Does HelloChinese cover the HSK?

HelloChinese is not an owl with a Chinese course taped on. It is a Mandarin course. The Duolingo vs HelloChinese sheet already splits products: Duo wins cheap habit; HelloChinese wins tones and characters. The job here is the exam, not the catalog.

Three jobs get mixed into “hellochinese hsk”: not quitting Mandarin, learning to hear and write, and passing at a test centre. HelloChinese is more serious than Duo on the first two. It is still unrelated to the third unless you bolt on a list.

Asking HelloChinese to be the examiner is the mistake. Not “HelloChinese is trash”. The honest line is “HelloChinese is not chinesetest.cn”. If the course is the only thing that sits you down, do not kill it on Monday. Add a syllabus on Tuesday.

Duo teaches you to come back tomorrow. HelloChinese teaches you to produce 谢谢 (xièxie, thank you) with tone and, often, with a stroke. That matters. It does not turn a unit into HSK 2. Finishing a Mandarin app tree is still that app’s Chinese.

HelloChinese wins Mandarin, not XP. The product site talks about bite-sized lessons, speaking with speech recognition, handwriting, native-speaker videos, and spaced repetition. That is a course. It is not a generic tap among three glosses.

It wins tones. 妈 (mā, mother) and 马 (mǎ, horse) are not decoration. If the app forces you to produce the tone, you are closer to the ear the listening paper wants. Duo lets you guess. HelloChinese at least pushes you toward the mouth.

It wins characters. Tracing 谢 (xiè) is not exam calligraphy. It is seeing the hanzi as a shape, not only as pinyin in a bubble. For HSK 1, where the paper still prints pinyin, that work pays off at HSK 3, when the crutch ends.

It wins a course thread: vocabulary, grammar, speaking, and writing in one place. That is why so many people pick it after Duo. The ceiling is not “you are not learning Chinese”. The ceiling is “you are learning HelloChinese’s Chinese”.

You feel that ceiling in a normal week. You can say 你好 (nǐ hǎo, hello) with cleaner tones than a month ago. You can spot 买 (mǎi, to buy) in a cartoon panel. It still will not tell you which brochure number you cover today, or which item waits in the hall.

Pinyin is the official romanization of Mandarin. Hanzi are the written Chinese characters.

HSK is Hanyu Shuiping Kaoshi, the official Mandarin test for non-native speakers. Almost everyone who sits it today still uses the six-level system. The cumulative counts summarised on Wikipedia’s HSK page are about 150, 300, 600, 1,200, 2,500, and 5,000 words from HSK 1 to 6. Classic HSK 1 is about 150. That is the floor of the paper, not an app’s ceiling.

Registration and the rules live on chinesetest.cn (Chinese Testing International). The CLEC (Center for Language Education and Cooperation) coordinates Chinese language education abroad. Neither of them examines you with a completed unit.

The written paper, in the six-level design, scores listening, reading, and writing. HSK 1 and 2 do not include writing the way the higher levels do, and they show pinyin next to the characters. From HSK 3, writing arrives and the pinyin crutch ends. Speaking is not on that paper: it is HSKK, separate. You can talk to HelloChinese’s mic for a year and never do timed listening or a true/false item from the brochure.

There is a second map. In 2021 the standard moved to nine bands (HSK 3.0). This site uses classic HSK 1–6. HelloChinese does not publish a chinesetest.cn syllabus or a 3.0 one as a closed inventory. If you hear “HelloChinese covers through HSK 4,” that is course marketing, not a cited syllabus.

This site publishes lists with 12,432 words. Daily-study HSK 1 vocabulary is wider than those ~150 on the paper. Do not confuse “words in the public catalog” with “words the exam asks for.” The HSK 1 guide describes what that level tests. An app curriculum does not replace it.

The paper asks for time. HSK listening will not wait while you replay the clip. In HelloChinese you can pause, retry, look at the hanzi again. In the room, the audio keeps going. If you have never heard 多少钱 (duōshao qián, how much does it cost?) at exam speed, you “know it” in the lesson and lose it in the hall.

The paper asks for a closed list and item types. True/false reading, matching, gaps. Writing from HSK 3: reorder, characters, later a composition. HelloChinese does make you produce. Producing in the course is not the brochure’s format. There is also no official mock inside the app. Sample papers live on chinesetest.cn.

One example. In HelloChinese you say 买. On the paper you hear a market and have to know if someone is buying or selling. 买 and 卖 (mài, to sell) share a skeleton and fight over tone. If you have never heard them in a timed item, the mic lies the same way Duo’s tap does. 谢谢 and 我要这个 (wǒ yào zhège, I want this one) have to leave without the lesson’s crutch.

The missing piece is “what do I study today”. The course picks the next unit. The paper picks an inventory. If your session is “I continue the chapter”, you are not on an HSK path. You are on HelloChinese. The two can coexist. They are not the same.

Stay if there is no exam date. Without a date, HelloChinese is not failing you as a test coach. At worst it is failing you as a calendar. A course you actually open beats a 150-word PDF you never touch.

Stay if you are starting from zero and the course is the only thing that sits you down. The first weeks of 你好 and 谢谢 need tones and strokes, not a test centre. Later they need a list. Stay also if HelloChinese is the warm-up: five minutes of lesson, then the HSK 1 list. Killing the app on day one and never opening the list is a downgrade.

Add a syllabus the day you have a date. The course can still be five minutes. The long block is the list, timed listening, and, if the level includes writing, writing.

Add a syllabus if you recognise 谢谢 and cannot say it without the app’s hint. Or if 买 and 卖 come out the same. Or if you have never done listening with a clock. The paper rewards tone and time. A comfortable course leaves you in the lesson.

Add a syllabus if units are your only metric, or if you aim at HSK 3 and only follow the app tree. HSK 3 asks for about 600 words and writing. Finishing a chapter says you followed the course. It does not say you cover HSK 1’s ~150 words. Do not stay “until HSK 4 on HelloChinese” as if the brochure’s roughly 1,200 words came bundled.

If what you lack is a calendar, not another app, the HSK 1 eight-week plan already splits the weeks. HelloChinese fits at the start. Not as the only thread.

You do not have to delete the app. You have to move the centre of gravity. Two weeks is enough to see whether the course’s Chinese is the Chinese on the paper.

Week 1: align. On day 1, open the HSK 1 list and treat it as inventory, not a marathon. The classic paper is about 150 words. You do not swallow them on Monday. Mark 8 you already recognise and 8 you do not. 谢谢 is usually in the first group. 多少钱, if it is missing from your unit, goes in the queue.

Days 2 to 7: a cap of 5 to 8 new words from the paper, not from HelloChinese’s next lesson. Each one leaves in a sentence said the same day. Ugly, sufficient examples: 谢谢. 这个多少钱 (zhège duōshao qián, how much is this?). 我要买这个 (wǒ yào mǎi zhège, I want to buy this). 他卖水果 (tā mài shuǐguǒ, he sells fruit). HelloChinese, if you use it, comes after, five minutes max. If there is no time for both, the paper wins.

Week 2: exam shape. Eight minutes of listening with no pause. Five minutes of reading with pinyin covered on the second pass, even though real HSK 1 still shows it: you are training the character, not the crutch. Five minutes of output: the same sentences, recorded or said to someone. Two minutes of 买 / 卖 out loud, slow, then in a sentence.

On week 2’s Saturday, sit a short sample in HSK 1 shape, not another HelloChinese unit. Official samples live on chinesetest.cn. The HSK 1 guide tells you which sections exist: read it once, outside the daily clock. If you need eight weeks, not two, use the HSK 1 eight-week plan. HelloChinese belongs in the five leftover minutes, not as the only block.

At the end of the two weeks, ignore the unit percentage. Check three signals: 谢谢 and 多少钱 without looking, 买 and 卖 on different tones, and an eight-minute listening that no longer scares you. If all three fail, do not level up in the course. Repeat week 2.

HelloChinese works for learning Mandarin with more tone and more hanzi than Duo. It does not, by itself, work for the HSK. The six-level paper has an owner: chinesetest.cn. The word bands are summarised on Wikipedia’s HSK page. The CLEC will not convert an app course into a certificate.

Today: open HSK 1 vocabulary and the HSK 1 guide. Say ten sentences. Include 谢谢, 多少钱, and a 买 / 卖 pair. If HelloChinese comes in, it comes last, five minutes. Chinese Trainer fits if you want that list and that level in one account. It does not fit if you want another mini-game. No app passes the exam for you. You can stop pretending a chapter is a syllabus.

Pinyin is the official romanization of Mandarin. Hanzi are the written Chinese characters. HSK is Hanyu Shuiping Kaoshi. Reviewed by Javier Garcia Floriano. About us. Contact.

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