The method
Learn-chinese.online is not just another app: it is a complete method for Chinese language and culture, building your skills step by step, from absolute beginner to advanced level.
It follows the HSK syllabus, the official Chinese language certificate — a framework recognised worldwide — but it does not stop there. On this page, I explain how the method is built, and why it is built that way.
A “core” method
This is the most useful distinction I can pass on to you about language learning. A “core” method does not merely expose you to Chinese: it builds solid skills, stone by stone — and it checks that they hold.
The “core” method — what you will find here
It builds. Every notion arrives in its proper place, rests on what came before and prepares what comes next. You are never asked for a word or a character you have not yet met. And at the end of each unit, four assessments — listening, reading, speaking and writing — check that the skill is genuinely there.
The result: stable foundations you can keep building on. The backbone of your learning.
“Satellite” practices
Apps, series, films, games, spaced repetition, conversation with native speakers… They expose you to the language: rich, motivating, irreplaceable. But they build nothing in an orderly way. On their own, they leave gaps you only notice the moment you trip over them.
The result: exposure, enjoyment, real life — on foundations that still have to be built.
The two belong together. The core builds, the satellites enrich. I strongly encourage every Learn-chinese.online student to cultivate satellite practices according to their own tastes.
What holds the construction together
Four characteristics — and the last one is the reason the other three exist.
Complete
Characters and handwriting, vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation, listening and reading, speaking and writing, culture. Nothing is left aside in the hope that you will pick it up somewhere else.
Structured
Every unit states its objectives, its characters, its words and its grammar points up front. A difficulty is isolated, explained, practised on its own, then recombined with what you already know.
Progressive and spiral
The progression is followed through from beginning to end, and every notion comes back later, from another angle, a little richer — until its nuances are truly in place.
And above all: it builds
This is what everything else is for. You are not collecting notions: you are building solid skills, assessed at every unit, on which the rest can rest without ever wobbling.
From the character to real use
A unit is not a list of sections: it is a climb. We start from the smallest element of the language and end with you, using it. Each step rests on the one before.
The character
Pronunciation, animated stroke-by-stroke writing, components, etymology — plus a printable writing grid. You are not memorising a picture: you understand how the character is made.
The word
Characters combine into words. Memorisation first by ear, then by eye, each assessed separately: recognising a word you hear and recognising a word you read are two different skills.
The sentence
The unit's grammar assembles those words into correct sentences, with dedicated exercises. You move from “I know some words” to “I build what I want to say”.
Real use
A synthesis dialogue brings everything together, the cultural points shed light on the situation, and then four HSK-style assessments — listening, reading, speaking and writing — measure what has been acquired.
And for those who wish, an optional traditional-character module is added to every unit.
Culture, on equal footing
Without the cultural codes, you do not enter into dialogue with a Chinese person — even with an excellent command of the language. You communicate, that is, you exchange information. To enter into dialogue is to try to understand the other person for real. We talk a great deal about communication these days, and far too rarely about dialogue.
From the very first unit, in the new courses. Every unit has its own page of cultural points, directly tied to what you have just learned — and its own culture quiz. Introducing yourself, addressing a teacher, offering something: every speech act has its rules, and they are learned at the same time as the words.
From level 3 onwards, culture also takes on a narrative dimension, with a deliberate double perspective:
China through Western eyes
We follow Xiaoli, a Western student, from her arrival at the airport to her discovery of the world of work, taking in university life, going out, illness, her relationship with a Chinese friend and his family. Drawn from my own experience.
The same themes, seen from China
The major themes are taken up again, this time from the Chinese point of view. The echoes with level 3 are deliberate and easy to spot: it is by comparing the two perspectives that cultural codes finally become readable.
A few echoes between level 3 and level 4:
3.4 — Xiaoli discovers classes
4.7 — a foreign teacher seen by pupils
3.10 / 4.12 + 4.13
3.1 + 3.8 / 4.3 + 4.4
3.12 / 4.17 + 4.18
The ultimate goal: that you no longer need me
It is impossible to cover every aspect of Chinese language and culture. The pedagogical choice is therefore to give you foundations solid enough to discover the rest on your own. By the end of level 4, you will be equipped to work with authentic documents and to explore new notions by yourself.
(end-of-course surveys)
in 2025
(Nov. 2025)
Mandarin Chinese
The best way to judge a method is to try it.
The first 5 units of level 1 are completely free.
Going further
The teaching approach, explained in detail.
Why I built a “core” method
The difference comes down to one word. Satellite content exposes you to the language; a core method builds it for you. Exposure is pleasant and useful, but it does not by itself produce a skill: you feel you are progressing because you understand more and more, until the day you have to produce a correct sentence and the whole structure gives way. A core method does the opposite — it looks slower, but every acquisition is laid down, checked, and carries the next one.
It is also far harder to design. Twenty years of teaching Chinese — and longer still teaching languages in general — together with my own experience as a learner, have shown me how hard good ones are to find. Recent textbooks are often too unstructured: faced with them, the learner cannot progress calmly and gives up very quickly. I have been through it myself, learning other subjects.
So I created these courses by putting myself in the learner's place: writing what I would have liked to have, and listening constantly to my students and to the site's other users. To borrow a testimonial published on the site, Learn-chinese.online courses aim to be the backbone of learning Mandarin Chinese.
Structured: what it changes in practice
Each level and each unit clearly sets out the new notions to be acquired. The levels are progressive and the new elements clearly identified. A difficulty is first isolated, then explained, then practised on its own, before being gradually reintroduced alongside what you already know. You are never confronted with a word or a character you have not yet met.
This constraint — using only what is already known — is probably the most demanding one I impose on myself, and it is what makes building possible. It rules out shortcuts: a sentence cannot be dropped in “because it is useful” if the means to understand it are not yet in place. In exchange, you never meet the obstacle that truly discourages: a text in which everything is new at once.
Spiral: why I do not say everything at once
Chinese is a very rich language, and trying to explain everything from the outset is counterproductive — that is the mistake of beginner teachers, who would like to share everything with their students. It is far more effective to come back to a notion — a character, a word, a grammar point, a pronunciation, a cultural fact — and reuse it in different contexts, each time going a little further. That is how nuances eventually settle in for good.
Language and culture: why it matters so much to me
In the new courses, culture is no longer an aside: every unit has its own page of cultural points and its own quiz, tied to the very content of the lesson. When you learn how to address a teacher, you learn in the same movement why it is done that way. The language and the codes that carry it are taught together, because they are used together.
I insist a great deal on the cultural side, because it matters as much as command of the language — and we tend to forget it. Not mastering the cultural codes means being condemned to exchange information without ever really understanding one another. That is a pity, because it harms good relations between people from different cultures.
This is also where these courses enjoy a rare advantage: they are designed by a French-Chinese couple. The French side understands precisely what blocks a Westerner; the Chinese side brings the authenticity of the language and the culture. That double perspective is exactly what you find in the contrast between level 3 and level 4.
And where does the HSK fit in?
Following the HSK syllabus provides a recognised framework, clear objectives and an internationally validated progression. Each level includes full mock tests. But Learn-chinese.online courses are not merely HSK preparation: the certificate is a useful landmark, not an end in itself.
In a word: adaptable and balanced, the Learn-chinese.online course builds a solid whole: the skills rest on one another, and culture is never detached from the language.
Jean Columeau (李天翔 Lǐ Tiānxiáng)
Founder of Learn-chinese.online