Guide

For learners

rì jī yuè lěi — “Day by day, month by month, it accumulates”

Every study surface — the dictionary, HSK lessons, flashcards, the four skill studios and your progress.

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Written and maintained by the Mandarin Temple Editorial Team.

Using the dictionarySearch 21,000+ entries by character, pinyin or meaning, and read everything a single entry holds. 7 min Grammar pointsHow a grammar point is laid out — pattern, examples, common mistakes — and how to drill it. 6 min HSK lessonsThe shape of a lesson — podcast, dialogue, vocabulary, grammar and practice — and how to work through one. 8 min Units and examsHow lessons group into units, what the unit exam covers, and the full-length mock tests. 6 min Flashcards and spaced repetitionHow the review schedule decides what you see today, and why skipping days costs more than it saves. 7 min Import your deck from Anki or PlecoBring the words you already study — from Pleco, Anki or a list — into your flashcards, and take them out again. 6 min Dragon DailyA daily edition — a cultural story, the word of the day, a podcast and a quiz — and how to get it by email. 6 min Focus modeOne section at a time, on a quiet backdrop, with your evidence and an AI tutor a tap away. 5 min Listening practiceGraded listening exercises by HSK level, with transcripts you can reveal when you are ready. 5 min Reading practiceGraded passages with tap-to-define characters and comprehension questions at the end. 5 min Writing and stroke orderTrace characters in the right order, then photograph what you wrote on paper for AI feedback. 6 min Speaking and your AI tutorPronunciation scoring, free conversation with Jason, and what your microphone is and is not used for. 7 min Specialized modulesBusiness, diplomatic, academic and other vocabularies, for when general HSK is not the goal. 5 min Progress, XP and checkpointsWhat earns XP, what a checkpoint is, and how the percentages on every page are calculated. 6 min Achievements and streaksHow streaks are counted, what breaks them, and the badges worth going after. 4 min Your study planHow the calendar builds a week around your goals and available time, and how to change it. 7 min The Learning LabSeven facets of knowing a word, and why one number cannot describe your Chinese. 8 min Your activity, and why a figure is withheldThe activity room, the six findings the Lab will raise, the five optional cognitive tasks — and why one chart works while the next says "not enough yet". 8 min The culture libraryEighty long articles across eight subjects — the reference knowledge that stops being optional somewhere around the intermediate plateau. 6 min The Chinese periodic tableAll 118 elements, and the four radicals that tell you what kind of substance a character names before you can read it. 6 min The four Chinese calendarsTwo calendars run at once and two cycles sit over the second — which is why a festival moves every year and somebody has two birthdays. 6 min Names, surnames and numbersA hundred surname pages with sourced figures, why the same surname is spelled five ways, and the counting system that groups in ten-thousands. 7 min Four tables worth bookmarkingThe pinyin grid, the Kangxi radicals, the tones and a converter for 斤, 两, 亩 and 里 — one screen each, no account. 5 min Circles, from the insideThe Buddy Circle a free account can create, lesson reminders in your own timezone, and the two quite different reasons posting stops. 7 min

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