Learn Chinese by reading

Tsukigo is a free app for learning Chinese by reading. You read short stories at your level, hear them read aloud, and tap any word you don't know. Every character has its pinyin above it, so one unfamiliar character never locks you out of a story.

What you read

Around twelve hundred Chinese stories: conversations between two people, everyday scenes, culture and ideas, jokes, and the classic novels — Journey to the West, Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Dream of the Red Chamber, Water Margin and The Scholars — retold episode by episode at a level you can read.

Every story is recorded, and the text lights up word by word as the audio plays. Here is one of them, in full.

The pinyin above the characters and the meanings under the words show only where you need them: Tsukigo leaves them off words you already know and keeps them on the ones you're still learning. You can show them on every word instead, or turn either one off.

You don't have to choose a level. After a few stories, Tsukigo knows which words you've met, and the stories it suggests next are built mostly from those.

Practicing words

You can save any word you tap, and saved words get their own list under Vocabulary. To go over them outside the stories, practice takes you through them one at a time.

If you are new to Chinese

The starter course assumes nothing at all. It begins with the sounds and the tones, then teaches basic vocabulary through purpose-built exercises.

After that come scenes, then short stories you can read with what the course has taught you.

Characters arrive inside words you have already learned to say, not on their own.

Going further

We are still adding to the catalog, and the hardest material is the thinnest part of it. Books written for Chinese readers, the news, films and television, and conversations with actual people will take you further than anything we could grade for you. If there is something you want to read and cannot find, tell us.