Mandarin TempleCome for Knowledge. Stay for Wisdom.For learners
温故而知新
See what you have actually learned, not just what you have done: how much you still remember after a week and a month, which of the seven skills behind every word are strong and which are thin, and what to practise next. It reads the practice you already do — there is nothing extra to sit.
Free measures three of the seven facets — Meaning, Character and Pinyin. Pro measures all seven. Already have an account?
Learning Lab
Every app counts the lessons you finish. The Learning Lab tells you what you will still remember next month — what has stuck, what is slipping, and exactly what to practise next. And when it does not know yet, it says so.
For learners
A word can be recognised, pronounced, heard or written — and those come apart. One percentage hides which.
No XP, no streaks, no confetti. This is the quiet room.
Why it exists
Mandarin Temple already knew how much you had done. It did not know what you had learned — and those come apart much further than anyone expects.
A progress bar measures how far you scrolled. It moves identically for the lesson you understood and the one you skimmed at midnight, which makes it useless for deciding what to do next.
The Lab counts retrieval separately from presence, and only retrieval feeds a mastery figure.
“HSK 2: 74%” averages together recognising a character, hearing it, saying it and writing it — four abilities that come apart badly in Chinese and need different practice.
Everything is measured per facet, so a strong reader with weak production can see exactly that.
Review schedules are usually built on a textbook curve. Yours is not the textbook’s: your own intervals, your own accuracy, your own decay.
Your forgetting curve is drawn from your real review history, not from an average of other people.
What gets measured
A Chinese word is not one thing you either know or do not. It is seven abilities that grow at different rates — which is why a single score for “知道” tells you nothing you can act on.
Fills from Reveal-mode flashcards and reading practice
Fills from Choosing the character from meaning and sound, in lesson practice
Fills from Write mode on a flashcard, or the write step in lesson practice
Fills from The tone typed alongside the pinyin, and tone drills on dictionary entries
Fills from Listening exercises and the listen step in a lesson
Fills from Speak mode, and pronunciation practice
Fills from Handwriting practice, drawn and graded
Meaning, Character and Pinyin are measured on a free account. Tone, Listening, Speaking and Writing are measured on Pro. See learner plans
Free and Pro
Free gives you a real Lab, built from your own answers. Pro measures the four skills that decide whether you can hear and speak Chinese — and shows how all seven fit together.
In the Learning Lab
Pro also opens
On both plans: your forgetting curve, how well your confidence matches your accuracy, when your focus starts to slip, your most common mistakes, and your study heatmap.
What actually happens
Four steps, in order. Nothing is inferred, nothing is modelled from people who are not you, and the last step is allowed to refuse.
A flashcard, a practice item, a spoken phrase, a written character. Nothing here is a separate test — the Lab reads the practice you were doing anyway.
What was asked, what you said, whether it was right, how long it took, how long since you last saw it, and which of the seven facets it exercised. One row, appended, never edited.
Each word you have met carries its own running state: how often it has been tested, how often correct, how stable it has become, and which mistakes recur.
Every figure arrives with the evidence count behind it and a confidence band. Below the threshold it does not render a smaller number; it says how much more is needed.
How to trust it
Every figure carries the number of observations behind it, and a metric that has not earned the right to be shown says so instead of printing a number.
Reading a page proves you were there. Answering proves you retrieved it. The Lab counts those apart, everywhere, because collapsing them is how “74%” comes to mean nothing.
No webcam, no eye-tracking, no emotion or attention inference — not now and not later. What is recorded is what was answered and how long it took.
What it is not
The Lab never grades you, never changes your schedule, and never touches XP or streaks. Your points and your streak carry on exactly as they did.
They are counting different things on purpose. XP and streaks measure activity, which is what keeps a habit going. The Lab measures evidence of learning, which is a harder and less flattering question. A long streak with a thin Lab is real information, not a bug.
Questions
All seven facets instead of three: Tone, Listening, Speaking and Writing join Meaning, Character and Pinyin. With all seven measured you also get the radar that shows their shape together, the gap between what you recognise and what you can produce, and a replay of every activity rather than your last 15. Your forgetting curve, the confidence check, your focus span and your error profile are on both plans.
No. Everything you answer is recorded on every plan; the plan only decides what is shown. Move to Pro and the four Pro facets open with whatever practice you have already done in them. Go back to Free and they are hidden again, with nothing deleted.
From your account page, at any time. Pro stays on until the end of the period you have already paid for, and your Lab record stays with your account.
No. The Lab only reads the record your ordinary practice already produces — it never grades you, never changes your schedule, and never touches XP or streaks. The five cognitive tasks are entirely optional and change nothing about your learning either.
Because a percentage from three attempts is noise wearing a number’s clothes. Each metric has an evidence floor — eight retrievals for a facet, twelve reviews for a retention figure — and below it the Lab tells you what is missing instead of printing something you might act on.
Because each facet fills from a specific kind of practice, and no amount of a different kind will fill it. Meaning moves from reveal-mode flashcards and reading; Character from choosing the character in the Read step of a lesson practice; Pinyin from Write mode on a flashcard or the write step in a lesson. Those three are measured on a free account, and each names what would count, so their thresholds are something you can act on. Tone, Listening, Speaking and Writing are measured on Pro, so on a free account they are withheld by plan rather than by evidence — practice will not open them. The page tells you which of the two you are looking at.
Reading proves you were on the page; it does not prove you could recall anything. Those checkpoints are counted, and you can see them on the Activity page, but only answering — a review, a practice round, a spoken phrase — produces the evidence a mastery figure is built from.
You. A teacher sees aggregate patterns for their own circle and the individual learners they teach; a guardian sees a plain-language view of a learner they manage. Your cognitive-task results are never shown to a teacher, a guardian or an institution. Beyond your circle, only Mandarin Temple staff can reach your record, and only where running the service requires it — support, safety, or administering a study you joined; even then your cognitive-task results stay pseudonymous to us.
Only if you explicitly opt in, on a separate screen, and you can withdraw at any time. Research data leaves with a pseudonym that cannot be joined across studies, carries no free text and no direct identifiers, and a learner whose account is managed by a guardian cannot consent for themselves.
No webcam, no eye-tracking, no emotion or attention inference, now or later. What the Lab records is what you answered, when, and how long it took. That commitment is written into the ethics page and is not conditional on a future product decision.
Yours. It is drawn from your own reviews at the intervals they actually happened — how much you still recalled after a day, a week, a month. It needs real gaps of days and weeks to take shape, so it is the one part of the Lab that cannot be filled by practising harder today.
Yes. Every table the Lab writes to is covered by the account export and by deletion — the evidence log, the per-item state, task results and consent records. Deleting your account removes them rather than retaining them under a research exemption.