How Mandarin is actually learned
Long pieces on method: what tones really are, why word counts mislead, how review scheduling works, and what an examination does and does not measure. Written by the editorial team, reviewed before publication, and revised rather than quietly deleted.
Study Plans That Survive Contact With Real Life
Every plan is written by an optimist on a Sunday evening and broken by a Wednesday. How to design a schedule around your worst week rather than your best, what to cut first when a week goes wrong, and why days-touched beats hours-logged.
Sofia Ouazzani · March 23, 2026 · 6 min read
How to Remember Chinese Characters: Components, Phonetic Series and Honest Mnemonics
Most people who "cannot remember characters" are trying to memorise something they have never analysed. Components, phonetic series, mnemonics that hold up against mnemonics that collapse — and an honest account of where copying by hand still earns its place.
Mehdi Chraïbi · January 12, 2026 · 7 min read
Spaced Repetition for Chinese: One Card Per Word Is Not Enough
How review scheduling actually works, why Chinese needs separate cards for reading, listening and production, and the discipline that keeps a review backlog from burying you.
Sofia Ouazzani · December 1, 2025 · 6 min read
How these are written
The same editorial rules apply here as to the rest of the platform.
- Every article is versioned and attributed to a named author, and is reviewed by a second person before it is published.
- No official vocabulary list, syllabus, scoring rule or examination date is reproduced or invented. Where an authoritative figure is needed, the article says so and points at the examination authority.
- Chinese examples are tone-marked and checkable, and are held to the same standard as the dictionary.
- A model may help draft; a model cannot publish. Anything AI-generated is labelled and cannot leave the review queue on its own.
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