How to use GraphChinese
Take the placement test first. It is free, needs no account, and it takes a few minutes. It decides everything that follows: which of the 829 topics you already hold, and which one the course starts you on.
Your first ten minutes
- Open the home page and take the placement test. It adapts as you go, so it gets shorter the more consistent your answers are.
- Read the result. It names what you proved, what you claimed from your own level, and the gaps it found — the topics below your level that you missed.
- Open the study room. Your level page opens on the graph with the rail beside it. The rail is the answer to "what now".
- Do the first step. Everything else can wait; the app remembers where you stopped and picks the next thing itself.
What a session looks like
Work is grouped into units of four topics, and the rail runs one unit through seven steps in order:
| Step | Mark | What you do |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 介 | See what the unit teaches, before you touch it. |
| 2 | 卡 | Meet the unit's cards cold, so the lesson lands on something. |
| 3 | 学 | Take the lessons — explanation, worked examples, then exercises you answer. |
| 4 | 读 | Read a graded passage built from the words you just met, with audio. |
| 5 | 問 | Answer comprehension questions on the passage. |
| 6 | 卡 | The same cards again, after the lesson and the reading. This pass is the point. |
| 7 | 测 | Take the quiz. Passing it marks the unit proven. |
A step with nothing behind it is left out rather than shown empty, so a unit with no reading yet runs five steps. Twenty minutes a day clears a lesson and the reviews that came due.
The tabs, and what each one is for
| Tab | Use it when |
|---|---|
| 级 Level | Always. The graph, the rail, today's work, and your level's readings, decks and lessons. |
| 卡 Flashcards | Reviews are due, or you want to import an .apkg deck of your own. |
| 读 Reading | You want the 102 graded passages on their own, with narration and follow-along highlighting. |
| 说 Speak | You want production practice, or a snapshot of your vocabulary to paste into an AI tutor. |
| 辞 Dictionary | Any word, any character — 124,727 entries with stroke order, look-alikes, and which lesson teaches it. |
| 网 Graph | You want to see where you are: what is mastered, what is at your frontier, what is still dark. |
| 记 Recall | You have ten minutes and no appetite for a full lesson. |
How it decides what comes next
Every topic names its own prerequisites. All 829 of them sit in one dependency graph, and a topic becomes ready when everything under it is proven. The rail serves the ready topic with the most leverage — the one that unlocks the most of what comes after it. You can read the whole order on the curriculum page, and the grammar half of it on the grammar reference.
Prerequisites gate what is ready, never what is allowed. Nothing is locked away. If you want to open an HSK 5 topic on day one, you can; the graph will simply keep telling you which foundations it rests on.
How reviews are scheduled
Every card you answer is scheduled by FSRS, which models how fast that particular card decays for you and brings it back on the day your recall probability drops to your retention target. The day rolls over at 4am in your own timezone, so a late-night session counts against the day it felt like. Grade buttons are the same everywhere in the app: A is Again and D is Good.
What is free, and what the $49 buys
| Free, no account | Behind the one-time purchase |
|---|---|
| The first lesson · the study-room demo · the adaptive placement test · the dictionary · the grammar reference · the HSK word lists · the printable sheets · every guide | The study room · all 829 topics and their lessons · the FSRS scheduler and your own decks · the 102 narrated graded readings · stroke-order writing · speaking practice · your progress across devices |
The whole course, HSK 0 through HSK 6, is $49 once for lifetime access. There is no subscription and no per-level upgrade.
If you already study with something else
Bring your Anki decks: upload the .apkg in the Flashcards tab and the cards
arrive with their audio and images, scheduled by the same engine as everything else. Keep
Pleco for lookups on the street. What GraphChinese adds to either is the ordering — a
decision about what to learn next that comes from the graph instead of from you.
Ten apps compared covers where each one stops.
Frequently asked questions
How do I start using GraphChinese?
Take the free placement test on the home page. It is adaptive, takes a few minutes, and needs no account. It marks which of the 829 topics you already hold and drops you at your frontier — the first topic whose prerequisites are all met. From there the study room tells you what to do next every time you open it.
What do I actually do in a session?
You follow the rail, which is the strip beside the graph on your level page. It runs one unit of four topics through seven steps: see what the unit teaches, meet its cards, take the lessons, read a passage that uses them, answer questions on it, meet the same cards again, then take the quiz. A step with nothing behind it is left out rather than shown empty.
How long should a session be?
Twenty minutes clears a lesson and the day's due reviews at most levels. The scheduler is what makes short sessions work: each card comes back on the day you were about to forget it, so a daily 20 minutes beats a weekly two hours by a wide margin.
Do I have to start at HSK 1?
No. Prerequisites decide what is READY, not what is allowed — nothing is locked away and you can open any topic at any level. The placement test exists so you do not have to guess: it finds the highest point where your foundations still hold.
What is free and what costs money?
Free without an account: the first lesson, the interactive demo of the study room, the placement test, the 124,727-entry dictionary, all six HSK vocabulary lists, the 195 grammar pages, the printable sheets and every guide. The whole course, HSK 0 through HSK 6, is $49 once for lifetime access. That buys the study room, the lessons, the scheduler and the 102 narrated graded readings.
Can I import my own Anki deck?
Yes. Upload an .apkg file in the Flashcards tab and it comes in with its audio and images intact, then gets scheduled by the same FSRS scheduler as everything else. Your existing review history is not carried over; the cards start fresh.
Does GraphChinese work on a phone?
Yes, in the browser — there is no app to install. The study room, the graph, the flashcards, the readings with audio and the stroke-order writing all work on a phone. Your progress is on the server, so you can move between devices mid-lesson.
The placement test is free and needs no account. It finds the highest point where your foundations still hold, and the course starts there. The whole course, HSK 0 through HSK 6, is $49 once for lifetime access.
Start at your true level