A few years ago, when I first started learning Chinese, I asked my boyfriend to make Pinyin subtitles for a Chinese movie I found online. After four hours he had only subtitled ten minutes of the movie, and therefore decided to give up. At the time there were no websites offering Pinyin subtitles, so what I thought would be a great way to learn Chinese ended up being impossible to test out.

Three years later, the site I was originally looking for so long ago now exists. It’s called Pinyin Cinema, and it’s essentially the Netflix for Chinese language learners, as all of their movies have correctly timed, accurate Pinyin subtitles.

Pinyin Cinema’s homepage, displaying some of the Pinyin subtitled movies the site has to offer.

Every movie on the Pinyin Cinema platform also has a study page so you can play learning games that use words from the films that you were watching, or plan to watch in the future. The games remember your progress and adapt to your ability. For example, if you always get “huǒyào” incorrect, it will start reminding you of that word more often. It uses a spaced repetition system to burn the words into your mind, and I found that it’s an excellent way to learn.

Pinyin Cinema’s learning games for the movie “Eight Thousand Li of Cloud and Moon”.

The best part about the service by far is that every paid user has the ability to Skype call with a native Chinese speaker for twenty minutes per month, which allows you to practice words from the movies and master your pronunciation.

The Skype calls with native Chinese tutors alone would make the $5 US monthly fee worth it, but when you consider that you are also getting access to a selection of Pinyin subtitled movies, and specifically designed learning games, you realise that the service is a must for those studying Mandarin.

Pinyin Cinema offers a free trial, so there is no reason not to test it out. Remember to click the CC button when you watch the movies, otherwise the Pinyin subtitles won’t appear (annoying I know). Although the site does work on mobile, I’ve found it’s a far better experience to use it on a PC or laptop. I’ve been told they are working on a mobile app too, which should be useful.

Link to their site: https://pinyincinema.com