Many online education and app companies dedicated to language learning offer their best discounts around this time of year, coinciding with Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and China’s “Singles Day” (11/11). If you need language learning lessons or language learning apps, this time of year is often the best time to buy. Our family has purchased many thousands of one-on-one Chinese lessons since 2020, and one way we’ve been able to afford that is by aggressively stocking up on lessons when they are deeply discounted.
I bought a lot of Chinese lessons and Chinese language learning apps this year using my own money, and the following list represents my unbiased recommendations for the best deals available for language learning. (see my disclosure on referrals and recommendations.) If you know of any other great language learning specials for Black Friday 2024 and beyond, please leave a comment!
Black Friday 2024 deals on online language lessons
LingoBus | 1-on-1 Chinese lessons
For Black Friday 2024, LingoBus is offering up to 45% off of the “sticker price” for their 1-on-1, 25-minute or 50-minute Mandarin Chinese lessons. This is a very good sale. How good is this sale? Well, I went back through the entire history of my purchases from LingoBus since 2020, and in quantity this in the cheapest price I have ever seen for LingoBus lessons. For Black Friday 2024, I bought a small mountain of lessons for both of my kids, enough lessons that it should get both kids completely through most of the curricula/tracks that LB offers (the “Speaking and Listening” track, the more difficult “Reading and Writing” track, and LingoBus’ two relatively unknown classes focusing on oral presentation). LingoBus typically offers great sales like this one only once or twice a year.
https://www.lingobus.com/?referralCode=HPKT5C&channel=referral_copy
Wukong Education | 1-on-1 Chinese lessons
Wukong is offering discounts on two large packages of course credits for their Mandarin Chinese 1-on-1 lessons. Each Wukong “credit” corresponds to one 30-minute lesson. Wukong offers different prices to different people, and I encourage people who were offered better prices to leave a comment — we can crowdsource what the best available prices from Wukong actually are. The offers I received from Wukong were as follows:
Package A for $5769 offered 400 credits + 53 bonus credits + 133 potential additional credits if you advertise completed classes on your social media feeds. I was offered five additional credits as a reward for having a second sibling enrolled in Wukong. Classes purchased in this package have a validity of eight years (!).
Package B for $2909 offered 200 credits + 29 bonus credits + 67 potential additional credits if you advertise completed classes on your social media feeds. I was also offered the 5-class bonus for having a second sibling enrolled in Wukong. Classes purchased in “Package B” have a validity of five years.
The differences in price between the two packages is negligible. I purchased the smaller package “B”.
https://wukongedu.net/wp/landing/L4em7Ysv?l=353554fb-0775-4ca3-923a-c13cff5d6d75&code=DQ386C
LingoAce | 1-on-1 Chinese lessons
LingoAce is offering a “Package A” and a “Package B” to new customers.
LingoAce’s $1598 “Package A” consists of up to 81 lessons (62 standard lessons and up to 19 additional lessons if you advertise completed classes on your social media feeds.) Classes in this package are valid for 1050 days. If you earned all of the “sharing” lessons available by advertising on social media, that comes out to $19.70 per 55-minute class.
LingoAce’s $2298 “Package B” consists of up to 156 lessons (122 standard lessons and up to 34 additional lessons if you advertise completed classes on your social media feeds.) Classes in this package are valid for 1050 days. If you earned all of the “sharing” lessons available by advertising on social media, that comes out to $19.20 per 55-minute class.
For Black Friday 2024 I attempted to buy “Package B” but was told it was only available to new customers. Instead I was offered a package for $3031.90 consisting of up to 153 lessons (130 standard lessons, 3 bonus lessons, and up to 20 additional lessons if I shared completed classes on my social media feeds.) If I earn all of the “sharing” lessons available by advertising on social media, that comes out to $19.81 per 55-minute class.
If you want to get started with LingoAce classes, here’s a link to book a free trial class. After the trial, you can book one of the packages above:
https://r.lingoace.com/XEONRY7iPZLjRB
GoEast Mandarin
GoEast Mandarin offers both in-person lessons in China, and online 1-on-1 and group lessons. For Black Friday, they are offering a couple of deals that are probably worth your while:
* a 3-pack of 1-on-1 online kids lessons for $19.
* a 2-pack of 75-minute online group lessons.
Both deals are limited to new students. I bought the 3-pack of lessons for both my older and younger son, and will evaluate how GoEast may be able to help both boys in their learning. I am particularly interested in how online teaching companies like GoEast might assign and evaluate homework that may help my kids eventually attain collegiate-level Chinese. It is relatively easy for companies to offer one-on-one online lessons that push kids towards conversational fluency, or empower kids with fluid Hanzi reading ability. Much more difficult is to teach kids how to write effectively, and to assign and evaluate meaningful homework to encourage higher-level writing ability in Chinese.
GoEast Mandarin has a special place in my heart, because the company marks the starting point at which our family started taking Mandarin language learning seriously. In the summer of 2019 I traveled to Shanghai with my older son and enrolled myself in an HSK2-level Mandarin Chinese course at GoEast Mandarin’s campus in the city’s Wujiaochang neighborhood. My older son, then 7, had recently enrolled in a 50/50 Mandarin Immersion program through our public school district in California, and I wanted to be in position to help him in his Chinese learning. GoEast’s program was great — they had a very positive way of building a community of learners, and helping each student progress from whatever their starting point was.
Language learning apps recommended for Black Friday 2024
There are a ton of apps and websites now that teach various aspects of Mandarin Chinese. Many of them teach very effectively if you have the motivation and discipline to use them regularly. I find it pretty easy to convince myself to buy these products when they are on sale, especially for apps and websites that offer lifetime subscriptions. The cost of a language learning app is typically much lower than the cost of online lessons over time.
I’m never 100% sure how useful a given app/website will be, or when I will put it to best use. I have found that it is very helpful to have a collection of language learning apps on hand and to know their capabilities. As my kids go through various phases of their learning, I often find myself dusting off previously unused apps and putting them to good use.
The Chairman’s Bao
The Chairman’s Bao (TCB) is a website and app that effectively teaches Chinese character (Hanzi) reading. TCB offers a large collection of articles graded HSK1 through HSK6, and beyond. Clicking on unknown characters in the interface yields definitions, pronunciations, and other information and tools of use to learners. TCB constantly posts new articles graded at different levels of ability, from beginner to expert. The site includes audio recordings of each article read by native speakers. The Chairman’s Bao is one of the best ways to practice Chinese character reading if you don’t have a teacher available to shadow a learner’s reading.
For Black Friday 2024, The Chairman’s Bao is offering 25% off of any package if you use code bf24 with your order. I hate recurring annual fees, so TCB’s discounted lifetime subscription is the package I’ve had for a few years now, and the one I would recommend. A lifetime subscription to The Chairman’s Bao is typically $350. With the Black Friday 2024 discount, it comes out to $262.50.
https://www.thechairmansbao.com/
DuChinese
DuChinese is similar to The Chairman’s Bao, providing an assisted interface for learning how to read graded articles written with Chinese characters. For Black Friday 2024, they are offering 50% off any of their packages with recurring fees, or $100 off of their $399 lifetime subscription. I hate recurring fees, so for 2024 I bought the discounted $299 lifetime subscription.
https://duchinese.net/blackfriday
LingoPie
LingoPie mashes up a video playing interface with clickable subtitles. If you are familiar with thechairmansbao.com’s method of using graded articles to learn how to read Chinese characters, this is sort of the video-enabled equivalent of that. The site interoperates with Netflix, as well as hosting a lot of content of its own. Their monthly plan is discounted for Black Friday to $5/month. I hate recurring subscription fees, so for Black Friday 2024 I bought LingoPie’s $199 lifetime subscription.
https://lingopie.com/app/pricing/
LangoTalk
LangoTalk is a very interesting app that may offer a glimpse of the future of language teaching and learning. The premise of the app is that you chat with a tireless interactive AI bot that can engage you in conversation, teach you vocabulary and grammar, and “intelligently” critique your responses. You can either type your responses, or speak out loud. The app is very well designed, and allows you to look up any word of the AI bots responses to you by clicking on the Hanzi character or Pinyin, much like the clickable interfaces provided by DuChinese and The Chairman’s Bao. I was intrigued enough by LangoTalk that I impulsively dropped $149 on a lifetime subscription a couple of weeks ago. For Black Friday 2024, LangoTalk is offering their lifetime subscription for $119. You can try this link for the discount, but the link may be subject to expiration. If my link doesn’t work, scroll around Facebook and look for the LangoTalk Black Friday offer presented as an advertisement.
https://www.langotalk.org/?ref=tigerba
LingoDeer
The granddaddy of gamified language learning apps is Duolingo, which inspired a host of competitors. In time, many of these apps have eclipsed Duolingo for the specific purpose of learning Mandarin Chinese. Lingodeer is one such app. For Black Friday 2024, Lingodeer is offering lifetime access to LingoDeer and “LingoDeer Plus” (which consists of a bunch of interactive language learning games) for $119. I bought LingoDeer’s Black Friday 2024 deal.
https://www.lingodeer.com/blackfriday-2024/index.html?from=web
SuperChinese
SuperChinese is another gamified language learning app, and the idiom is bite-sized Chinese lessons that you do on the go on your mobile device. For Black Friday 2024 they are offering lifetime access to the SuperChinese app for $154.99. This offer is not mentioned on their website or on other web pages. The only way I found SuperChinese’s Black Friday discount was by installing SuperChinese on my mobile phone. Some time after installation, the Black Friday offer should come up on the app itself. You can pay for the lifetime subscription using banked credits at the Google Play store, which means that this app is effectively discounted by at least another 25%. And why is that so? That’s a topic for a longer blog post, which I look forward to writing Real Soon Now.
I did pay for the lifetime subscription to SuperChinese for Black Friday 2024, but haven’t had too much time to play around with the app yet. Word on Reddit is that SuperChinese progresses to more advanced material than the Hello Chinese app. Unlike Hello Chinese, SuperChinese does not have an option to change all of its characters to Traditional glyphs ( …and my wording here is very intentional. I’ll explore this topic in a future blog post). If Simplified Hanzi is your personal Kryptonite, keep this limit in mind.
https://www.superchinese.com/
Chinese Zero to Hero
For the right kind of learner, chinesezerotohero.com is one of the best online Chinese languages learning courses made. In a series of entertaining video lessons, it exactly tracks the famous HSK 1-9 curriculum, right down to the readings and exercises from the HSK textbooks. Chinese Zero to Hero leverages the value of the preexisting HSK textbook curriculum very effectively. It’s a great choice for a mature teen or self-motivated learners who want a highly structured approach to Chinese language learning.
For Black Friday 2024, Chinese Zero to Hero is offering 30% off their course packages when you enter BF2024 on checkout. Their “Ultimate Bundle” would come about to about $181 with discount. I paid a higher price for the Chinese Zero to Hero “Ultimate Bundle” years ago, so I didn’t need to buy it for Black Friday 2024. If I didn’t already own it, Chinese Zero to Hero would be one of the first things on this list I would buy.
Chinese Zero to Hero recently updated their curriculum to include a course that covers the new HSK7 through HSK9 material implemented in July 2021 (hat-tip and thanks for the heads-up, Dee See.) I bought the equivalent of the Chinese Zero to Hero “Ultimate Bundle” prior to the release of the new HSK7-9 course, but I notice that they have given me free access to this high-level course. Chinese Zero to Hero is a classy joint.
https://www.chinesezerotohero.com/
Rosetta Stone
The “Rosetta Stone” language learning programs date to around the time dinosaurs walked the earth and kids shoved CDROMs of Microsoft Encarta Encyclopedia into their computers. Some people are inclined to hate on Rosetta Stone for this and other reasons, but I find that RS can fill a niche, especially for younger learners. For Black Friday 2024, they are offering lifetime access to all 25 languages in their program for $149. I bought this.
https://www.rosettastone.com/black-friday-sale/
Mosalingua Fluency Bundle
Mosalingua offers a collection of resources for language learning, but at its core, it is a flashcard app for teaching vocabulary. Mosalingua also offers tools for speaking practice that I have yet to try. If you hate to make flashcards, this may be your play. For Black Friday 2024, Mosalingua is pitching their “Biggest Ever Black Friday Deal” breathlessly advertised at over 97% off. I’m not sure I would ever dream of paying $5000 for their package of learning materials, but for Black Friday 2024 I did pay $99 for lifetime access to their teaching programs for 11 different languages.
https://www.mosalingua.com/en/mosalingua-learn-chinese-app/
YoYoChinese
YoYoChinese offers prerecorded video lessons on a structured plan with exercises. YoYo’s lessons are a good fit for teens and older students, and for people who want a lot of grammar explanation in English. YoYo sells a “lifetime plan” for $299 for all of her content, and there is a Black Friday discount code which will take 40% off: YYC24BFS . I bought lifetime access to YoYoChinese many years ago, so there was no need for me to purchase YoYo’s classes for Black Friday 2024.
https://yoyochinese.com/
Have any suggestions for this list? Please leave a comment!
Disclosure on referrals: Some people attempt to make a low-level business shilling various online education programs. As a website owner, you can earn referral bonuses from companies for steering people to buy stuff. Picking up spare change from the language learning community isn’t really my motivation for writing any of this up. What I most value through writing are the connections I make in the language learning community. Those connections will help me teach my children Mandarin Chinese more effectively.
That all said, there are a few referral links in the list above, and those referral links are primarily intended for your benefit. If you sign up through these links, my kids will get free classes or discounts, and you will get some bonus classes or discounts as a result of using these links.
The integrity of my recommendations matter to me. For items in this post that I stated I bought, I paid full price for them using my own money, and I was not incentivized by any of these companies to mention their product.
