| Level | Beginner–Intermediate (HSK 1–3) |
| Workload | ~39 hours |
| Enrollments | 10K (Udemy course) |
| Rating | 4.7/5.0 (1,429, Udemy instructor) |
| Cost | Paid (~$94 on Udemy) |
| Certificate | Paid |
Best Courses for Specific Goals
Some learners aren’t looking for a general course. They have one thing they want to crack. These two are the community’s favorites for the two hardest, most personal parts of Mandarin: the characters, and actually speaking.
Best for Mastering Characters (Mandarin Blueprint)
Characters are where most self-learners hit a wall, and Mandarin Blueprint is the program built specifically to get you over it. Its signature “Hanzi Movie Method” is a structured mnemonic system: you assign actors, props, and sets to character components, then “shoot a little movie” in your head for each character. It sounds gimmicky; learners consistently report it works.
It’s a comprehensive beginner-to-advanced curriculum: thousands of video lessons and multimedia flashcards, sequenced so that pronunciation, characters, and reading reinforce each other rather than competing. If your goal is genuine reading and writing fluency (not just conversational survival), this is the standout.
The honest trade-offs: it’s expensive, and it’s self-taught, so there’s no one checking your tones or your handwriting. There’s a free trial and a money-back guarantee, so you can test the method before committing.
| Provider | Mandarin Blueprint (independent) |
| Level | Beginner–Advanced |
| Workload | Self-paced (2,000+ video lessons) |
| Method | Hanzi Movie Method (mnemonics) |
| Cost | Paid (subscription or ~$599 lifetime; free trial) |
| Certificate | No |
Best for Audio-Based Speaking Practice (Rocket Chinese)
If your priority is opening your mouth and speaking, Rocket Chinese is the most structured audio-first course around. Its core is a series of interactive audio lessons: you listen to a natural conversation between native speakers, an English-speaking host walks you through the vocabulary and pronunciation, and you’re prompted to speak out loud and record yourself throughout.
It’s a proper three-level program that runs from absolute beginner to an advanced level, and it covers reading and writing characters alongside the speaking work. Unlike most independent programs it’s sold as a one-time lifetime purchase rather than a subscription (and it’s almost always discounted).
The trade-offs: the practice activities lean heavily on vocabulary drills with less grammar practice, and the audio lessons can run long. There’s a generous free trial, so it’s easy to see whether the audio-led style clicks for you.
| Provider | Rocket Languages (independent) |
| Level | Beginner–Advanced (3 levels) |
| Workload | Self-paced (100+ hours across levels) |
| Cost | Paid (lifetime; ~$150–450, often discounted; free trial) |
| Certificate | No |
More Free Resources
A few more things worth bookmarking as you go:
- Yoyo Chinese: Yangyang Cheng’s channel is one of the most-recommended free resources for beginners, with famously clear, English-friendly explanations of tones and grammar (there’s a paid course platform too). I cover it in more detail in the apps guide.
- Mandarin (Chinese) for Beginners: a fully free, university-backed course from IGNOU on India’s Swayam platform.
- AllSet Learning Grammar Wiki: a free, level-organized reference for looking up any Mandarin grammar point.
- r/ChineseLanguage: an active community for questions, resource recommendations, and motivation.
And for the app-and-tool side of your study stack (flashcards, dictionaries, podcasts, and reading apps), head to the companion Best Mandarin Chinese Learning Apps guide.
Why You Should Trust Us
Class Central, a Tripadvisor for online education, has helped 100 million learners find their next course. We’ve been combing through online education for more than a decade to aggregate a catalog of over 250,000 online courses and 250,000 reviews written by our users. And we’re online learners ourselves: combined, the Class Central team has completed over 400 online courses, including online degrees.
Best Courses Guide Methodology
Finding “the best” is daunting even for those of us who live and breathe online courses. Here’s how I approached it for Mandarin.
I started with the more than 390 Chinese courses in Class Central’s catalog, then went beyond it to the independent programs the learning community consistently recommends. When choosing what made the cut, I weighed:
- Reputation and popularity: enrollments, bookmarks, and view counts to find the courses learners actually use: Peking University’s flagship alone has over 1.4 million enrollments.
- Institution and instructor quality: recognized universities (Peking, Shanghai Jiao Tong, The Open University) and experienced independent teachers with a track record.
- Learner reviews and community sentiment: ratings and reviews on Class Central and the host platforms, plus what learners say on Reddit and dedicated review sites.
- A clear fit: I made sure each pick answers a specific need (speaking first, HSK prep, characters, free, audio), so you can choose by your goal, not just by rank.
Ultimately I used a mix of data and judgment to make these picks. If you think there’s a resource I’ve missed, leave a comment below.
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