ChineseFor. Us Review 2024: Is it Worthy? (My Honest Opinion)

The toughest language that I have learned in my journey is Chinese. It not only has difficult pronunciation, but the writing aspect also differs. In such a case, I prefer using a platform that is entirely based on Chinese. One such platform that I used recently was ChineseFor. Us. It is the one created to help non-native speakers speak Chinese. Now the question is whether it is worth it or not. Below, I have shared my experience with it. Hope this helps in finding out if you should use it or not.

Quick Takeaways

• ChineseFor. Us is a platform that is well known for learning Chinese. 
• There are different courses created to teach you the language and its basic. 
• The pinyin and Tone drills are are very useful courses that makes learning language easy. 
• It is useful for anyone who wants to travel to China or need to have conversation in it. 

What is ChineseFor. Us?

ChineseFor. Us was founded by two people Chuck and Lili, whose main aim was to bring the rich culture of China to the world. They may name it to bring high-quality Chinese learning for the learners who want to travel to China. It is also useful for students who are going to China to study. Multiple courses suit different learning styles. The teachers on it are very humble and dedicated to making up a proper course. In fact, the platform itself states that:

We take pride in our experienced and dedicated team of instructors passionate about teaching and sharing their knowledge of the Chinese language and culture.

Pricing of ChineseFor. Us

There are three different plans on this platform, depending on the time duration. Below, I have added a table that shows the price structure for the different plans.

Type of plan	Pricing of the platform
Monthly	$24.99 per month
6-Months	$59.94 ($9.99 per month)
Yearly	$107.88 ($8.99 per month)

There is also a free plan on this platform. In it, some lessons are free to use. It gives a chance to understand what to expect from the lessons.  

Is ChineseFor. Us worth it?

This course is a well-made course for Chinese learners. Everything covered in it is explained so well that it is very easy to understand. The courses on this platform are created in great depth. They put in so much effort to create the courses so that you get a quality product. It is also quite affordable. Just try the free lessons first, and if you think they are worth it, go for the paid version. There are different plans but the most affordable one is the six-month plan. However, if you are interested in passing the HSK test, try some other alternatives. Below are the benefits and drawbacks of ChineseFor. Us platform-

Pros	Cons
There are a lot of videos to teach the language.	To pass the HSK test, more options are needed.
Tests the knowledge with the help of a quiz.
It is also affordable

Further, I have discussed the course curriculum of the whole course.

Course curriculum on ChineseFor. Us

ChineseFor. Us is broken down into several courses at different levels. In addition to learning courses, there are multiple courses to practice other features. Let us see how all of them are created to help us learn Chinese-

1. Beginner, HSK1 and HSK2 Courses

All three courses are separate from each other. You may be confused about beginners and the HSK level 1 course. The beginner course is for those who have zero knowledge of Chinese. Whereas HSK 1 is for those who know at least a few basics of the language. Each level is created separately to help the learners to complete the language. In every course, there are videos and exercises. Both of them help to learn the language properly. Let us see how different features are created-

a. Videos

As mentioned above the whole course is a mixture of videos and exercises. Each course has multiple videos, which are of two different types – topics and characters. When you start the course, you will see that the first video is for the topic and the next one is for practicing the characters. The whole course follows the same structure till the end where they reach at uses and exercises. Below I have mentioned how both types of video work-

Topic

The first video is the one that focuses more on the vocabulary and how the lessons are created. All the videos are hosted by Lily. In the topic video, she explains different aspects of the language in a natural tone. I really like the idea of how she has divided the whole course. The lessons are beautifully created for any new learner. There is a lot to take from them.

Characters

The next video is the lesson video that focuses on the characters covered in the topic video. The main aim of this video is to help you learn and remember the characters used. This type of video includes the breakdown of the characters into the radicals and explains when you will come across them in the video. After that, ChineseFor. Us shows how to write the characters. Some lessons also have a downloading option along with the character’s video. It means you will not be able to practice everything from the content. 

b. Quiz

At the end of each video, there is a short quiz to help you with the language. I like the way the quiz are created especially for HSK 2 and 3. There are plenty of exercises but the most common were Dragging and dropping one. It also has some listening exercises that helped me to match the sounds and get translations. The listening exercises were the main attraction of ChineseFor. Us but there were a few questions related to it in beginner and HSK1 level. The most difficult exercise that I felt was matching the pinyin with the sound of it. I didn’t feel that it would be hard to do that. 

I liked the exercises created for the characters’ video more. Matching the pinyin was one of the exercises that I got on it. In addition to that, there were many other matching exercises that I enjoyed on it. Some of them were matching the definition with the character whereas the other one was to match the radical with the characters.

c. Review 

The courses also have a review section that goes periodically with it. They are created in the form of shorter dialogues and stories that helped me to remember the content easily. This is a perfect way to revise the content but the listening exercises for longer content. These exercises have questions after the dialogue is completed. You have to answer based on that. We can not forget the fact that we are still in the learning stage. 

It is common to get confused with the translation even at HSK level 2. Thus, to help you with it, there is an English transcript attached to it. This transcript has simplified Characters and Pinyin. The main aim is to focus on the characters only. Thus, the dialogues include characters after they are played. Many courses do not focus on teaching the characters. But thanks to Chinese for Us, it is possible. 

2. HSK3 course 

This course only has 50 lessons in it. It means there is not much to learn from it. The structure of this course is different from other learning courses. In the previous courses, we were mainly focused on learning the topic and character, But the focus of this course is to teach you how to write the new characters on your own. The lessons are again broken down into different sections-

• Vocabulary
• Grammatical structure
• Stories and dialogues

After every example, there is a space of time where you can practice the dialogue easily. There are again the quizzes that help in practicing the language and advance the understanding of new words and vocabulary. The whole course structure from beginner to HSK 3 level is developed in such a brilliant way. By the time you get to the quiz, you can easily understand the other questions asked. In each quiz, you will understand how to use the words and the characters in different contexts. 

Of course, you need to understand the context first. If you are unable to do so, don’t worry, there will be full support in getting the explanations. I agree, that this course is hard to understand, but by following the guidance of Lili, you can easily complete it. 

3. Additional courses

Along with the courses that I have mentioned above, many others are focusing on a particular niche-

a. Learning Road Map

Learning the Road map is the feature that helped me to know how the platform works to teach the language. If you are a beginner you may not use any of the other courses and directly jump at the beginner course. But this is not recommended. There are a lot of things that we need to consider before learning Chinese. This feature helps in knowing how to start if you are a beginner. Try to follow the path mentioned in it to get the language faster. 

b. Topic-Based Chinese Vocabulary

It is a course that is specially designed to increase Chinese vocabulary through different themes. This is a perfect course for beginners who want to improve their vocabulary and want a deep understanding of the topic. The lessons are based on the topics covered. Suppose you choose ‘Food’, you will get all the related words and phrases to it. The words and phrases covered in this section are taught in a contextual manner. In short, every word will have sentences in different context manner. There are more than 30 video lessons covering specific topics.

If you are learning about terms related to food in one video, the other one will cover vocabulary related to fruits, medicines, etc. I would suggest you choose this course as it makes it easier to remember different words and phrases. Also, you can learn at your own pace. Immerse yourself in each topic until you get confidence about the vocabulary related to it.

c. Pinyin Drills

This is an amazing resource to learn Pinyin and its pronunciation. There are 13 lessons, each having videos and quizzes in it. The duration of each video is between 5 to 10 minutes. Learning the proper pronunciation is important and many resources failed to do so. However, this platform plays a crucial role in improving the pronunciation. I felt that I was involved along with the videos in the lesson. 

d. 1000 Common Chinese Words

It is a course that is designed for learners who are really interested in learning Chinese fully. If you are a beginner or someone who wants to learn the vocabulary, this is exactly what you need. It mainly focuses on teaching more than 1000 words which are used commonly. They basically taught you the vital parts of daily Chinese communication. The whole course is divided into 50 video lessons and each lesson has 20 new words in it.

Each video teaches the meaning, pronunciation, etc. The videos are designed in a manner to show the words, meanings, pronunciation, etc. There are sentences mentioned in different contexts which shows how to use it in different situations. It has two different sentences helping you in learning real-life conversations rather than just theoretical knowledge.

e. Tone Drill

This course works like Pinyin Drills. It makes Chinese pronunciation easy and is also created in a detailed manner, Though, it is not important to take it before using the main course, if you go through it, there will be a great foundation of Pinyin. The main thing that I dislike about the course is that it does not focus on a single tone for long. As the lessons move forward, there are full sentences to practice with. There are quizzes in this section covering multiple listening drills. They will help in understanding the tone. It has a total of 16 lessons and 5 lessons are focused on the 3rd tone of the characters.

f. How to say Chinese

This section is a supplement to the vocabulary that we covered earlier. There are 4 main aspects of this course-

• Improving the vocabulary knowledge 
• Knowing more than one way to say anything 
• Improving listening skills 
• Practice how to speak 

Different lessons give you a way how to say a specific phrase or the word in a specific situation. Some lessons that you get on this platform are mentioned below- 

• 14 ways to say good luck in Chinese 
• 12 ways to say really in Chinese 
• 8 ways to save what are you doing in Chinese 
• 11 ways to say hello in Chinese and many more 

Watching these lessons will help you in getting a better conversation with native speakers. 

g. Character writing

This course is all about learning the writing structure of the Chinese language. There are 16 videos and 22 writing sheets to practice the language. It also teaches how to make a correct stroke. In total, it teaches 42 strokes. The main focus of this course is to improve handwriting and teach all the fundamentals of writing the characters. It also helps in looking up Chinese words in the dictionary. 

h. Speak Chinese like a native 

As soon as you learn how to speak basic phrases, go on this course. This is the advanced version of the above course. It is specifically for those who want to increase their vocabulary and learn how to speak usually. The lessons created in this course are really engaging and helpful. In starting there is a YouTube video discussing the topic. Suppose you have chosen a lesson named “Why didn’t you say so earlier?”, after the YouTube video there is a short explanation of the topic.

 At the end, there are lesson notes including Chinese expressions and vocabulary files. In these notes, I got English translations and a chart showing the words in Chinese and their translations. There were also the characters and pinyin used for each word. Additionally, the audio file added to the chart helped me to understand the right pronunciation of different words. 

ChineseFor. Us Alternatives 

Of course, ChineseFor. Us is too good to teach Chinese. But there are some drawbacks to it. Therefore, below I have added some alternatives that you can use instead of ChineseFor. Us platform-

1. iTalki

iTalki is the platform that helps in learning the language with the help of multiple tutors. It helps the students to connect with the tutors to learn the language sitting at home. You can select a tutor from the pool of tutors from iTalki. There is also a free feature that helps to connect learners in the community. We can message it and get corrections from others. The tutors on this platform are also helpful and make lessons easier.

2. Chinese Zero to Hero

Chinese Zero to Hero is a platform that helps native speakers to teach Chinese easily. The platform helps in learning the language from absolute beginner to high level. It covers multiple videos that help in learning the content on the platform. Along with that, there is a grammar section that helps in getting a lot of grammatical knowledge. There is also a homework section which provides exercises to practice. It basically has a workbook with an answer guide to practice the language. 

3. LingoDeer

LingoDeer is a platform that is well-known for teaching Asian languages. Of course, it has other languages too but Asian languages are its attraction. The platform starts by teaching different alphabets. This is the only course having an alphabetic section that teaches the characters first. After that, the whole course is divided into different sections teaching the language slowly. The main reason why this platform is so cool is the presence of an alphabet section before the whole course. I think you must try this platform too.

Conclusion

ChineseFor.Us is the platform that is designed to learn the language from the beginning. It is the one that has different courses to teach the content at different levels. In addition to that, there are many courses like Pinyin drill and tone drill, which help in understanding the concepts more easily. There is also a course that mainly focuses on vocabulary. It also helps learners to know how to say something in Chinese and speak like native speakers. Overall, this platform is great for anyone who wants to come to China or have conversations in Chinese

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