A serious path · not a chatbot

Learn Chinese in 7 days

Most apps drip you cartoons and streaks. This teaches you to read real Chinese — top to bottom, right to left — one character at a time, with pinyin, meaning, and stroke order the moment you need them.

Begin the 7 days — $49 30-day money-back guarantee
Built by a Middlebury-trained Chinese reader who believes in full audio & video immersion — poems, stroke order, and documentaries, not flashcard gimmicks.
Lesson 01 · Read it vertically

Real texts from the app — Laozi & Wang Fanzhi. Tap any character. ☝


How the 7 days work

Immersion, structured into a path with memory.

Every day stacks on the last. You don't review cards — you re-read what you read yesterday, and it sticks because it means something.

Days 1–2

The strokes

Train your hand and eye on the highest-frequency characters with guided stroke order.

Days 3–4

First texts

Read short classical poems vertically. Tap-to-reveal pinyin and meaning, then turn the help off.

Days 5–6

The ear

Shadow native audio and documentary clips. Listen, repeat, and read along until the sound is yours.

Day 7

Real fluency

Read a full passage of Laozi out loud, unassisted — and use it in one real situation you care about.

What's inside

Everything you need to actually read.

Vertical reader

Classical texts laid out the traditional way — 直書, top-to-bottom — so the rhythm of the language lands.

Stroke order

Watch every character draw itself in the correct order, then replay until your hand remembers.

Native audio

Hear any character or whole line spoken aloud, at a learner's pace, on demand.

Real literature

Laozi, Wang Fanzhi, the Great Learning — the same canon serious students read, not invented sentences.

Documentary immersion

Curated YouTube documentaries with subtitles, mapped to where you are in the path.

Memory, not streaks

Yesterday's text returns inside today's lesson, so progress compounds instead of resetting.

一次付清
$49
One-time. Lifetime access. No subscription.
  • The full 7-day reading path
  • Vertical reader with stroke order & audio
  • The complete classical text library
  • Documentary immersion playlists
  • Free updates as new texts are added
Start the 7 days

🛡 30-day money-back guarantee

Cheaper than one hour with a tutor.

A single tutoring session costs more than this and disappears the moment it ends. The path stays with you — re-read it for the rest of your life.

Questions

Honest answers.

Will I really be fluent in 7 days?

In one focused week you'll read and read aloud real classical Chinese, recognize the highest-frequency characters on sight, and follow native audio — if you put in 30–45 focused minutes a day. "Fluent" means functional, confident reading, not native-speaker perfection. It's a serious path, and it works if you show up.

Is this for beginners or advanced learners?

Both can start today. Beginners get guided stroke order and tap-to-reveal help on every character. Advanced readers can switch the help off and go straight into unassisted classical texts — Laozi, Zhuangzi, the Great Learning — at full speed.

Why vertical text?

Because that's how Chinese literature was actually written for two thousand years — 直書, top to bottom, right to left. Reading it the original way trains a different, deeper kind of recognition, and it's beautiful.

Do I need to install anything?

No. It runs in your browser on any device. The reader above is the real thing — try it now.

What if it's not for me?

Email within 30 days and you get a full refund, no questions. The risk is entirely mine.

Read your first poem today.

One week from now, read it out loud — and mean it.

Begin — $49