About
What is LearnChinese.ai?
LearnChinese.ai is a hobby project I built to help myself learn Mandarin Chinese. I wanted a free online version of the HSK courses to track progress through the new words, texts, and exercises. The goal is for a site that can help people get from novice through HSK 4 level and set up a good foundation for reading, listening and speaking as you progress into higher levels.
Features
- Spaced Repetition Flashcards: SRS-based review to help you remember characters long-term
- Structured HSK Course: Progress through lessons from the HSK Course books
- Reading Practice: Read course texts and other content with audio, definitions, pinyin and translations
- Character Writing Practice: Learn stroke order and practice writing hanzi
- Sentence Practice: Listen, compose and speak with spaced repetition sentence practice
Why I Built This
The site started as a set of flashcards I built for myself while working through the HSK courses. I wanted fast, efficient flashcards with multiple prompt/response modes (characters, pinyin, audio, English). Over time I added reading practice with the course texts and eventually built out all the activities of the HSK coursebook and workbook. HSK 1–2 are complete, with HSK 3 in progress. More features are planned, and any feedback is welcome.
The Tech
Built with Ruby on Rails, Stimulus.js, and Tailwind CSS. The core HSK course material comes from official sources. I embrace AI on this site—it's great for programming, image cleanup, transcription, and can be useful for other specific language learning tasks too. The balance is using it thoughtfully and being careful about quality. I aim to be transparent about AI usage while keeping everything free and useful.