Dragon Daily

Q: Can I read old editions?

Yes. Every edition keeps its own dated URL, so nothing disappears when the next one publishes.

Q: Does Dragon Daily cost credits?

No. The whole edition — story, podcast, word, quiz — is free on every plan and spends nothing.

Q: When does the email arrive?

At 08:00 in your own timezone. The send is swept hourly, so readers in different countries all get it with their morning rather than all at once on ours.

Q: How do I stop the emails?

The unsubscribe link at the foot of any edition, or the notification settings in your account. Stopping the email does not stop the edition — it is still on the site each day.

Q: Is it worth doing if I am a beginner?

Yes, and possibly more so. The word of the day and the quiz are the parts to do; skim the story and let the popup carry you. It builds the daily habit before there is enough Chinese for the habit to be about.

Dragon Daily is one edition a day, and it is the smallest useful thing on the site: a few minutes, finishable, and different every morning. Its real job is not teaching a great deal — it is being the thing you can still do on a day you have no appetite for a lesson.

What is in an edition

Today in China — A short piece on something Chinese — a festival, a season, or as often an anniversary or a modern-China story rather than strictly today’s news. Chinese in context rather than in a list.
A podcast — The edition read aloud. Free to play, as all recorded audio here is.
Today in Chinese history — What happened on this date. Where most of the site is language, this is the part that makes it a place.
The word of the day — One word, properly — pronunciation, meaning, and how it is actually used.
A quiz — A handful of questions on what you just read. Short enough that it is not a chore.
Explore — Links onward into the dictionary, grammar and culture for anything the edition touched.

Four paragraphs of an edition’s story set full width on a plain near-white page, with no heading, image or button in frame. The first describes the launch of the world’s first quantum satellite, “Micius”, on July 20, 2016, named after the ancient Chinese philosopher Mozi and built to explore ultra-secure quantum communication. The second opens “‘Micius’ was part of China’s ambitious scientific program to push the boundaries of 科学 (kēxué) or science”; the third covers secure quantum communication between space and Earth over record distances; the fourth closes on “the ever-evolving nature of 科学, which constantly challenges our understanding of the universe”. Each of the first three paragraphs ends in a [1] citation marker and the last carries none, and both instances of 科学 are set in the same dark slate as the English around them. — Four paragraphs of English about China with exactly one Chinese word in them — 科学, glossed as (kēxué) on its first appearance and left bare at the close. That is the reading level to expect from the story: a read, not a translation exercise. Nothing underlines or colours the hanzi, but it can be tapped for its reading like any on the site, and the [1] markers are footnotes into the References list printed under the piece.

Which day you get

Editions are dated on China time, and /dragon-daily sends you to whichever edition is current there. If you read from Europe or the Americas, the day you see can be ahead of your own calendar — that is deliberate rather than a bug, since the content is about what is happening in China.

Past editions stay at their own dated URL, so nothing is lost if you skip a few.

Getting it by email

You can have the edition arrive rather than remembering to visit. It is sent at 08:00 in your own timezone, not ours, so it lands with your morning wherever you are.

Opt in from the subscribe prompt on the site or from your account settings, and out again from either — or from the unsubscribe link on any edition.

What it costs

Nothing, on any plan. Reading it, playing the podcast and taking the quiz spend no credits, and the edition itself is not behind the paywall. It earns XP and counts toward your streak like anything else.

Common questions

1Why is today’s edition dated tomorrow?

Editions are dated on China time. If you are far enough west, the current edition is already the next calendar day where you are. The content is about China, so it follows China’s clock.

2Can I read old editions?

3Does Dragon Daily cost credits?

4When does the email arrive?

5How do I stop the emails?

6Is it worth doing if I am a beginner?

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