Learn Mandarin
Mandarin without the wall of characters.
A frequency-first course to rank 3,000 with pinyin beside every hanzi, tones treated as ear training rather than trivia, and not a single exercise that requires a Chinese keyboard.
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Quick taster
3-word session
A quick mix of exercises - recognise, recall, type and build each word. Miss one and it comes back round until it sticks.
Graded reader
在家的早上
Only words the course has taught
。，。。
Today I go home. I'm hungry and want to eat. My friend says there is food on the table.
Tap any word for its word page
Read Mandarin from the first week.
44 graded stories with pinyin over every character, built only from words you have met. Reading Chinese early is entirely possible when the text is honest about what you know.
Browse Mandarin storiesGrammar that treats you like an adult.
说 never changes: no conjugation, no gender, no plurals. Mandarin spends its difficulty budget on tones and characters instead, and the grammar guides treat that trade honestly.
Explore Mandarin grammarVerb form
说shuō
to speak - No conjugation
- I
- 我说
- you
- 你说
- he / she
- 他说
- we
- 我们说
- you (pl)
- 你们说
- they
- 他们说
The verb 说 never changes. Mandarin marks tense and number with context and particles, not endings - one of the ways its grammar is far simpler than Europe's.
Built for Mandarin, specifically
Not one course photocopied six times. Each language gets the tools its own difficulties actually call for.
Mandarin by the numbers
Counted from the course, not rounded up for the brochure.
- words, taught in frequency order
- 3000
- word pages with traditional forms
- 2796
- graded stories, pinyin throughout
- 44
- tones, trained by minimal pair
- 4
words, taught in frequency order
word pages with traditional forms
graded stories, pinyin throughout
tones, trained by minimal pair
Or wander in sideways
The course is the spine, but every part of it stands on its own.
Start Mandarin at word one.
Every lesson is free to read, and stays that way. Plus is what remembers them for you: free for a week, then $5 a month - one subscription for every course on the site, not just Mandarin.