🇨🇳 Best Chinese (Mandarin) podcasts for beginners

Olle Linge writes long, careful pieces on tone learning, character memorisation, listening strategy and dealing with plateaus, plus regularly updated best-of lists for podcasts, YouTube channels and reading material. There is an accompanying podcast and free challenge platform. It is about method rather than content — you still need a course, a dictionary and input, but this tells you how to use them well.

Mihalis Eleftheriou records real lessons with a real student and walks you through constructing the language yourself using cognates and logic — Spanish, French, Italian, German, Greek, Turkish, Arabic and Swahili are covered. Completely free, no ads, no sign-up, funded by donations. The Spanish course in particular is one of the most recommended free resources anywhere; the trade-off is small vocabulary and no reading or writing practice.

Two decades of lessons built around a short natural dialogue plus bilingual discussion, graded across six levels — the Intermediate and Upper Intermediate tiers in particular are still among the best listening material for Mandarin. Many episodes are free through podcast feeds; transcripts and exercises need a subscription. Caveat: the platform is essentially in maintenance mode, with little new content and slow support, so treat it as an archive rather than a living course.

Mark Pentleton teaches a genuine student while you listen in, across French, Spanish, German, Italian, Chinese, Swedish, Portuguese, Japanese and Gaelic. The podcast seasons are free on any podcast app and are structured as a real curriculum rather than scattered episodes; the Academy sells premium lesson notes, video and bonus audio. Ideal commuting material for beginners through B1, and the Spanish and French series are the strongest.

Each story comes with a companion episode where the hosts unpack the key words and phrases in Chinese, so you get input and consolidation without leaving the language, from Beginning through Superior. The level range makes it one of the few learner podcasts you can stay with for years. Podcast audio is free; transcripts, worksheets and speaking cohorts are paid, and the recording quality varies across the older catalogue.

Molly records tightly scripted episodes at lower-intermediate level and explains new vocabulary in simpler Chinese rather than switching to English, which trains you to stay in the language. Episode length is manageable for a commute and levels are labelled. The audio is free; transcripts and exercises are a paid membership, and the fully scripted delivery is cleaner than real conversation.