The best Chinese podcasts for learners (2026)

Every show, measured

We transcribed four minutes from four episodes of each show, spread from its newest to its oldest, and counted the Chinese words a learner knows at each HSK level. A learner follows speech well at about 95% of the words known.¹

“Talk in Chinese” is the share of speaking time in Chinese rather than English. “Characters a minute” is the speed of the Chinese parts. The HSK columns are the share of a show’s Chinese words on the 2025 HSK list up to that level.²

我坐地铁的时候听中文播客。

播bō客kè

Noun

podcast

Slow is not the same as easy

The two shows that are slow on purpose speak at about 130 characters a minute, half the pace of Easy Chinese Podcast. But they were the hardest by words: about two-thirds HSK 1–3, against 95%. They tell stories and explain culture, idioms and news with the words those need. Easy Chinese Podcast is fast and still the easiest, because two people chat about everyday things in everyday words. A word you don’t know is just as unknown slowly, so choose a podcast by its words first and its speed second.

The best podcast for each level

• Your first weeks: Coffee Break Chinese. About two-thirds of it is English: a teacher and a learner build each phrase, at 95 characters a minute, the slowest we measured. Move on once you want more Chinese than English.
• HSK 1–3: Easy Chinese Podcast (HSK 1–3). All Chinese, 95% HSK 1–3 words, everyday topics. It is quick, so play an episode twice. ChinesePod Beginner and the Chinese Learning Podcast (HSK 3), Hanyu Chinese School teach around a Chinese dialogue, about two-thirds in Chinese and the rest in English.
• HSK 3–4: Thinking in Chinese, TeaTime Chinese, ALG Mandarin Online and Lazy Chinese. All or nearly all Chinese, 81–85% HSK 1–3, at a calm 130–146 characters a minute. Lazy Chinese puts its transcripts in characters, pinyin and English on its site. Full Mandarin Stories, Mandarin Monkey tells whole stories at the slowest pace of the all-Chinese shows.
• HSK 4–5, natural speech: Learn Chinese with M and Dashu Mandarin. Real conversation at 190–230 characters a minute. Learn Chinese with M and Haike Mandarin (還可中文) speak Taiwan Mandarin; Dashu Mandarin is three Chinese teachers talking about China. Mandarin Monkey Podcast mixes Chinese and English, about half each.
• HSK 5 and up: Learning Chinese Through Stories. Stories in more than 99% Chinese by its own count, at graded levels, with transcripts on its paid tier, and 75% HSK 1–3 in our samples. The slow podcasts, 慢速中文 Slow Chinese and Slow Chinese Podcast (慢速汉语), Chinese with Mei, belong here too: slow speech, harder words. 中文故事屋 Little Mandarin Pod is stories for children, read with voices, and harder than it sounds.

Get more from any podcast

• Read along when you can. Learners built listening best when they read and listened at once.³ Many of these shows publish transcripts, and a video version with Chinese subtitles works with Mandarin The Wild: point at any word for its meaning in that sentence.
• Stay with one show. Its words come back from episode to episode, so each one is easier than the last. Learn Chinese from podcasts has the evidence.
• Check your level first. The level test takes a few minutes. Below about HSK 3, graded stories in the Library, read aloud in two voices, are closer to 95% known than any podcast here.

How we measured

For each show we read its podcast feed on 2026-10-27, took the newest episode and those a quarter, half and three quarters of the way down, and cut four minutes from one minute in, past most intros. Whisper small transcribed them on our own machine.⁴ A stretch with more English words than Chinese words counts as English. Chinese words were cut by our engine and levelled on the 2025 HSK list, with names left out. Machine transcripts make mistakes, and four episodes are a sample of a show, not all of it, so read each number as a guide to within a few points. We left out Mandarin Blueprint, which is a show in English about learning Chinese.

Questions

What is the best Chinese podcast for beginners?

Easy Chinese Podcast (HSK 1–3): in our count of four episodes, 95% of its words are HSK 1–3, and it is all in Chinese. For your very first weeks, Coffee Break Chinese explains each phrase in English.

Are slow Chinese podcasts easier?

Not by words. The two slow podcasts we measured speak at about 130 characters a minute but only 67% of their words are HSK 1–3, against 95% for Easy Chinese Podcast at 253 a minute. Choose by words first.

What Chinese podcast is best for intermediate learners?

Thinking in Chinese and TeaTime Chinese for calm all-Chinese talk (about 85% HSK 1–3), then Learn Chinese with M or Dashu Mandarin for natural conversation at 190–230 characters a minute.

Are there podcasts in Taiwan Mandarin?

Yes: Learn Chinese with M and Haike Mandarin are both all-Chinese conversation in Taiwan Mandarin, and Mandarin Monkey Podcast is a couple in Taiwan talking in Chinese and English.

Sources

Checked on 27 October 2026. Prices and features change; tell us if one has.

1. van Zeeland and Schmitt (2013), Lexical coverage in L1 and L2 listening comprehension: the same or different from reading comprehension?, Applied Linguistics 34(4)
2. HSK: the official site of the Chinese Proficiency Test
3. Chang and Millett (2014), The effect of extensive listening on developing L2 listening fluency: some hard evidence, ELT Journal 68(1)
4. Radford, Kim, Xu, Brockman, McLeavey and Sutskever (2023), Robust speech recognition via large-scale weak supervision (Whisper)
5. Easy Chinese Podcast (HSK 1–3)
6. Coffee Break Chinese
7. ChinesePod
8. Chinese Learning Podcast (HSK 3), Hanyu Chinese School
9. Thinking in Chinese
10. TeaTime Chinese
11. ALG Mandarin Online
12. Lazy Chinese
13. Full Mandarin Stories, Mandarin Monkey
14. Learn Chinese with M
15. Dashu Mandarin
16. Haike Mandarin (還可中文)
17. Mandarin Monkey Podcast
18. Learning Chinese Through Stories
19. 慢速中文 Slow Chinese
20. Slow Chinese Podcast (慢速汉语), Chinese with Mei
21. 中文故事屋 Little Mandarin Pod