Learn Chinese

Start at pinyin and the tones

The Chinese on-ramp is written by hand, not generated, and it is 189 cards long. Every card is spoken in a recorded Chinese voice, and what you get right is scheduled for review rather than shown again at random. This is the shorter, starter size of on-ramp; most languages here have about 480 cards.

• 27pinyin sounds
• 10digits
• 12pronunciation rules
• 100core words
• 20everyday phrases
• 20sentences

Three of the pronunciation cards, exactly as the on-ramp teaches them:

• mā 妈 — high and flat — hold one note, like singing it妈妈 — mother
• má 麻 — rising, the way an English question rises at the end麻烦 — trouble / a hassle
• mǎ 马 — dips low, then comes back up — the longest of the four马上 — right away

Your first Chinese phrases

The first phrase and sentence cards of the on-ramp, each spoken in a recorded voice:

• 你好吗？ nǐ hǎo ma — how are you?
• 很高兴认识你 hěn gāoxìng rènshi nǐ — nice to meet you
• 你叫什么名字？ nǐ jiào shénme míngzi — what is your name?
• 我是学生。 wǒ shì xuésheng — I am a student.
• 我是美国人。 wǒ shì Měiguó rén — I am American.

What Chinese actually costs a beginner

mā, má, mǎ and mà are four different words — mother, hemp, horse and to scold — and only the pitch separates them. A tone is learnable but only by ear, which is why every card carries a recorded voice. Pinyin's own trap is that several of its letters do not say what they look like: zh, ch, sh and r are made with the tongue curled back, c is a ts, and q and x have no English equivalent at all. Characters are taught where they belong — inside the words, phrases and sentences, with the pinyin beside them — rather than as a second alphabet to finish first.