Speak everyday Mandarin, one day at a time.
One short lesson a day, built on phrases you actually use. The pinyin, tones and character pages and the travel guides are free too.
Start Day 1, free →Words and characters together, from your review schedule.
Words stick when you review them at the right moment.
Everyone forgets new words. Spaced repetition brings each one back just before you would lose it, and every time you remember it, the gap before the next review gets longer. It is the most useful habit on this site.
Ten minutes a day does more than two hours once a week. Without an account, your schedule is saved only in this browser, on this device.
Every language you learn lets you talk with millions more people. This site is here to make the first step, which is the hardest, take ten minutes a day instead of a term of evening classes.
Read why I built this →Starting with characters, or skipping the tones and meaning to fix them later, is the most common way to stall. Here is the order that works, and how much time each step takes.
Pinyin is how Chinese sounds are written in letters you already know, and the tones are part of every syllable. Both are small and finite. Hear the four tones in pairs, learn the eight spellings that catch everyone out, and every word after that is one you can actually say.
These are the phrases you would actually use: saying hello, giving your name, ordering food, asking where something is. Each day covers a few of them, explains why they work the way they do, then quizzes you. Do not binge three at once to get ahead. The day in between is doing half the work, because that is when things stick.
Spaced repetition is a flashcard deck that works out when to show you each word. You get 15 new ones a day, in course order, and each comes back just before you would have forgotten it. If you only do one thing on this site, make it this. Do the cards even on days you skip the lesson.
Characters are the long project, and they are much easier once you can already say the words they write. Every lesson ends with a writing box for that day’s characters: watch the stroke order, trace it, then write it from memory. A few a day adds up faster than you would expect.
About 25 minutes, split three ways. One sitting or spread across the day, it makes little difference. Mornings are slightly better for the cards, because anything you get wrong comes back later the same day.
On a bad day, do the reviews and nothing else. Even four minutes keeps the schedule intact. Skip a day and tomorrow’s pile is bigger, which is how people end up staring at 200 cards and quietly giving up.
Different plan. Skip characters for now and go straight to the situation guides: the restaurant, the taxi, the train, the hotel. Keep pinyin switched on, learn the tones well enough to be understood, and do the daily lessons with whatever time is left. Twenty phrases you can actually say will do more for you than a hundred characters you can recognise.
Browse the situation guides →Eight courses. The daily lessons teach the phrases you would actually say, one short lesson at a time, with tones and pinyin first and characters from day one. Characters in 30 days teaches the writing system by its parts, HSK 1 and 2 prepares you for the exam, and five topic courses take on donghua, games, C-dramas, internet slang and manhua. Days 1 to 7 of the daily lessons and the first 3 days of every other course need no account.
Around them, Learn holds the reading, vocabulary and grammar references, and Practice has the spaced repetition deck and the stroke order writer. Pinyin and tone colours switch on and off on every lesson.
Jump straight to the situation you need, no course required.
On the mainland Christmas is a working day and a night out, not a family holiday. What actually happens, why people give apples on Christmas Eve, and the Mandarin to go with it.
More than you would expect. The tones and pinyin guides, every character page, all 1971 words, the grammar reference, the situation guides, the printables and days 1 to 7 of the daily lessons, with no account and no card. A free account adds days 8 to 30.
You would pay only for the rest of the course and everything released later.
Part of the Learn Languages Online network
Four of the eight sites are open: Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Spanish. French, Italian, German and Portuguese are being built, with the same courses, spaced repetition and situation guides.