Why Every Advanced Chinese Learner Needs This $29.99 WeRead App

🔑 Why 微信读书 Is a Power Tool for Advanced Chinese Learners

For advanced learners, the biggest challenge isn’t grammar — it’s exposure to educated, real-world Chinese. 微信读书 (WeRead) solves that better than almost any other app.

Why it’s especially effective at the advanced level

  • 📚 Native-level content (essays, literature, business, philosophy)

  • 📱 Daily mobile reading → consistency without effort

  • 🔍 Tap-to-define words in context (far superior to flashcards)

  • ✍️ Highlighting & notes for sentence mining

  • 💬 Perfect bridge from reading → discussion → speaking

  • Audiobooks available

This is exactly why we often recommend 微信读书 to heritage Chinese speakers, AP Chinese students, and adult advanced learners at Sishu Mandarin.

Our teachers also use 微信读书 daily!

 

📲 How to Download 微信读书 (WeChat Reading)

Requirements

  • A WeChat account (login is integrated)

  • Available worldwide

💰 Cost

  • Free tier available

  • Premium membership: approx. ¥228 RMB/year (or $29.99 USD/year)

  • Gives access to thousands of high-quality books

 

The Best Deal in Chinese Learning: $29.99 for Unlimited Native Content

Let’s be honest — $29.99 a year for unlimited Chinese books is almost unbelievable.

With 微信读书 (WeChat Reading or WeRead), you get unrestricted access to thousands of native-level books: modern literature, essays, business, history, philosophy, and translations of global bestsellers. This isn’t simplified learning material. This is real Chinese written for educated native speakers.

Now compare that to Kindle.

On Amazon Kindle, a single Chinese ebook often costs $8–15 each. Build a serious Chinese reading habit, and you’ll easily spend hundreds of dollars a year — and still won’t get the same depth of contemporary Chinese content you find on 微信读书.

Even worse, Kindle’s Chinese catalog is limited, fragmented, and often missing the books advanced learners actually want to read.

微信读书 flips the equation:

  • 📚 Unlimited access instead of per-book pricing

  • 🧠 Content written for adults, professionals, and thinkers

  • 🔍 Built-in dictionary and sentence-level highlighting

  • 📱 Seamless mobile reading that fits into daily life

For the price of two coffees a year, you get an entire Chinese library in your pocket.

For advanced learners serious about breaking through plateaus, this may be the highest ROI tool you can use.

📖 Curated 微信读书 Reading List (Advanced Learners)

These titles are ideal for learners who already speak Chinese and want to sound educated, precise, and natural.

Essays & Social Commentary

  • 《沉默的大多数》— 王小波

  • 《我们仨》— 杨绛

Literature (Modern Chinese)

  • 《活着》— 余华

  • 《许三观卖血记》— 余华

Business & Society

  • 《腾讯传》— 吴晓波

  • 《激荡三十年》— 吴晓波

Nonfiction / Abstract Thinking

  • 《人类简史》中文版

  • 《中国哲学简史》— 冯友兰

📌 How to use the list: Read 20–30 minutes daily, highlight sentences you’d actually say, and bring them into conversation.

The app also has many translated books from English!

📥 Download the WeChat Reading Guide for Advanced Chinese Learners

🧠 How Advanced Learners Should Use 微信读书 (Not Like Beginners)

Do this instead:

  • Read for ideas, not word-by-word accuracy

  • Save full sentences, not isolated words

  • Re-read highlighted passages aloud

  • Summarize chapters in your own words

  • Discuss what you read with a teacher or study partner

This is how reading becomes speaking power.

🎓 Turn Reading Into Real Fluency

Many advanced students plateau because they:

  • Read alone

  • Never discuss what they read

  • Don’t get feedback on precision or tone

At Sishu Mandarin, we help advanced learners:

  • Turn reading into a high-level discussion

  • Express complex ideas naturally

  • Sound educated, confident, and professional in Chinese

👉 Explore our advanced online Chinese classes ($99/month).

Sishu Mandarin微信读书, WeChat, WeReadComment