The conversation skill graph
Holding a conversation in Mandarin comes down to 99 small skills in 8 moves: open, point, ask the name, ask about their life, receipt, repair, chase, fine distinctions. A learner who can open, point at what they cannot name, ask for the word, react, repair and chase the next topic can keep a patient native speaker talking with a few hundred characters. This page maps those skills and what each one needs first, and the data is free to reuse.
What this is
A skill graph for speaking. Each dot is one thing a learner can do in a live exchange, and each link says which skill has to come first. Height in the graph is the HSK level where a skill first fits, and colour is its move. Tap a dot to light up every skill it rests on.
Most courses teach words and hope you will talk one day. This dataset maps the other direction: the moves that let a learner walk up to a stranger, keep them talking, and leave with new words. It is the map behind the speaking practice in GraphChinese, which follows the method of mastering each step before the next one unlocks.
How it is organized
99 skills, 110 prerequisite links (81 hard, 29 soft, each with a one-line reason), and 217 Chinese lines. 17 skills are question frames that match a course topic one to one. 13 skills need nothing before them. Levels run from before HSK 1 to HSK 6.
| Move | Skills | What it is for |
|---|---|---|
| Open | 7 | Start a conversation with a stranger and earn the next line. |
| Point | 10 | Refer to a thing you have no word for, so the other person can name it. |
| Ask the name | 18 | Turn a thing in front of you into a word you can keep. |
| Ask about their life | 13 | Move from the object to the person with a question they can talk about for minutes. |
| Receipt | 10 | Show that the answer landed, so the speaker keeps going instead of switching to English. |
| Repair | 16 | Keep a failed exchange alive and come away with something, without rewinding the whole answer. |
| Chase | 15 | Open the next round of the story. One question buys a story, and a story is fifty words with a person attached. |
| Fine distinctions | 10 | Past HSK 3: ask how a word is used, by whom, and when, instead of asking for harder words. |
One skill, as it appears in the file
The survival kit
Move: Ask the name. Level: before HSK 1. Id: cs_frame_survival_kit
A handful of lines that turn any patient speaker into a teacher: ask what a thing is, ask what a word means, and say that it landed.
Evidence (what you can observe when a learner has it):
- Asks 这是什么？ about an object without reaching for English
- Asks 什么意思？ right after hearing an unknown word
- Says 听懂了！ when an explanation lands, instead of going quiet
Check it: Hand the learner an object they cannot name. Do they get its Chinese name from you, and its meaning, without either of you using English?
| Line | Pinyin | English |
|---|---|---|
| 这是什么？ | Zhè shì shénme? | What’s this? |
| 什么意思？ | Shénme yìsi? | What does that mean? |
| 这个中文怎么说？ | Zhège Zhōngwén zěnme shuō? | How do you say this in Chinese? |
| 听懂了！ | Tīng dǒng le! | Got it! |
Requires: nothing. It is a starting point.
Files
conversation-skills.json(71 KB): moves, skills and prerequisite links in one file. Lines are referenced by id.conversation-skills.schema.json(3 KB): the JSON Schema the file validates against.skill-graph.js: the graph renderer on this page, no dependencies.
A skill has id, move, name, description, hsk, evidence, assessmentPrompt, lines and topic. A link has skill, requires, strength (hard or soft) and reason. The whole HSK course is published the same way on the HSK skill graph, and the 17 question-frame skills point into it by topic.
License
The data is Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 (CC BY 4.0). Use it in a course, an app, a study or a lesson plan, change it, and sell what you build, as long as you credit GraphChinese with a link. The renderer code is MIT.
How to cite
GraphChinese. Conversation Skill Graph, v1 (2026). https://graphchinese.com/conversation-skill-graph. CC BY 4.0.
Frequently asked questions
What are the skills of holding a conversation in Mandarin?
This graph names 99 of them, grouped into 8 moves: open, point, ask the name, ask about their life, receipt, repair, chase, fine distinctions. Each move is a thing you do in a real exchange, such as opening, getting the name of a thing you cannot say, or repairing a line you did not understand.
Can I use this dataset in my own course or app?
Yes. The data is CC BY 4.0, so you can copy, change and sell work built on it as long as you credit GraphChinese with a link to graphchinese.com. The graph renderer on this page is MIT.
Does the dataset ask learners to use English?
No. No skill and no line asks for English, because the method behind it keeps the whole exchange in Chinese. The learner gets new words by asking for them in Chinese.
Where do the Chinese lines come from?
Every Chinese line is one GraphChinese already teaches, and a validator fails the build if a line in the file is not found in the course. Nothing was written for the dataset alone.
Practice these moves, in order. GraphChinese teaches each skill in this graph once the ones under it are solid, with the same Chinese lines. The whole course, HSK 0 through HSK 6, is $49 once for lifetime access.
Start at your true level