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 beginner to advanced
• 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: Read, compose and speak with spaced repetition sentence practice

Why I Built This

I wanted everything in one place—the full HSK course online with vocabulary, audio, pinyin, and progress tracking all automated. Flashcards are a big part of how I learn, so I focused on making them fast and efficient. The prompt/response flow is designed to be quick—one click to progress, and you can always review your previous card at any point. The courses auto-progress as you learn, and there's writing practice and sentence speaking built in too.

The Tech

The site is built with Ruby on Rails, Stimulus.js, and Tailwind CSS. I use AI tools to help build and enhance the site—things like transcribing audio, generating translations, enhancing images, and formatting content. That said, the core HSK course content isn't AI-generated slop. Any AI-assisted content is clearly separate from the main course material.