HanziHero: a Chinese character learning application

[gnalck]

I wanted to introduce the web application my brother and I have been working on for the past year, HanziHero!

 

 

HanziHero uses mnemonics and spaced repetition to help anyone learn simplified OR traditional Chinese characters and vocabulary. Anyone can try it out for free. It's the same tool that allowed me to reach basic Chinese literacy, and I hope it can help others do the same.

 

Mnemonics

 

Let me go over briefly how it works. If you are familiar with the Marilyn Method for memorizing Chinese characters, you will recognize our method is mostly the same!

 

First, we assign a mnemonic association to each pinyin initial, final, and tone. Initials are assigned a fictional character. Finals are associated with a setting. Tones are associated with a location within the setting. For example:

 

* h- = Harry Potter

* -ao = barn (because "ao" sounds like "cow", which are found

* 3rd tone = cellar (because it is the lowest part of the barn)

 

We also assign a name/association to each component within the character. This will be familiar for those who have used Remembering the Hanzi or similar approaches. For example:

 

* 女 - "woman"

* 子 - "child"

 

Lastly, we combine the above mnemonic elements, along with the meaning of the character, together into a story which aids in remembrance and recall. Here's the example for 好:

 

 

[h-] Harry Potter i is in the [3] cellar of the [-ao] barn that his parents once owned. He comes across a picture of himself as a 子 child with a 女 woman who he recognizes as his mother. He chokes back tears and mutters: "Voldemort stole everything 好 good from my life...".

 

It's a bit silly, but it really works! We have mnemonics for over 4,000 words and characters and add more each day, as well as going back and fine tuning the ones we already made.

 

Built-in review system

 

Of course, learning without reviewing is not much help. So we have a built in review system that uses spaced repetition to regularly review you on everything you learn through the web application. It works by showing you the items you have learned and asking you to type in the meaning or pronunciation.

 

 

Optimal HSK-based teaching order

 

We developed our own algorithm that teaches characters in an optimal order according to the HSK test materials. Essentially, we teach the characters in HSK order, but also take into account their component-complexity when ordering each HSK level. This strikes a balance between HSK-only ordering (where e.g., 我 may be taught first despite being a bit "visually complex") and component-only ordering that Heisig does (where e.g., the relatively rare 吾 is taught in the first 20 characters, for some reason).

 

Teaches vocabulary, too

To help you remember each character you learn, we also teach a couple of vocabulary words that include it. These extra connections allow you to not only better understand how the character is used in practice, but also will help with recalling the meaning and pronunciation of the character itself. These all also use mnemonics to make them easier to remember.

 

 

Start for free

 

We have a generous free tier that allows anyone to learn around 100 characters along with all of the components, sounds, and words associated with it. It's a couple of weeks of free content to allow you to evaluate whether our approach works for you.

 

FAQ

 

I'll try to answer some common questions you may have:

Q: Does it teach simplified or traditional characters?
A: Both! We have two separate "courses" that the user can choose when signing up. These are both individually hand crafted. It's not like other platforms where the courses are mirror images that use a simple character conversion script. For example, we ensure the pronunciation taught is the one that is actually used in Mainland China for the simplified course, or the one actually used in Taiwan for the traditional course.

Q: Does it teach writing?
A: Nope. HanziHero's aim is to enable you to immerse in media as quickly as possible. I've lived in Taiwan for two years and have had to write a total of 11 characters by hand (my address), once. In our opinion, writing is objectively a lower priority over reading comprehension for the aims of the average Chinese learner.

 

Q: How is this different than Heisig's Remembering the Hanzi?
A: We teach pronunciation as well, and include that information in our mnemonics. This entire project is born out of my frustration with Heisig's approach. You can see more in my video review of Remembering the Hanzi.

 

Q: Can I skip to a given HSK level, if I already know a bunch of characters?
A: Not yet! But we are adding this sometime in the next months. It is at the top of our priorities!

Q: Why would I use this instead of making my own Anki deck?

A: If you love making cards yourself and having ultimate control - even at the cost of convenience - Anki is probably better for you. But if you want to save hundreds of hours making your own mnemonics, making your own cards, and customizing Anki to make it work for your use case, then HanziHero is the key-turn solution you may have been looking for. It's purpose-built for learning characters, and that allows us to provide a more streamlined experience.

Q: How many characters are covered?
A: We currently have 3,700+ traditional characters and 2,200+ simplified characters. We add a couple of simplified characters each week to catch up to our traditional course. Our final goal is to have around 4,000-5,000 total characters eventually - the number the average literate Chinese will know well.

 

Q: How many vocab words are covered?
A: We currently have ~350 or so vocabulary words. We add 35-70 new words a week. We aim to have at least one vocabulary word for each character, if not two. So probably 5,000+ by the time we finish.

That's all for now. We are constantly improving it, so welcome any critical feedback.