About Dengdeng
Stories, friends and cartoons from China, at your level.
Dengdeng is an app for reading and listening to Chinese. Everything in it comes from life in China today, at a level you can follow, and every word is a tap away.
Read real stories from China
Every morning there is a new edition: three stories, each written at Easy, Medium and Hard. The levels are broad bands, roughly HSK 3.0 levels 1–3, 3–4 and 5 and up. Pick the story you want and change the level whenever you like. You can read short previews here on the website.
Start from your first words
If Easy is still too hard, Beginner has hundreds of short stories for your first months of Chinese, around HSK 3.0 levels 1–2, with pinyin over every word. One is free every day. Starting from zero? The beginner roadmap shows what to learn first.
Chat with 灯灯 and friends
Every day, one of Dengdeng and his friends writes to you about the day’s story or everyday life in China, at your level. Tap any word for its meaning, show pinyin or English, and write back in Chinese or English. When you know what you want to say but not how, “Help me say it” suggests a reply.
灯灯
亮亮
琦琦
里昂
Watch and listen
Short cartoons with 灯灯 and friends have Chinese captions where every word is tappable: podcasts about a story or a topic, and Dengdeng Originals, short story cartoons. Stories have audio in standard Mandarin too. Follow the words as they’re read, slow it down, or replay a line.
Ask 老师
Sometimes you know every word and the sentence still doesn’t click. Select it and ask 老师, the app’s teacher, about grammar, word order or an idiom. The answer comes in plain English, and you can keep asking.
Every word you tap comes back
The words you tap become flashcards and fill-in-the-blank sentences, a few each day, so the next story reads a little easier. You can add HSK 3.0 decks to the same practice. How review works explains which words you see and when.
Why a lantern
Dengdeng comes from , as in , lantern. It’s the same lantern our mascot is holding at the top of this page.
Free and Pro
Free gets you a story from every edition, a Beginner story every day, the cartoon of the week and a few chats a week. Dengdeng Pro opens every story, every cartoon and every practice tool. Dengdeng is on the App Store for iOS and on Google Play for Android.
Found a mistake? Tell us which story and passage you were reading.
— Leon & Qiqi
