Learn Chinese for free

All 100,000 Chinese characters are merely different combinations of 400 simple pictographs and ideographs (think Egyptian hieroglyphs). In order to rapidly learn Chinese characters and successfully retain them, the secret is to first thoroughly master these 400 basic pictographic components!

Our radical approach ("部首", ha ha) to quickly mastering copious amounts of Chinese characters is this: Learn the basic pictographic components 幺 艹 白 木 before attempting to the learn the Chinese character 藥.

Consider for a moment that in chemistry you learn the basic elements of the periodic table before learning more complex compounds. Similarly, in phonetic languages like English you learn the basic phonetic symbols A B C before you learn a complex word like "medicine". Our online curriculum utilizes this same logical "building block" methodology to learn Chinese characters.