Word parts, not word lists
电 (electric) + 脑 (brain) = computer. Once you own the parts, whole families of words come free.
NEW Levels 1–2 are live — 106 lessons, every line spoken →
Stop memorizing Chinese words.
Stop memorizing Chinese words.
Start decoding them.
Chinese words are built out of parts. Learn the parts, and you can read words nobody ever taught you. That is how Chinese children do it — and it works for you too.
106 five-minute lessons · Every line read aloud · No signup · No card
Level 1 · free forever
⭐ Your first week in China
65 five-minute lessons. Order a coffee, meet people, count money,
get around. You finish able to hold your first real conversations — and every lesson ends with you
saying a line out loud.
Start Level 1 — free →
Level 2 · free forever · continues Level 1
⭐ Living in China
41 five-minute lessons. Ask the way, ride the bus, eat out, see a
doctor, go to a neighbour’s birthday — twelve situations you meet in a real week here. Same café,
same friends, one year on.
Start Level 2 — free →
The Decode Method
You already know more Chinese than you think
The Decode Method: most courses hand you a list of 5,000 words and wish you luck. We teach you the few hundred building blocks that those words are made of — so new words explain themselves.
Learn 800 characters. Read 3,200 words.
- The Word Tree tool maps 113 characters to 373 HSK 3 words
- See how a character's meaning grew, not a random list
- Read words from levels you have not studied yet
- Built on the official HSK 3.0 word lists
Free forever · 113 characters · No account needed
Try it — right now
电脑
diànnǎo
You have never studied this word. What does it mean?
The course — now live
Free to start — and free to go deeper
Everything below runs in your browser, saves your progress on your own device. Levels 1–2 are read aloud in my own voice; the other courses use a native-speaker voice. No account, no card.
⭐ Level 1 story course
65 five-minute lessons — free forever. Your first week here: order a
coffee, meet people, count money, get around. Every line uses only words you already know, every lesson
ends with you speaking, and a certificate waits at lesson 65.
⭐ Level 2 story course · Living in China
41 lessons — all free forever. Ask the way, ride the bus, eat
out, see a doctor, go to a birthday party. Twelve situations you meet in a real week here, with the same
café and the same friends a year on.
🌱 Character Sense · 字感启蒙
The 119 characters that quietly build most of the words you will ever
learn. Picture cards, the story behind each character, and a peek at words you can already decode.
🎴 Word Cards · HSK 3–4
62 lessons of flashcards straight from the coursebook — flip, self-test,
and see how one character unlocks a whole family of words. Plus a character → word lookup.
🔓 HSK 3 Decode Course
29 lessons. Learn the characters, meet the word families they build,
then decode HSK 3 words on sight — guess each one from its parts before you ever look it up.
🎯 HSK 7–9 Word Group Trainer
24 word groups, 443 exam-style items. Same character, look-alike words —
learn each group, beat the quiz, then type what you hear. Every sentence read by a native-speaker voice.
Sample question
HSK 2
Question 4 of 12
Which word completes the sentence?
我去＿＿中国。
“I have been to China.” (an experience, not a finished trip)
Where do you stand?
Not sure which level you are?
HSK 3.0 redraws all the levels — nine of them now — and handwriting is back. Twelve questions tell you where you actually are, and what to study next.
- Takes about 3 minutes
- Scored against the official HSK 3.0 standard
- Tells you which words you are missing
- No email, no signup, instant result
100% free · No registration · Result on the spot
How it works
Learning Chinese in 15 minutes a day
No streak guilt, no cartoon owl. Just a short daily loop that keeps what you learn from leaking back out.
1
Find your level
Three-minute test, or just start at the beginning. Either way you land where the words are new but not impossible.
2
Learn the parts
Each five-minute lesson gives you a handful of characters and the family of words they build — plus a real conversation to use them in. Start now →
3
Keep it
Every lesson is built only from words you have already met, so old words keep coming back on their own — a word you learn today shows up again about four units later. Ten minutes a day is enough.
Why it works
What makes this different from a flashcard app
Flashcards make you memorize 5,000 separate facts. This makes 5,000 words follow from a few hundred you actually understand.
🧩
🌳
Meaning trees, not synonyms
Every character's meanings are shown as one growing story, so you remember why a word means what it means.
🔁
Review that decodes
The review card shows you the parts, not the answer — so every repetition trains the skill, not the memory.
✍️
Handwriting from day one
HSK 3.0 brought handwriting back. You start with the simplest strokes and build up, never with a wall of complex characters.
☕
Your life, not a textbook's
Coffee shops, taxis, shopping, small talk — scenes you will actually be in, not tea ceremonies and dynasty names.
🔖
Real HSK 3.0 data
Every word, grammar point and topic comes from the official HSK 3.0 syllabus (2025 edition, in force from July 2026) — not scraped from a blog.
Free tools & guides
Everything here is free to use
No account, no trial timer. Use them even if you never take a lesson.
🎴 Word Cards · HSK 3–462 lessons of flip-and-test flashcards from the coursebook, with a character → word lookup.
🌱 Character Sense · 字感启蒙The 119 beginner characters that build most of the words you will ever learn — with picture cards.
🔎 Character → Word FinderType any character and see every word it builds. 生 builds 74. 心 builds 94.
HSK 3.0 Word List & Text AnalyzerAll 11,000 words. Paste any text and see exactly which level it sits at.
🌳 Chinese Word Tree BETA113 characters, 373 HSK 3 words — watch how Chinese words are built.
3-Minute Level TestTwelve questions, instant answer, no email required.
Chinese Name GeneratorA real Chinese name that sounds like yours — with the meaning explained.
All 300 Level 1 WordsThe complete official list, grouped by topic, with pinyin.
HSK 3.0 vs HSK 2.0Nine levels, handwriting is back — what actually changed, and what it means for you.
How to Order Coffee in ChineseThe five-minute script — every line the barista will say.
How Hard Is Chinese, Really?An honest answer after twenty years of watching people learn it.
⭐ The Free Story Course · Levels 1–2106 five-minute lessons: listen, say it back, record yourself, and hold a real conversation.
Questions
Before you start
Do I need to know any Chinese already?
No. The first lesson assumes nothing — you will read and write your first characters in it. If you have studied before, take the level test and skip ahead; you may find that the words you already half-remember suddenly click into place.
What does "decoding" actually mean?
Chinese words are compounds. 电 means electric, 脑 means brain — together they mean computer. 火 fire + 车 vehicle = train. Once you know a few hundred of these parts, thousands of words stop being things to memorize and become things you can work out. That is how Chinese children read far more words than they were ever taught.
Is it free?
Levels 1 and 2 are free forever — all 106 lessons — and so are Character Sense and every tool on the site. The first three lessons of each paid course (the word cards, the HSK 3 Decode Course, the HSK 7–9 trainer) are free too. Right now everything is open while I test it — that runs to 31 October 2026, after which the paid courses move to a subscription ($7 a month or $49 a year) and the free parts stay free. You will have seen plenty before you are ever asked to pay.
Which HSK standard do you follow?
HSK 3.0, the new exam (2025 syllabus, in force from July 2026): nine levels, roughly 11,000 words, and handwriting requirements that the old HSK did not have. Every word list, grammar point and topic on this site comes from the official syllabus, not from a third-party list.
Is this only for people taking the HSK exam?
No. The exam syllabus is simply the most carefully ordered word list in existence, so we use it as a spine. If you never sit an exam, the ordering still means you learn the most useful words first.
Who made this?
One teacher — Lan Chengxiao — with more than twenty years in the classroom and an HSK coursebook series published in Mongolia. Not a startup, not a content farm. If something is wrong, you can email me and I will fix it myself.