汉HanyuMochi

Learn Chinese one character at a time.

A short tour of HanyuMochi for students and teachers. It takes about five minutes, and yes, there's sound. Turn your volume up.

Use the arrow keys, or swipe on your phone.

Red lanterns with Chinese characters glowing at night
Photo: H&CO on Unsplash
Traditional Chinese calligraphy in black ink on white paper
Photo: Bernd Dittrich on Unsplash

为什么 Why bother?

Chinese is worth it. It's also hard.

More people speak Mandarin as their first language than any other language on earth. It opens doors to work, travel, family and friendships.

But most people who start, quietly stop. Before we show you what we built, here are the five walls almost everyone hits.

一 Wall one

It takes a long time. Longer than you think.

The US Foreign Service Institute trains diplomats, and it puts Mandarin in its hardest group. Reaching working proficiency takes around 2,200 class hours. Spanish takes about a third of that.

Source: US Foreign Service Institute language difficulty categories, full-time classroom hours for English speakers.

二 Wall two

We forget most of it by tomorrow.

In Hermann Ebbinghaus's famous memory experiments, only about a third of what he learned was still there the next day. After a month, about a fifth. When researchers repeated his study in 2015, they got almost the same curve.

Sources: Ebbinghaus, Memory (1885); Murre and Dros, PLOS ONE (2015). Values are savings scores.

三 Wall three

One sound. Four meanings.

Say ma with a high, flat voice and you've said mother. Let it dip and you've said horse. Tap each one and listen closely.

These are HanyuMochi's own recordings, the same ones you'll hear in every lesson.

四 Wall four

A mountain of words to climb.

The new HSK 3.0 standard lists 11,000 words across nine levels. Level 1 starts you off with 300. Every level after that asks for a lot more.

Source: Center for Language Education and Cooperation, HSK examination syllabus (November 2025), cumulative vocabulary, via HSKStory.

五 Wall five

Studying alone is hard. Teaching without seeing is harder.

学If you're a student

  • Nobody checks the sentences you write.
  • You're never sure what to review, so you review everything, or nothing.
  • Progress is invisible, so motivation fades.

教If you're a teacher

  • You can't see who actually practised this week.
  • Homework arrives in five different apps and chats.
  • Progress reports eat a whole evening.

汉语麻糬 Hanyu is Chinese. Mochi is a soft little rice cake. Bite-sized Chinese.

Meet HanyuMochi. It follows the book you already use.

Every lesson from the HSK Standard Course 1 to 6B and the new HSK 3.0 courses 1 to 3, with native audio, handwriting, smart reviews and a teacher who can actually see your work.

0books
0lessons
0words, each with an example
0real audio recordings

每天 Every day

Fifteen good minutes a day beats three hours on Sunday.

今
1 min

Today

Open the app and see exactly what's next. No guessing.

课
5 min

Lesson

Words, listening, grammar and writing, straight from your book.

复
5 min

Review

Cards come back right before you'd forget them.

练
3 min

Practice

Tones, dictation, sentence building and typing drills.

交
1 min

Homework

Hand it in. Your teacher marks it and sends feedback.

试试 Try it yourself

Tap a word. Hear it. See it in a sentence.

Pick any word above.
You'll hear it, then a full sentence using it.
Pinyin colours show the tone: 1st, high2nd, rising 3rd, dipping4th, fallinglight

写字 Writing

Watch the strokes. Then write it yourself.

学

Quick ear test: which tone did you hear?

字典 The dictionary

Look up any word, from any page.

Press / wherever you are and start typing. Characters, pinyin with or without tones, or plain English all work.

0words to look up
3ways to search: 你好, nihao, hello

Every word shows its meaning, tone colours, example sentences and the lesson that teaches it, so a quick look-up turns into real study.

你好nǐ hǎo
  1. hello
Book
喂wèi
  1. hello (on the phone)
  2. hey
Book
哈喽hā lóu
  1. hello (loanword)
↑ ↓ to move↵ to openesc to close

复习 How reviews beat forgetting

Reviews that arrive right on time.

Remember wall two? HanyuMochi schedules every card to come back just before it slips away. Each time you catch it, it stays with you for longer, so reviews get further apart and your daily list stays short.

An illustration of spaced review, drawn from the forgetting curve. Everyone's curve is a little different, which is exactly why the app adjusts to how you rate each card.

老师 For teachers

Teach with your eyes open.

  • 见
    See who needs youStudents who've gone quiet, have reviews piling up or an exam coming get flagged for you.
  • 批
    One inbox for homeworkSentences, dictation and recordings arrive together, one lesson at a time. Mark it, or send it back for another try.
  • 报
    Reports in a minuteA clean PDF for parents, with an optional written summary you can edit before it goes out.
Homework to mark3 waiting
Ana · Lesson 4 · sentences, recordingtry 2
Ben · Lesson 2 · dictationnew
Cara · Lesson 7 · sentencesnew
Needs attention2
Dev hasn't studied for 9 daysidle
Eli has an HSK 3 exam in 21 daysexam
A tutor explaining something to attentive adult students
Photo: Vitaly Gariev on Unsplash

一切 Everything in one place

One app instead of six.

学Students

Daily planLessons from your bookNative audio Tone coloursStroke orderSpeaking check Smart reviewsTone trainerDictation Mock examsAI sentence checkingDictionaryProgress

教Teachers

Student listNeeds attention alertsHomework inbox Send back for a redoPDF reportsEmail when work arrives
A study desk with an open book, notes and a laptop
Photo: Yen Vu on Unsplash
来

Come learn with us.

HanyuMochi opens soon. Join the list and you'll be among the first in. Teachers, if you'd like a proper walkthrough for your class, just write to us.

Join the list Ask for a walkthrough

Sources

Class hours: US Foreign Service Institute language difficulty categories.

Forgetting curve: Ebbinghaus (1885); Murre and Dros, PLOS ONE 10(7), 2015.

Dictionary: CC-CEDICT, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.

HSK 3.0 vocabulary: CLEC HSK examination syllabus, November 2025.

Photos from Unsplash by H&CO, Bernd Dittrich, Vitaly Gariev and Yen Vu.