Character fluency — in record time.
2,500 characters cover 98% of everyday Chinese. This course gets you there the fast way: learned in frequency order, drilled in look-alike sets so you never mix them up — with a leech safety net that catches whatever keeps tripping you up, so you never get stuck. Recognition and typing, the way China actually reads and writes in 2026. No handwriting, ever.
A little goes a long way
Chinese is steeply frequency-weighted. Learn the top characters and you can already read most of what you’ll meet — set a target and the course paces you to it.
of everyday text covered
of everyday text covered
of everyday text covered
of everyday text covered
of everyday text covered
of everyday text covered
2,500 is the destination — not a first step.
At 2,500 characters you read 98% of everyday Chinese — the last few percent you pick up from context, the way native readers do. Most learners never need more. And you get there fast, because the method does the heavy lifting: as little as ~90 days at the sprint pace, or a few relaxed months if you’d rather take it easy.
Frequency-first
Every character you learn is one you’ll actually meet. Zero reps wasted on rare shapes.
Learned in sets
Look-alikes drilled together — you learn a family at once and never relearn the same shape twice.
Never stuck
The leech safety net catches whatever trips you up, so the tail never drags out for months.
All 2,500 characters — to 98% reading.
The whole journey, frequency-ordered and paced by spaced repetition so it sticks — with the leech safety net so you never stall. Set a target and the course walks you up the ladder; every milestone unlocks real reading:
Foundation 500
83% of the characters in A1 books
Reader 1,500
96% of A1 · 95% of A2 books
Book Ready 2,000
98% of every A1 & A2 book — reading feels like reading
Fluency 2,500
98% of everyday Chinese — the destination
Numbers measured against our own graded book corpus — character recognition, the decoding layer under every word you’ll learn.
Character Mastery — full course
In Pro7-day free trial · cancel anytime
- All 2,500 characters — the full path to 98% reading
- Frequency-ordered · spaced repetition · goal-paced
- Leech safety net + look-alike set drills
- Plus every interactive book & the reader library
Cancel before day 7 and you’re not charged. Then $9.99/mo or $79.99/yr.
Frequency-ranked & goal-driven
Pick a coverage target (1,000 → 89%, 2,500 → 98%…) and learn characters in the order that unlocks the most text. No wasted reps on rare characters.
Lookalike disambiguation
Confusable characters like 己 / 已 / 巳 are grouped and drilled together, so you learn the differences instead of cementing the mix-ups.
Automatic leech detection
The characters that keep tripping you up get flagged automatically and given extra attention — or you can flag them yourself.
This is the actual drill.
Not a mockup — the real study screen: the queue, the Leitner boxes, the lookalike rail. Four correct recalls lock a character in; a miss resets the round. Try three characters right now.
5 cards remaining
Tap the card or press Space to reveal
人 · 水 · 火 — real characters at their real frequency ranks, exactly as they appear in the course.
Why this is the fastest way to 2,500 characters
4 recalls to lock it in
A new character isn’t “seen”, it’s earned: four correct recalls in one session, and a miss resets the round. No illusion of learning — if it’s in Box 1, you really know it.
Reviews land right before you forget
Spaced repetition, Leitner-style: intervals grow 6h → 1d → 3d → 7d → 14d → 30d. Every successful recall pushes the next review further out — maximum retention from the minimum number of reps.
Leeches get their own drill
The characters that keep tripping you up are flagged — automatically, or by you with one tap — into a focused, schedule-free practice drill. A handful of stubborn characters never slow down the rest.
Lookalikes trained side-by-side
人 · 入 · 八 blur together when you meet them apart. The course drills confusable characters next to each other, so you learn the differences instead of cementing the mix-ups.
A steady daily pace × the method above = all 2,500 characters, locked into long-term memory. Start your free trial ↑
You never get stuck.
Everyone hits the same wall: a handful of characters that just won’t stick, or two look-alikes you keep swapping. Left alone they cycle through your reviews forever and quietly stall the whole course.
So we built a net. The moment a character keeps tripping you up it’s flagged — automatically, or by you with one tap. Your coach spots it and hands you a focused practice drill that pairs it with its look-alikes, because contrast is what actually fixes a mix-up. It’s pure extra practice: it never touches your review schedule — drill it ten times if you like, nothing is penalised. The five stubborn characters never slow down the other 2,495.
Caught automatically
Miss a character enough and it’s flagged a “leech” for you — no bookkeeping on your part.
Drilled against its look-alikes
The coach lines it up next to the characters it blurs with, so you learn the difference for good.
Zero risk to your progress
A pure practice mode — your Leitner boxes and due dates stay exactly as they are.
Retire it when it clicks
One tap marks a character “got it” and drops it from the net. You stay in control.
Recognise and type — the 2026 way.
You don’t handwrite Chinese anymore — and neither does China. On a phone you type the sound in pinyin and pick the character from a list. So the skill that matters is recognition: see it, know it, choose it. That’s exactly what this course trains — and it’s why you get to fluency in a fraction of the time.
Read everything
Recognition unlocks reading — signs, menus, chats, books. It’s the one skill that pays off every single day, and the only one you need to be literate in modern China.
Type anything
Typing is pinyin + recognition: you sound out the word and pick the right character from the candidates. Learn to recognise and you can already write on any keyboard or phone.
Skip the handwriting
Even native speakers have quietly stopped handwriting — there’s a word for it, 提笔忘字 (“pick up the pen, forget the character”). Drilling 2,500 characters by hand would double your study time for a skill you’ll never use. We cut it. That’s a feature, not a shortcut.
Characters first, then words
Words are built from characters. Learn the characters solidly and the words come far easier — you’re recognising one familiar piece at a time instead of memorising two or three new shapes at once. Character Mastery and the interactive books are both included in Pro, so you can move between them however suits you.
Start free