Learn to read Chinese characters.
The common ones first.
The 2,500 most common characters make up 98.5% of written Chinese. Learn them in frequency order and in look-alike sets — with every meaning in your own language.
$1 today. Then $29/month after 7 days unless you cancel. Cancel anytime.
我今天早上去了市场买菜。天气很好，阳光照在街道上。老板笑着说这些西红柿是今天刚到的，很新鲜。水果摊的阿姨推荐了葡萄，我买了一袋，还有一把青菜和几个鸡蛋。她用秤称了称，又送我一个石榴。回家的路上遇到邻居，我们聊了几句天气，然后各自回家做饭。
The share of this paragraph you would recognise. Knowing the characters is the first step to reading; words and grammar come next.
Learn Chinese in your own language.
Almost every Chinese course assumes you think in English. If you don’t, every card costs you an extra step: from Chinese to English, then from English to the language you actually think in.
Here the meanings, the example words and the whole course around them are in English, Dutch, German, Spanish, French or Italian. The only foreign thing on the card is the Chinese.
- Meanings and example words for every character in the course
- The drill, the daily plan and the coach in the same language
- Stories and dialogs with the translation in your language
- Switch language whenever you like — your progress stays where it is
“My English is pretty good, so I got used to learning Chinese through English. But I noticed it goes just a bit faster when it’s all in Dutch.”
huǒ
fire
Used in
train
volcano
Often confused with
心 xīn — heart; mind · 必 bì — must; certainly
A real card from the course, in each of its six languages.
How you get there fast.
Three rules do the work. Each one removes a way learners usually lose time.
Frequency first
Every character you learn is one you will keep meeting. The order comes from real text, so no time goes into a shape you would see once a year.
Look-alikes learned together
人, 入 and 八 blur together when you meet them months apart. Learned side by side in one set, you see the difference once — instead of finding out later that one has quietly overwritten the other.
Four recalls to lock it in
A new character is earned, not just seen: four correct recalls in one session, and a miss steps it back a round. Then it comes back after six hours, and again after 1, 3, 7, 14 and 30 days.
This is the actual drill.
Not a mockup — the real study screen, running in this page: the queue, the Leitner boxes, the look-alikes with their readings, all in your language. Four correct recalls move a new character on; a miss steps it back a round. Pick a set and try it.
5 cards remaining
Tap the card or press Space to reveal
← Forgot | Space flip | → Remember | M mute | R replay
Four real look-alike sets from the course, at their rank, with the meanings in your language.
Where the curve flattens.
Chinese leans hard on its most common characters. The first 1,000 make up 89% of running text; by 2,500 it is 98.5%, and what is left is mostly names, technical terms and literary words. That is why the course is set to 2,500 by default.
Share of running text in Jun Da’s frequency list of modern Chinese, about 193 million characters. The course follows its own frequency order, which is close to this one but not identical, so read these as close estimates. And they count characters, not words: knowing every character in a sentence is not the same as knowing what it means.
Chinese charactersEvery stop is a target you can set.
Start at 500 to try it out, or go all the way to 4,000. The target is one setting in your course and you can change it whenever you like: same drill, same schedule, only the finish line moves.
All 2,500 in three months — or at your own pace.
You set the pace, and the course shows the daily cost before you commit. Flat out — about an hour a day — you work through all 2,500 in around three months, and by week five you know the 1,000 that make up almost nine in ten characters of everyday text. Rather keep it under half an hour a day? Then it takes about eight months. Speed up or slow down whenever you like; the schedule adapts. These are estimates from our own scheduling model at a beginner’s error rate, and the minutes include the reviews.
| Sets a day | Time per day | All 2,500 met in |
|---|---|---|
| 9 | ~64 min | ~3 months |
| 6 | ~46 min | ~4 months |
| 5 | ~36 min | ~5.5 months |
| 3 | ~24 min | ~8 months |
And a set looks like this
In plain frequency order 干 comes at #121 and 土 at #1,026 — at ten a day, about three months apart. Long enough for the second to blur into the first. In the course they are one set, learned in the same session.
A coach that reads every answer.
Every day it looks at what you got right, what you missed and what is coming back, and tells you the one thing to do next: push on, hold back before a heavy day, or slow down when your recall dips. Always with the numbers behind it.
It also keeps a deck for the characters that won’t stick. Miss one three times and the coach pulls it out and drills it against its look-alikes, so you fix the confusion instead of meeting it again and again in your reviews.
Your coach
TodayWeak characters
6 characters keep tripping you up (missed 3+ times). Most of them share a shape with another one you keep missing, so the drill opens on those sets — fixing a confusion beats meeting its members one at a time in reviews.
Drill 6 problem charactersHeavy day ahead
200 characters come back tomorrow — about 4.4× your usual day. Skip new cards for the next 3 days and let the wave clear; adding now would land right on top of it.
Review 12 nowRecall dipping
Your recall is at 62% this week, down 18 points. That’s the sign to hold new characters and let the ones you have settle.
How the hard deck works
Caught automatically
Miss a character three times and it is flagged. Or flag it yourself with one tap.
Drilled against its look-alikes
The drill starts with the sets your stubborn characters share, so you fix the confusion instead of each character on its own.
No risk to your progress
Pure practice: your review schedule and due dates stay exactly where they are.
Take it off when it clicks
One tap takes a character off your hard deck once you have it.
Recognise and type. Skip the pen.
Most Chinese today is typed: you type the sound in pinyin and pick the character from a list. So the skill that matters most is recognition — see it, know it, pick it. That is what this course trains, and it is why it takes a fraction of the time handwriting would.
Read
Signs, messages, menus, books: recognition is the skill you use every time you look at Chinese.
Type
Typing is pinyin plus recognition: sound out the word, then pick the right character from the candidates. Learn to recognise and you can already write on any keyboard.
No handwriting
Even native speakers have a phrase for forgetting how to write a character by hand: 提笔忘字. Drilling 2,500 characters by hand would take far longer, for a skill most learners rarely need. We left it out.
Who this is for
For learners ready to practise on most days for a stretch of months. The daily load is shown up front, and the schedule adapts when you fall behind.
It fits if you
- Can give it twenty to forty minutes on most days
- Keep stalling because you cannot decode the characters
- Keep mixing up characters that look alike
- Would rather learn in your own language than through English
It does not fit if you
- — Want conversation practice above all — this is reading first
- — Need to learn handwriting
- — Want something to dip into a few times a month
- — Want results without a daily review habit
One membership.
The whole character course, every part of it. No tiers to compare.
Seven-day introduction
Then $29/month, renewing until you cancel. Cancel any time, including during the first seven days.
- All 2,500 characters in frequency order, with look-alike sets and the leech drill
- Meanings and example words in your language — one of six
- Daily plan, target and progress tracking
- Native audio on every character
- Stories and dialogs that open as you learn — matched to the characters you know, with audio and the translation in your language
$1 today. Then $29/month after 7 days unless you cancel. Cancel anytime.
We email you before the first $29 charge.
Already a member on an earlier plan? Your price and access stay the same.
Read and listen — from your first week
Stories and dialogs that open as you learn
Every story and dialog is measured against the characters you know. Once you know 90% of one, it opens on your shelf — your first dialogs after about 50 characters, new ones every week. Each is read through by a person, with pinyin, audio at normal and slow speed, and the translation in your language. Part of the membership — and a few are free to try.
Read a free storyGraded classics — coming soon
Chinese and world classics retold at six levels, from A1 to C1, with audio and a word drill for each book. We are finishing them now; they will be sold separately from the membership.
See what is comingQuestions
Which languages can I learn in?+
English, Dutch, German, Spanish, French or Italian. The meanings and example words of every character, and the app around them, are in the language you choose — and you can switch whenever you like.
Do I need to know any Chinese to start?+
No. The course starts with the most common characters and builds from there, at a pace you choose. If you already know some, you will notice it first in the look-alike sets.
How much time does this take each day?+
As much as you choose — and the course shows you the number before you commit. The fastest pace takes about an hour a day and gets you through all 2,500 in around three months; the calm pace takes under half an hour and around eight months. You can push hard for a while and ease off later; the schedule adapts. These figures come from our own scheduling model at a beginner’s error rate and include the reviews, not just the new cards. New characters stop at 50 a day for everyone, because every one of them comes back for review in the weeks after; reviews themselves are never capped.
Does recognising characters mean I can read Chinese?+
No, and we would rather say so plainly. Recognising a character means knowing its sound and its core meaning on sight. Reading also needs vocabulary, grammar and seeing where words begin and end. Character recognition is the layer underneath all of that — it is what stops you stalling on every third character. The rest is built by reading — which is why stories and dialogs open on your shelf as soon as you know enough of their characters.
What do the first seven days look like?+
On day one you pick a target and a daily pace; the course shows the time it takes before you commit. You learn your first sets, and from day two the first spaced reviews come back — the real test of whether it is sticking. By day seven you can see your accuracy and what the next month would look like at your pace, before the first $29 charge.
What is included?+
The full 2,500-character course: look-alike sets, the leech drill, the daily plan and progress tracking, with meanings and example words in six languages. And the stories and dialogs: each opens on your shelf as soon as you know 90% of its characters, read through by a person, with pinyin, audio and a translation in your language — new ones are added every week. Our graded readers are not part of the membership — they will be sold separately, and are coming soon.
How is this different from a flashcard app?+
Characters that look alike arrive together, so you learn the difference instead of the mix-up. A new character only counts after four correct recalls in one session, and the reviews are spaced further apart each time you get it right. The course tells you each day what is due and how long it takes — in your own language.
How does the billing work?+
You pay $1 today, which covers your first seven days. After that the membership renews at $29/month until you cancel. We email you before the first $29 charge.
How do I cancel, and what happens to my progress?+
From your account settings, at any time. Cancel within the first seven days and you are never charged the $29. Your account and review history stay on file, so if you come back later you pick up where you stopped instead of starting over.
Learn the characters that unlock the most Chinese — in your own language.
$1 today. Then $29/month after 7 days unless you cancel. Cancel anytime.