Learn Mandarin Chinese

中文（普通话） · a free course from absolute beginner to C2 · one lesson a day

Mandarin has more first-language speakers than any other language, and its grammar is far gentler than most beginners expect: no conjugation, no gender, no plurals, no cases. A sentence is words in order. That means the effort goes almost entirely into sound and script rather than into paradigms — and both of those are things practice fixes, which is why a daily lesson suits this language particularly well.

What is hard about Mandarin Chinese, and what this course does about it

Two real obstacles, and this course takes each on directly. Tone is meaning, not intonation: mā, má, mǎ and mà are four words, so tones get their own lessons, their own listening drills, and the tone-change rules for 不 and 一 written out rather than left to the ear. And the writing system has to be learned partly apart from the speech — so characters are taught by the parts they are made of (妈 is 女 woman beside 马 mǎ), flashcards come in both pinyin and hanzi, and there is a typing trainer that makes you produce a character rather than recognise it.

What the course covers

The syllabus is 387 numbered steps, and the first 334 of them have a lesson written by hand behind them — the explanation, the examples and the questions, not a template filled in. 40 of those steps are the grammar core: everything you need before the course turns to recombining it, which is the work that carries you from intermediate to C2.

The first 14 grammar points, in order

Straight from the course's own syllabus. Each gets its own lesson, and comes back in the reading and listening of later ones.

1. Pinyin part one: initials and finals — how every Mandarin syllable is written with Latin letters
2. The four tones (and the neutral tone): how the pitch of mā, má, mǎ, mà changes the meaning completely
3. How Chinese characters work: pictures, meaning parts and sound parts (妈 = 女 woman + 马 mǎ)
4. Basic sentence order: Subject–Verb–Object — and why Chinese verbs never change form
5. 是 shì sentences: saying who or what something is (我是学生)
6. Yes-no questions with 吗 — and how to answer without words for 'yes' and 'no'
7. Tone changes: two third tones in a row, and how 不 bù and 一 yī change their tones
8. 很 with adjectives: why 我很好 needs no 是
9. The possessive particle 的: 我的书, 妈妈的茶
10. Measure words part one: 个, and counting things (一个人, 两个朋友)
11. 有 and 没有: having, not having, and there is / there isn't
12. Question words: 什么, 谁, 哪儿 — asking questions without changing the word order
13. Numbers 1-99, 两 vs 二, and asking how many with 几 and 多少
14. 在: being somewhere (我在家) and doing something somewhere (我在家吃饭)

How one lesson works

Around 20–30 minutes at the fullest setting. Three lengths to choose from, and a shorter one spreads each grammar point over more lessons rather than taking the support away.

1. Review first. Every card that is due today comes back before anything new starts — all of them, with no cap, because a cap on reviews is a cap on what you remember.
2. New words. A handful of new words, dealt straight down the frequency list from wherever you got to, each with its recording.
3. The grammar. One point, explained in writing with worked examples and tables, before the questions that test it.
4. Reading. A passage in Mandarin Chinese in three parts, written from words you have already been taught, with comprehension questions.
5. Listening. The same again for the ear, in three parts.
6. Writing. From lesson 7, one task where you produce Mandarin Chinese of your own and get it back marked.

The words, and the order they come in

The course's vocabulary is a frequency list 1,100 words long, and the deck deals it in rank order from word one — so the words you meet first are the ones standing between you and an ordinary sentence. You can read the top of that list without signing up: the most common Mandarin Chinese words.

The course's words and phrases are recorded in a Mandarin Chinese voice — 4,191 clips, counted on the server — and the listening section plays them as connected speech rather than as a word list.

Flashcards come in both directions and in both scripts, so you learn to read the characters and to produce them, not only to recognise a word.

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