Most European languages have a few single letters which can also stand alone as words. (Think “A” and “I”). While in modern Chinese most words consist of two or more characters, many characters can be used as words in their own right, while many others are normally only used in combination with other characters to form words.

All characters have at least one nominal meaning and at least one Pinyin pronunciation. Many have more of both. We try not to overwhelm the user with more meanings and pronunciations than necessary, so the app just presents those which are needed at his/her particular level.

In the Chinese-to-English section of each lesson the app first presents the characters which are new to the lesson, and then the new words which are based on those and previously learned characters. If a character is being used as a word in its own right, it appears in the word section rather than the character section. Tones are handled differently in the characters and words sections – Read more