By the end
What you'll build
- Produce and hear the four Mandarin tones plus the neutral tone
- Read pinyin accurately, including the spellings that mislead English speakers
- Apply the tone sandhi rules that change tones automatically in speech
- Understand how characters are built from radicals and phonetic components
- Write and recognise your first fifty characters
- Read simple Chinese aloud with correct tones
Curriculum
What's inside
4 modules · 21 lessons
- 01
The Four Tones
7 lessons- Find Your Level — Read This First
- Find Your Level — 5-Minute Placement Checkquiz
- Welcome — Pitch Is Part of the Word
- The Four Tonespronunciation card
- Listening: Hearing the Toneslistening lab
- + 2 more lessons
- 02
Pinyin — Reading the Sounds
4 lessons- The Pinyin Spellings That Mislead
- Pinyin Trapspronunciation card
- Listening: Pinyin in Practicelistening lab
- Word Power: Your First Twelve Wordsword power
- 03
Characters Are Built, Not Memorised
4 lessons- How Chinese Characters Actually Work
- Tracing Your First Charactersscript trace
- Decoding Characterslipi type
- Radicals and Componentsfill blank
- 04
Putting It Together
6 lessons- Reading Chinese Aloud
- Speaking Lab: Read a Chinese Menuspeaking lab
- Listening: Mandarin at Real Speedlistening lab
- Flashcards: The Complete Sound and Script Systemflashcard sr
- Final Check: Tones & Charactersquiz
- + 1 more lesson
The shape of it
How this course works
Short lessons
21 lessons across 4 modules, each small enough to finish in one sitting.
Practice as you go
Every lesson ends with a small space for what you noticed — the doing is the learning.
A certificate at the end
Finish the course and earn a certificate anyone can verify with a link.
Ready when you are.
Make an account and this course opens up — your progress is saved from the very first lesson.