Guided paths

Build your first study routine

由浅入深

yóu qiǎn rù shēn — “From the shallows into the deep”

Find your level, take your first lesson, study in focus mode, keep words with flashcards, and see how it is going in the Learning Lab.

Rather ask a person?

A guided path · 6 chapters

Five short chapters, in the order most people need them. Watch one, try it, and come back: the path keeps your place.

Read the transcript

The placement test works out your level for you. There’s nothing to choose first: the questions get harder as you go, and it takes about three minutes.
You take it signed in, because each question is written for you as you go, and your result is saved to your account.
Select Begin test. The first question takes a moment to write, and it always comes from HSK 1: the test starts at the bottom and climbs.
Above the question are its level and the grammar point it tests. The bar shows how far you are, out of twelve questions at most.
Select the answer you think is right. You see straight away which one was correct, and why.
Two right in a row moves you up a level. Two wrong in a row, and the test has found your ceiling, so it stops there.
At the end, you get the level to start at and a note from me on why. The result never changes your level by itself: that stays your choice.

Lessons are arranged by HSK level, from HSK 1 for complete beginners up to HSK 7 to 9.
Each level’s card shows how many lessons it holds, and the words and grammar you’ll know by the end of it.
A lesson takes one topic from first hearing to using it, in ten sections, listed in the contents bar.
It opens with a podcast: a conversation that talks you through the lesson’s words and grammar.
On a free account, every lesson’s podcast is open, and so is the first lesson of each level, in full. Pro opens the rest.
Scroll through a reading section and it’s ticked off up here; the others are ticked when you do them.
The last sections are for doing: exercises, then a Mastery Mission that asks you to use what you’ve learned.

Focus mode works on pages with a clear order, like this HSK 1 lesson. To begin, select Start Learning in Focus Mode.
The menus and banners step aside, so it’s just you and the lesson, one section at a time.
Select Next to move on. The counter at the top shows where you are: step two of twelve. And Back takes you to the step before.
Your progress for the lesson is up here. Give a section a moment, like Understanding, and it’s counted.
To change the backdrop, select Change scene. Plain keeps things simple, or pick a picture, like the Scholar’s Study. Your choice is remembered in this browser.
Focus mode itself doesn’t use any AI credits. Asking Jason a question here does, and that’s always up to you.
When you’re finished, select Exit, or press Escape.
You’re back on the regular page, at the section you reached, and what you completed is still ticked off.

Your deck lives on the flashcards page. It shows how many cards are due today, and how many you have in all.
Reviewing is free with an account, up to twenty cards a day. Pro, like this account, has no daily limit.
Words come from the dictionary, from a lesson’s new words, or from a deck you import from Pleco or Anki.
To add one, open the word in the dictionary and select Add to Flashcard Practice.
When a card is due, you see the word on its own. Try to recall it first, then reveal the answer.
Then grade yourself honestly: Again, Hard, Good or Easy. Your grade decides when the card comes back.
If you miss one, reveal it and choose Again, and it comes back later in this same session.
And a word you no longer want can be taken out of your deck, once its answer is showing.

The Lab reads the practice you were doing anyway, and turns it into evidence of what you have actually learned.
A progress bar counts what you have finished. The Lab asks something harder: what you can still recall, and how well.
Each answer becomes one record. Records add up for every word, and a figure appears only when enough practice stands behind it.
Knowing a word is really seven skills: its meaning, its character, its pinyin and tone, hearing it, saying it and writing it.
Each card names the practice that fills it, so a thin facet tells you what to do next.
On a free account, the Lab measures meaning, character and pinyin. Pro measures all seven, and adds the gap between recognising a word and producing it.
Your profile starts with how you know what you know: a bar for each facet, with the margin of error the Lab allows itself.
On Pro, the seven draw a shape. This one is stronger at recognising words than at saying or writing them.
And where the evidence is thin, the Lab says so, rather than showing a number it cannot support.
Every word in the dictionary has its own card as well: how you have done on that word, facet by facet.

Recognising a word and producing it are separate skills. Here, recognising is twenty points ahead, and the Lab says what closes the gap: speaking and writing, not more reading.
Your forgetting curve comes from flashcard reviews at real intervals: what you still recall after a day, a week and a month. It’s your own curve, not a textbook average.
Every so often, lesson practice asks how sure you are before you answer. Set against the result, it shows whether your confidence can be trusted. Here, it tracks closely.
Task engagement stability follows your accuracy through a sitting. Here it slips after about twenty minutes, so a short break there is likely to help more than pushing on.
And your mistakes, grouped by what they have in common. The largest share here are words not yet familiar, then tones three and four: specific things to practise, not a general weakness.
Select Activity to see when you actually study, hour by hour. This learner works most often around nine in the evening.
The replay plays back every page you studied, in the order you did it, sitting by sitting.
And the race to threshold: a facet crosses with eight answers and four in five of them right. Two have crossed so far; the other five have not yet.
Jason can talk you through these figures. He sees the figures on this page and nothing else, and asking him a question uses AI credits.