Learn Chinese characters by playing

There is no alphabet to memorise — there are characters, and the only way in is volume plus repetition. The typing loop gives you both: see the character, recall its sound, produce it.

Typing is recall, not recognition

Typing Chinese with a pinyin IME asks more of you than reading does. To produce 学 you must know it reads xué, type that, and pick it from the candidate list. A character you only half-know is invisible to your keyboard. That is why typing practice exposes gaps that reading practice hides, and why these games start every character with its pinyin shown and then take the hint away.

Pinyin, tones and the candidate bar →

Start with the characters that carry the load

The first tier here is the set every course opens with: numbers 一 to 十, 人 大 小, the direction words 上 中 下, and the elements 日 月 水 火 木. The second adds the pronouns and high-frequency verbs — 我 你 他, 是 有 在 来 去 看 吃 喝 说. By the fifth tier you are on characters like 键 盘 攻 击 守 卫, and the expert levels switch to two-character words such as 电脑, 飞机 and 快乐, which is how Chinese actually works: most modern words are compounds.

Traditional or simplified

Script Fall currently teaches simplified characters, the standard in mainland China and Singapore. If you are learning for Taiwan or Hong Kong you will want traditional forms, which are not included yet. Everything else — the pinyin, the tones, the typing workflow — is the same.