Not another beginner app. This is a study room for serious readers and native speakers — read Laozi, Zhuangzi and Confucius as they were written, top to bottom, right to left, with stroke order, native audio, translation, and your own annotations on every character.
Real texts from the app — Laozi, Zhuangzi, Confucius & more. Tap any character. ☝
Reading in Traditional 繁體 — switch to Simplified 简体 anytime, top right.
Not a course you finish — a room you return to. Work through the canon one text at a time, at your own level, and let your understanding compound.
Open the library and choose a master — Laozi, Zhuangzi, Confucius, the Great Learning, Wang Fanzhi.
The text in its original layout — 直書, top to bottom, right to left — in Traditional or Simplified, your choice.
Pinyin, gloss, native audio, and animated stroke order for every character — help on when you want it, off when you don't.
A full translation beside the text, so you can check your reading against the meaning and argue with it.
Keep your own notes on every text — readings, questions, cross-references — saved to your account, on any device.
Mark each text studied and watch your progress through the classics fill, one masterwork at a time.
The classics in their original layout — 直書, top to bottom, right to left — so the rhythm and parallelism of the language land the way they were meant to.
Every character animates itself in the correct order — replay any glyph until the hand and eye agree, even the rare ones.
Hear any character or the whole passage read aloud — shadow it, check your own reading, internalise the sound.
Laozi (道德經), Zhuangzi's butterfly dream (莊子), Confucius (論語), the Great Learning (大學) and Wang Fanzhi — real masterworks, with more added over time.
Keep your own notes on every text — readings, questions, cross-references — saved to your account and waiting on any device.
A full translation sits beside each text, so you can test your reading against the meaning and wrestle with the hard lines.
Mark each text studied and watch your path through the classics fill — mastery you can see, not a streak you can break.
Every text reads in both Traditional (繁體) and Simplified (简体). Flip the switch up top — your choice follows your account.
Beginner apps teach invented sentences horizontally and reward streaks. This is for people who want to actually read the classics. Here's the difference.
| VerticalChinese | Duolingo | Anki | |
|---|---|---|---|
| The real canon — Laozi, Zhuangzi, Confucius | 印 | — | — |
| Vertical, right-to-left — the original layout | 印 | — | — |
| Stroke order & native audio on tap | 印 | — | setup yourself |
| Your own annotations on every text | 印 | — | per-card only |
| Built for advanced readers & native speakers | 印 | beginners | DIY |
| One-time price, lifetime access | $49 once | $84/yr | free, build it all |
A single session costs more than this and ends the moment it's over. The study room stays with you — read, re-read, and annotate the masters for the rest of your life.
Serious readers of Chinese — intermediate-and-up learners, heritage speakers, and native speakers who want to read the classics closely. You get the original texts, full character-level help when you want it, translation to check yourself against, and a place to keep your own annotations. If you've only ever used a beginner app, this will stretch you — in a good way.
Yes. The value isn't decoding modern Chinese — it's reading the classical canon in its original vertical layout, with stroke order for the rarer characters, audio, translation alongside, and your own annotations saved per text. It's a study room for the 文言文 you may have only met in school, now somewhere you can actually dwell in it.
Yes — tap-to-reveal means nothing is forced on you. Read a text cold, then tap only the characters you're unsure of for pinyin, gloss, audio, and animated stroke order. Help on for study, off for real reading.
Both — your choice. Use the 繁 / 简 switch at the top of the page and every text re-renders instantly in Traditional (繁體) or Simplified (简体); the reader remembers your preference. The classics were written in traditional characters, so that's the default, but you can read the entire library either way.
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 — the way it was read for two thousand years.
No. It runs in your browser on any device. The reader above is the real thing — try it now.
Email within 30 days and you get a full refund, no questions. The risk is entirely mine.
Open the study room and start with the line below — out loud, and mean it.
Enter the study room — $49老子 · 道德經 · 第四十章
Laozi, 道德經 ch. 40 — read it vertically, the way it was written.