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Mandarin
Level Up

  • Listening
  • Speaking
  • Reading

With separate tracking of your listening, speaking, and reading skills, we push you just the right amount using comprehensible input!

Methodology

  1. i+1 Listening/Reading (Input): Watch Fun Videos with Smart Transcripts
  2. i+1 Vocab (Spaced Repetition): Build Vocab from Videos
  3. i+1 Speaking (Output): Use Vocab in AI Roleplaying
  4. i = i+1 ↑ (Growth): Review Newly Retained Content

Comprehensible Input

New words marked on videos
An episode playing, with Chinese subtitles.Its transcript, with pinyin over every word and the words you can't read yet marked red.

Know exactly where you are

Listening, Speaking and Reading tracked separately

One bar per skill

ListeningGoal HSK 6HSK 471%
SpeakingGoal HSK 5HSK 358%
ReadingGoal HSK 4HSK 243%

Most apps give you one level. However, if you are a heritage speaker for example, you might follow a whole conversation and not read a menu. Each skill has its own level, and every exercise is adapted to that.

Watch

Watch what you already watch

TitleFitListeningPace
家有儿女 S1E2Just right92%Fast
家有儿女 S1E1Just right91%Natural
Grocery ShoppingJust right96%Slow
What Should I Eat?Easy98%Slow
家有儿女 S1E3Stretch89%Fast
Chengdu TravelsStretch88%Fast
San FranciscoHard79%Fast

Easy97%+Just right90–97%Stretch80–90%Hardunder 80%Listening = how much of it you already understand by ear

Paste any YouTube link and we transcribe it, with pinyin and a gloss over every word. Each video shows how much of it you already understand by ear, so you can sort by fit: Just right to learn from, Stretch to challenge yourself, Hard for later. Tap any word you don’t know to save it.

Videos play from YouTube in YouTube’s own player, and we only let you import ones whose creators have embedding sharing turned on. If you’re a creator and want to keep general embedding sharing on, but still prefer your videos not to show up here, please reach out and we’ll take them down!

Speak

Use new words in a real conversation

Your challenge 妈妈 will steer towards these

Grammar

把 + object + V bǎ

do something to a thing, and finish it

我把碗洗了。

Words

✓味道 wèidào taste, flavour
趁热 chènrè while it's hot

饭做好了,快来吃吧!今天做了红烧肉。

知道了,我马上来了

快来啊!冷了不好吃

来了来了!哇,味道好香啊!

Talk to a conversation partner about ordering food, getting directions, and more. Turn on a challenge and you get one grammar pattern and two words just past what you can say now. The partner steers toward them and your words stay in the conversation. Words you saved from videos come back here, so what you watch turns into what you say.

How we differ from Duolingo

Our Method: Comprehensible Input

Learn one step at a time. Every new word we recommend is just past where you are (i+1) so you get a little better each time. This is built off linguist Stephen Krashen’s Comprehensible Input theory. Your flashcards are scheduled with Piotr Wozniak’s spaced repetition SM-2 method.

  1. i+1 Listening/Reading (Input)Watch Fun Videos with Smart Transcripts
  2. i+1 Vocab (Spaced Repetition)Build Vocab from Videos
  3. i+1 Speaking (Output)Use Vocab in AI Roleplaying
  4. i = i+1 ↑ (Growth)Review Newly Retained Content
  5. Then around again from your slightly higher level

Dictionary data from CC-CEDICT (MDBG, CC BY-SA 4.0). Transcription by SenseVoice from FunASR (Alibaba). HSK word lists after the Ministry of Education’s HSK 3.0 standard; not affiliated with or endorsed by the HSK or its organisers.