What’s inside Chinese Trainer

You can open three tools a day and still be lost: a word list, an Anki deck you maintain, an AI chat that does not know whether you are HSK 1 or HSK 4. The gap is not “more content.” It is order, memory, and output in one place.

That shows up in a typical failure. You recognize 你好 (nǐ hǎo) on a card. You hear nǐ hǎo at exam speed and freeze. You try to greet someone and flatten the tone. An app that only asks you to tap the right gloss leaves you at step one.

The product is built in four layers. The path tells you which HSK band you are on and what to do today. Memory (SRS and the review queue) brings hard items back on time. Skills train writing, tones, listening, and sentences. Use — readings and the AI tutor — forces output. If one layer is missing, study feels busy and does not move.

The placement test avoids the classic mistake of starting at HSK 1 when you already know 400 words, or the reverse. You pick a level by hand or let placement sit you. After that, vocabulary, lessons, and practice cut to that band. It is not an official chinesetest.cn exam. It is a compass so you do not study the wrong syllabus.

Progress is not only XP. It shows words seen, HSK direction, and where you are weak. It answers “do I stay on HSK 2 or move up?” without guessing. The useful number is what is slipping and what is already stable.

The public HSK vocabulary list is 12,432 words (12,000+), with hanzi, pinyin, gloss, examples, and audio. Browse lists by level. In the app those words feed Chinese flashcards and exams, not a PDF dump. Classic HSK 1 is about 150 words; this site's list is larger. HSK 1–6 follow the six-level exam; HSK 7+ groups the 2021 advanced bands.

Free covers HSK 1–2 with no word cap. Standard and Premium unlock HSK 1–7. The real jump is not “more icons.” It is keeping the same routine after you leave the ~150 words of HSK 1 described by the official exam site (Chinese Testing International, 2026). Wikipedia HSK summarizes the framework; CLEC administers it. Pinyin is the official romanization of Mandarin. Hanzi are the written Chinese characters.

HSK is Hanyu Shuiping Kaoshi. This site’s HSK guides map the syllabus; the app runs it.

Lessons order the day. Grammar — patterns, particles, word order — sits next to vocabulary at the same level. If you come from an app that only asks you to pick the right word, the next step here is using that word in a structure.

A concrete example. Knowing 了 (le) on a list is not knowing 了. In 我买了咖啡 (wǒ mǎi le kāfēi) it marks a change; in other sentences it does not belong. The HSK does not ask “do you recognize 是?” It asks whether it fits the sentence. That is why grammar and lessons are not an appendix: they are the bridge from a card to a usable sentence.

Forgetting is not a talent problem. It is failing to meet the word at the right interval. You can study 买 (mǎi, to buy) on Monday and by Friday no longer tell it from 卖 (mài, to sell). Same skeleton, different tones, and the brain collapses them if you do not retrieve them in time.

Flashcards schedule that interval (spaced repetition). Today you see the cards about to fall off, not an infinite deck you have to prioritize. You get hanzi, pinyin, translation, audio, and recognize-or-choose modes. The science is the same as Anki. The difference is that you do not build the system: you run the queue.

The review queue merges due work from several modules. If you only do new lessons, the app tells you with overdue work, not with a streak flame. Knowledge stores what you already “know” versus what is still weak.

Anki is still excellent if you like building the lab. If you do not want to maintain decks, this layer does the same job with less friction and stays connected to listening and writing. Recognizing 咖啡 (kāfēi) on a card and then hearing it in a short dialogue is different from owning two tools that do not talk.

Recognizing 你好 on a card is not knowing Chinese. Practice splits skills on purpose, because each one fails in a different way.

Matching closes the “I recognize it but I cannot bind it” gap: you pair hanzi, pinyin, and gloss. It helps when you know 中国 is China but cannot join it to zhōngguó under pressure.

Sentence scramble trains order and particles. Chinese is not saved by loose vocabulary. 我喜欢喝茶 (wǒ xǐhuan hē chá) is easy to recognize and easy to scramble if you do not yet have subject-verb-object as a habit. The scramble is not a mini-game. It is usable grammar.

Writing asks for strokes and the character. You do not need pretty calligraphy. You need not to go blind when pinyin disappears. Five characters written well beat fifty screenshots of lists.

Tones exist because a wrong tone changes the meaning. 妈 (mā, mother), 麻 (má, hemp), 马 (mǎ, horse), and 骂 (mà, to scold) are different words, not nuances. The microphone stings a little. That sting is the point.

Listening is where exams and conversation drop first. HSK audio will not wait while you translate word by word. If you only read flashcards, listening day feels like another language.

Documents and OCR cover Chinese outside the syllabus: a menu, an email, a sign. You paste or scan, tap a word, and can save it to flashcards. They do not replace Pleco as a field dictionary. They do stop that Chinese from living in another app that never enters your SRS.

The free plan has about 3 exercises per day per feature. That is the honest cut so you can try the system before you pay. Standard removes the HSK 1–7 content ceiling.

Mocks get close to the format: listening and reading by level. The useful part is not one day’s score. It is the exam-error list. That list feeds back into practice. A mock is not theater: it feeds SRS. If you miss 他是老师 (tā shì lǎoshī) because of speed, you did not “already do a mock.” You have a queue that will bring it back.

Chinese Trainer does not register you for the official HSK. It does not book a room. It does not promise a pass. It tells you what to study each day and shows you exam-shaped pressure. Registration stays on chinesetest.cn. If you are still choosing a method, start with how to learn Chinese.

Reading does not hand you a newspaper in month one. There are about 204 editorial texts: dialogues, stories, short courses, and phrases, cut by level, with pinyin and gloss when needed. That number is written content, not a junk generator. On Premium you can generate readings aimed at your gaps. That does not replace the fixed corpus; it personalizes it once you know what you miss.

Travel and work phrases live here and on the public hubs. Inside the app they are practiced; outside they are browsed. If you only want a list for your phone, the hubs are enough. If you want them in SRS, you need the account.

There is a pinyin course for anyone who does not yet have the ear. If you start with 你好 without knowing what each tone does, the rest of the app sits on sand.

The tutor is not the home screen. It is a layer on top of the path. You ask for a correction, an explanation of 了, or a sentence at your level. In voice mode you talk without a keyboard. On Premium it remembers weak points: a generic chat treats you as a stranger every session; this one should not.

The modes are not vapor: explain a word, role-play, correct a sentence, drill tones, weekly summary, or a short masterclass from what you need to reinforce. That only works if there is real progress underneath. If the tutor does not know your level, it is another chatbot.

The limits are real. Free: 3 messages per day. Standard: 20. Premium: serious use, memory, voice, and generated readings. The higher price covers models (OpenAI), not a badge. If an app sells “unlimited AI for €2,” it is either subsidizing or cutting quality.

The tutor does not replace a weekly teacher or the official exam. Answers can be wrong. It is there so you are not mute between human sessions, and so a bad sentence gets a correction the same day.

Streak, XP, daily plan, and stats answer “did I actually study this week?” The leaderboard and achievements are optional. They are not the method. Here the streak is a reminder to open the SRS queue, not the trophy.

Community is a student board — progress, questions, challenges — not an infinite feed. You can keep a private account. Feedback reaches the person building the product.

In Settings you can export or import vocabulary as CSV and print a progress certificate. Web, PWA, and Android with the same account. iOS, full offline, and push are on the roadmap, not pretended. Paying today is Stripe on the web.

Free: unlimited HSK 1–2 vocabulary, 3 exercises per day per feature, 3 tutor messages, HSK 3–4 locked. That is enough to try the system for a week without theater.

Standard (from €5 per month): unlimited HSK 1–7 vocabulary and practice, flashcards, grammar, readings and exams, tutor at 20 messages per day. It is the plan for someone who already decided the path works and does not need voice or model memory.

Premium: everything in Standard, tutor memory, generated readings and dialogues, voice conversation. It costs more because AI costs more. There is a 7-day trial. You cancel in the Stripe portal. You do not have to “keep paying to delete the account”: there is a delete-account page.

Chinese Trainer is not a live course, not Pleco, and not a native-speaker exchange. It does not guarantee passing the HSK. It fits if you want a daily plan with review and a bit of output. It does not fit if you want a three-minute game or a teacher every week.

Day 1: create the account with Google and take placement, or pick HSK 1 if you are starting from zero.

Days 2 and 3: 8 to 10 minutes of flashcards and 5 of listening or writing, not another new list. If you leave with 40 new words and zero review, you are collecting.

Day 4: one short dialogue. Read 你好，我是老师 (nǐ hǎo, wǒ shì lǎoshī) out loud. If you stumble, that is data.

Day 5: 1 or 2 tutor turns from the free quota. Ask it to correct a sentence of yours, not to give a speech.

Days 6 and 7: look at the review queue. If you only chased the streak, stay on HSK 1–2 until the habit is boring.

Start free on HSK 1–2. If it fits after seven days, see plans. If not, cancel. Product questions: contact or about us.

Pinyin is the official romanization of Mandarin. Hanzi are the written Chinese characters. HSK is Hanyu Shuiping Kaoshi. Reviewed by Javier Garcia Floriano. About us. Contact.

• Apply one method today, not a second streak.
• Measure one pair or one mock, not XP.
• Use the single CTA on this page.