Chinese Reading Practice with Graded Stories
Read Chinese stories from beginner through advanced HSK levels.
Practice reading Chinese online with current stories, optional pinyin, line-by-line English meaning, vocabulary, and matching audio. Every story comes in four HSK bands.
Free Chinese stories by HSK level (152)
Choose an HSK level and start with a story you genuinely want to read. These online Chinese graded readers run from beginner Chinese reading practice to advanced Mandarin, with support available when a character, word, or sentence blocks you.
Showing 12 of 152 stories
Turn reading support into listening skill
1. Listen without looking
Choose a level where you can catch the main idea. Let the story finish without stopping for every unknown word.
2. Read with support
Read the transcript, reveal meaning only when needed, and use pinyin when pronunciation blocks you.
3. Listen again
Play the story again without looking. Notice how much more spoken Chinese you can now follow.
Why current stories work as graded reading
Most graded readers are fixed booklets: you finish them, the topics go stale, and the vocabulary stops matching what you actually want to say. These stories are drawn from current news and real events, rewritten so the same story exists at HSK 1, HSK 2, HSK 3–4, and HSK 5–6. The words repeat across today's stories because they're the words in circulation right now — which is exactly the kind of repetition that makes reading stick.
Because one story spans four bands, you can read it where it's comfortable and then stretch one level up with the plot already familiar. Every story carries optional pinyin, line-level English meaning, vocabulary, and grammar notes, so support is there when a sentence blocks you and invisible when it doesn't. Reading it is only half the loop: the same story is also audio, so once you've read it you can hear it and close the gap between the characters you recognize and the Chinese you can actually follow when it's spoken.
Keep building your listening
Chinese reading practice — FAQ
Find your starting point
Read & listen at the level that fits you
Find your Chinese level, read the story with support, then listen again — using the transcript only when you need help following it.