Beginner roadmap · the guide
Learn Chinese from zero.
Read a chapter a day, or follow the eight-week plan. Every Chinese word is tappable, with pinyin, meaning and audio — try .
Before you start
This guide gives you a sequence: which few things to learn, in which order, and when to start reading. Which app you use for each step matters less.
Eight weeks builds a small, solid base: the sounds, how characters work, a few hundred words and five sentence patterns. That takes you into HSK 3.0 level 1, and it is enough to read your first real stories, at the Beginner or Easy level.
The toolkit
Five jobs, one tool each. Keep it that small.
A beginner course
Weeks 1–6Guided lessons for sounds, characters and basic grammar, with feedback on your tones. HelloChinese and SuperChinese are the usual picks; Duolingo works if you already use it; an HSK 1 textbook works on a budget. Lean on it less once short sentences feel easy.
Flashcards for your words
Week 3 onwardAdd the HSK 1 deck in Dengdeng: its words enter practice a few at a time, as flashcards and fill-in-the-blank sentences. Prefer to build your own? Take the free 180-word starter deck into Anki or Pleco.
Dengdeng does this
A dictionary
From day oneThe free Dengdeng dictionary has pinyin, meanings, example sentences and audio, right in the browser. Pleco is the classic phone dictionary.
Dengdeng does this
Reading
Week 4 onwardStart with short Beginner stories, with pinyin over every word and one free every day. Then move to stories from China, each written at Easy, Medium and Hard. Tap any word for its meaning, and it joins your flashcards.
Dengdeng does this
Characters, if you want to go deep
OptionalHanly breaks characters into their parts, with mnemonics, in frequency order. Great for curious minds; not required to start reading.
The same order a university uses
A first-year Mandarin program in China starts the same way: an intensive stretch of and tones, then characters and vocabulary side by side with basic grammar. Reading courses such as (newspaper reading) usually come in the second year. Graded stories let you start reading much earlier, a few sentences at a time.
Seven chapters
Start with chapter one.
Chapter 1 · Week 1
How Mandarin works
Where the difficulty is, and why the grammar is small.
Chapter 2 · Weeks 1–2
Pinyin and tones
The four tones and every sound in the language, with audio.
Chapter 3 · Weeks 2–3
How characters work
A few hundred parts, combined. Recognition first, handwriting later.
Chapter 4 · Weeks 3–8
Your first words
A free 180-word starter deck, then on through HSK 3.0 level 1.
Chapter 5 · Weeks 4–5
Five sentence patterns
Word order, 是, 的, 吗, 了 and measure words, with audio.
Chapter 6 · All eight weeks
The eight-week plan
What to do each week, a 25-minute day, and what to do after a missed one.
Chapter 7 · Week 8
Your first real story
An eight-sentence check, then a story at your level.
Print the whole guide or get it one chapter at a time by email.
