Chinese video platforms: the underrated goldmine

Bilibili is today the best video platform for learning French from China: plenty of creators post French lessons, videos subtitled in French and Chinese, French cartoons adapted for learners, and clips from French media. Subtitles and user notes turn it into a real study tool. Search 法语 (French) combined with your level or your need: 法语听力 (listening), 法语发音 (pronunciation), 法语语法 (grammar).

Xiaohongshu and Douyin are full of French teachers’ accounts posting short videos: ideal for daily contact with the language, much less so for structured learning. Use them as a supplement, not as a method.

Listening to real French without Spotify or YouTube

Radio France Internationale (RFI) is still reachable from China and offers the “journal en français facile”, a daily news bulletin read slowly with a transcript: one of the best free listening resources in the world, from B1 to C1. TV5Monde and its “apprendre le français” section provide level-by-level exercises built on authentic videos. Access to these sites can vary depending on the period and the region: test them on your own connection.

Chinese podcast apps (Ximalaya above all) host French content: courses, bilingual stories, business French. The quality is uneven, but there is more than enough there to feed daily listening at every level.

Dictionaries and working tools

For dictionaries, 法语助手 (Frhelper / Eudic) is the reference tool for Chinese learners: a complete French-Chinese dictionary, conjugations, examples, review cards. For translating sentences, DeepL and the tools built into WeChat work from China. For flashcards, Anki works (with syncing that is sometimes temperamental) and Chinese alternatives such as Maimemo let you import your own lists.

Beware the translation-tool trap: they are excellent for UNDERSTANDING, but using them to PRODUCE (writing a text in Chinese then translating it) teaches you nothing. Write directly in French, even simply, even with mistakes.

What stays hard without a VPN — and what to use instead

The real gap is not content: it is interaction. With no access to Western language-exchange platforms, what remains is online video lessons with teachers who use the tools available in China: WeChat, Tencent Meeting, VooV. That is exactly how we work with our students in China: live lessons on the tools they already use, materials sent over WeChat, exercises on a site that opens without a VPN.

That is in fact the thing to check before choosing any online course from China: always ask which tools the teacher uses. An excellent lesson on Zoom or Google Meet is worth nothing to you if the connection lags or drops.