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.
HSK 3 to HSK 4: The Wall
Everyone reports the same thing: the first levels came quickly and then progress slowed to a crawl. Nothing has gone wrong. The task changed underneath you, from recognising concrete words to choosing between abstract ones — and the methods that worked before stop working.
Yasmine Berrada · June 29, 2026 · 6 min read
Reading a Chinese Menu
Chinese dish names are compositional: ingredient plus cut plus method plus flavour. Learn about forty characters and most of a menu becomes readable — including the ones that lie, like the fish dish with no fish in it.
Rania Tazi · June 15, 2026 · 6 min read
How to Use a Chinese Dictionary: Four Ways In
Alphabetical order assumes you already know how a word sounds. With characters you often do not. Radicals, stroke counts, pinyin and handwriting input are four separate doors into the same building — and knowing which one to use is a skill in itself.
Mehdi Chraïbi · May 18, 2026 · 6 min read
Reading Chinese Without Pinyin: How and When to Drop the Training Wheels
Pinyin does several jobs well and one job badly: sitting under characters forever. Why annotated text quietly prevents reading, what pinyin is genuinely for, and a five-step ladder off it that does not throw you into the deep end.
Sofia Ouazzani · February 23, 2026 · 6 min read
How these are written
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