Hi I am new here. Is there reading material on italki for free ? I cannot read
characters as well as pinyin
Hi Frank. Here in the italki community section, you may find podcasts or exercises written in Chinese by Chinese teachers or native Chinese speakers. You can use the "Filter" button to show only posts in Chinese. When I come across a character I don't know (and there are many haha!), I use Google translate.
For reading practice, I like to use an App called "Du Chinese" (读中文). It has heaps of short stories graded from newbie, elementary, ... to master. It has inbuilt English translation and word lookup in English and Pinyin. All stories have Chinese narration by native Chinese speakers (as opposed to robots).
The free version has limited free content but I personally think it is well worth the paid version. There is no shortage of quality content for my reading level. Spend more time enjoying the content than looking up words. I recommend starting with the Funny Stories and Dialogues. Hope this helps.