Chinese Phrasebooks & Everyday Language Tools
Chinese phrasebooks and everyday language tools provide quick access to useful Mandarin for greetings, travel, shopping, dining, emergencies and basic conversation. Find online phrasebooks, apps and other tools with Chinese characters, pinyin, translations, audio pronunciation and practice activities.
You can also build vocabulary with apps and websites featured on our Flashcards & Vocabulary page, including tools with built-in word lists.
General Phrasebooks & Everyday Chinese
★ Includes 100 real-life topics with 18 practical phrases per topic and native-speaker audio. 50LANGUAGES offers a free Chinese phrasebook organized around 100 practical, everyday topics, with useful phrases for situations such as introductions, travel, shopping, dining, and conversation. Each topic includes Chinese text, English translations, and native-speaker audio, making it useful for both quick reference and listening and pronunciation practice. Audio files can also be downloaded for offline study. The website works best using the Google Chrome browser. Available on: Android and iOS.
Free Web-Based / App
★ Organizes practical Mandarin travel phrases by real-world situations and includes recorded pronunciations. Forvo’s Useful Travel Phrases in Chinese Mandarin provides phrases for everyday situations, banking, medical care, shopping, transportation, dining, directions and more, along with an Essentials section covering useful travel vocabulary. Phrases include translations, written forms and recorded pronunciations. The guide is free to use on their website, while the optional Forvo Travel app is paid. Available on Android and iOS.
Free Web-Based / Paid App
★ 100+ practical travel phrases include pinyin, English translations, and male and female Mandarin audio. GoChina Help’s Survival Chinese is a free online phrasebook organized by real-world situations such as emergencies, transportation, hotels, dining, shopping, directions, medical needs, and communication. Each phrase includes Chinese characters, pinyin, an English translation, audio playback, and a copy button for quickly showing the phrase to someone in China. The page can also be printed for offline reference.
Free Web-Based
★ Visual vocabulary guides pair Chinese words with images, audio, and interactive listening and speaking practice. LanguageGuide.org’s Chinese Visual Vocabulary is a free resource for learning Mandarin vocabulary by topic, with Chinese characters, pinyin, pronunciation audio, and illustrated vocabulary covering numbers, the body, food, animals, nature, the home, tools, geography, and more. Learners can tap or hover over items to hear them pronounced and reinforce vocabulary with listening and speaking challenges.
Free Web-Based
★ Provides essential travel phrases with native-speaker audio and offline access. Learn Chinese - Mandarin is a travel-focused phrasebook with 200+ free words and phrases covering greetings, conversation, directions, transportation, dining and emergencies. Features include pinyin, searchable phrases, favorites and slower audio playback, with a one-time paid upgrade unlocking 1,000 phrases across 18 categories. Available on iOS.
Free / Paid - One Time (No Subscription)
★ Practice 1,300+ everyday phrases completely offline with native-speaker audio. Learn Chinese Offline is a free, ad-supported Mandarin phrasebook with common words and phrases organized by practical topics such as greetings, transportation, accommodation, dining, shopping and directions. It also includes grammar lessons, search and favorites for saving useful phrases. Available on Android.
Free With Ads
★ 125 free lessons combine practical Chinese vocabulary and phrases with audio pronunciation and interactive games. LingoHut offers beginner-friendly Chinese lessons organized around everyday topics, with simplified Chinese characters, pinyin, translations, audio, and activities for practicing vocabulary and listening. The lessons are completely free, require no account or login.
Free Web-Based
★ Combines practical topic-based Chinese vocabulary with native audio and downloadable MP3 and PDF study materials. Loecsen Chinese Vocabulary is a free resource for learning useful Mandarin words and phrases organized around everyday situations such as conversation, transportation, restaurants, hotels, family, numbers and emergencies. Learners can listen to native-speaker audio, practice pronunciation and download materials for offline study. Available on the web, Android and iOS.
Free Web-Based / App
★ Combines essential everyday words and phrases with native-speaker audio and a Speech Studio for comparing your pronunciation with the teacher’s. Mandarin Chinese by Nemo is a vocabulary, phrase, and pronunciation practice app designed for learning useful Mandarin in short study sessions. Rather than following a traditional course with sequential lessons, you choose the words and phrases you want to learn and practice them using native-speaker audio, flashcard-style activities, quizzes, and review. The Speech Studio lets you record your voice and compare your pronunciation with a native speaker. The app can also be used offline and supports both Simplified and Traditional Chinese. Available for iOS and Android.
Free / Paid App
★ Free Mandarin phrase collections pair pinyin and practical usage notes with native teacher audio. NetChai Chinese Phrases provides hundreds of useful phrases for everyday and survival Chinese, along with curated lists for daily conversation, travel, business, hospitality, and phrases for kids. Individual entries include Chinese characters, pinyin, English meanings, usage guidance, and audio recorded by native NetChai teachers
Free Web-Based
★ Teaches both what travelers need to say and the replies they are likely to hear, with audio for all 490 lines. The Pure Language’s Chinese for Travellers is a free resource covering 17 leisure and business travel situations, including airports, taxis, trains, hotels, restaurants, payments, shopping, emergencies, meetings, negotiations, shipping and more. Each situation includes useful phrases, common replies, mistakes to avoid, audio, and a short quiz, with additional printable phrasebook and practice tools
Free Web-Based
★ Hear useful everyday and travel phrases with native-speaker audio and slow playback for pronunciation practice. Simply Learn Chinese is a phrasebook app with 300+ free Mandarin phrases and words covering greetings, directions, dining, shopping, emergencies, accommodation and other common situations. Entries include Chinese characters, pinyin, English translations and audio, along with search, favorites, flashcards and quizzes. A paid Pro version expands the collection to 900+ phrases and additional categories. Available on Android and iOS.
Free / Paid
★ Hear thousands of common Chinese sentences with professional audio in both Simplified and Traditional Chinese. Speechling’s Free Audio Dictionary is a free searchable resource for checking useful Chinese words and phrases in context, with pinyin, English translations, and recordings from professional voice actors. Individual entries include male and female pronunciation audio, making it especially useful for listening and pronunciation practice. Available on the web, Android and iOS.
Free Web-Based
★ Includes audio, pinyin, and literal meanings for a large collection of practical Mandarin phrases. Standard Mandarin Chinese Phrases is a free phrasebook organized by topics such as greetings, courtesy, restaurants, travel, hotels, transportation, shopping, money, medical needs, conversation, and survival phrases. Each entry gives the Chinese phrase, pinyin, an English meaning, a literal translation, and pronunciation audio, making it useful for both quick reference and speaking practice.
Free Web-basedPrinted Phrasebooks
★ Combines practical everyday phrases with a compact dictionary for quick reference. Essential Chinese Phrasebook & Dictionary is a paperback with more than 1,500 practical sentences and over 2,000 terms and expressions covering everyday conversation, travel, dining, transportation, emergencies, smartphones and social media. It includes basic grammar and pronunciation guidance, Chinese characters with romanization, and manga illustrations showing language in context.
Printed Book
★ Combines practical travel phrases with a 3,500-word two-way dictionary for quick reference on the go. Lonely Planet’s Mandarin Travel Phrasebook & Dictionary is a travel guide covering pronunciation, grammar, greetings, transportation, accommodation, directions, dining, shopping and emergencies. It also includes a menu decoder, cultural and etiquette tips, conversation starters and a pull-out fast-phrases card for common situations.
Printed Book
★ Includes pinyin, phonetic spellings and Chinese characters to make essential phrases easier to understand and pronounce. Survival Chinese Phrasebook & Dictionary is a paid pocket-sized phrasebook covering hundreds of useful Mandarin words and expressions for travel and everyday situations. It includes pronunciation and tone guidance, basic grammar, travel vocabulary, sentence-building help and an A–Z English-to-Chinese index.
Printed BookSpecialized Phrasebooks
★ Free UBC phrasebook with practical Mandarin for real medical encounters. A Chinese-English Phrasebook for Medical Encounters is a free 14-page guide created by UBC medical students Meiying Zhuang and Wynn Tran for English-speaking medical students. It provides simplified Chinese, Mandarin pronunciation guidance and ready-to-use phrases for introductions, urgent situations, pain and symptoms, patient comfort, medical interviews, medical history and body parts. The guide is intended to support basic communication and rapport while reminding users to recognize the limits of their Mandarin. Available on their website, phrasebook PDF, Medical Mandarin companion site.
Free Web-Based
★ Free clinical Mandarin phrasebook with audio for practical medical communication. DLIFLC Chinese-Mandarin Medical Language Survival Kit is a free online medical phrasebook and reference from the Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center. It covers registration, assessment, trauma, surgery, pain and medicine interviews, orthopedics, OB/GYN, pediatrics, cardiology, ophthalmology, neurology, exam commands, caregiving, post-op care, medical conditions, pharmaceuticals and diseases. Entries pair English with Chinese characters, romanized pronunciation and playable audio for common patient interactions. The interface is dated and the romanization is not standard pinyin, but the Chinese text and audio make it a useful clinical language reference. Available on the web.
Free Web-Based