See how Chinese comes alive in real life.
看见中文如何在真实生活中活起来
Every character in this language was a drawing of something real before it was a character. Most people are handed the finished square and told to memorise it. Start one step earlier and it stops being arbitrary.
Open the Seed →
Twelve characters. No account, nothing to buy.
Try it now
Every one of these was a picture first.
Twelve characters, each with the thing it used to be a drawing of. Pull the handle and watch the picture dissolve into the character it became. The eye rotates ninety degrees on its way, because a wide eye would not fit in a square.
日
山
木
火
hover to let them settle
What's coming
Two things, and nothing else.
Both are free, both are on video, and neither one is a class you have to sign up for.
Life in China
看中国，不只看北上广
China outside Beijing and Shanghai. The first stretch is Sichuan — Chengdu and Leshan: what people actually eat, what a bowl of it actually costs, how to order it without pointing. One or two words come out of each scene, because they came up, not because a lesson plan said so.
In productionLearning Chinese Tips
中文的规律，讲清楚
Short, visual answers to the things that stall people early: why Chinese verbs never change form, what a radical is actually doing inside a character, why the language insists on a measure word. One rule, one real example, one place you would use it. First one out: Why Chinese Verbs Don't Change.
Episode 01 writtenOne email when the first video lands.
That is the whole promise. No course launch, no drip sequence, no daily character. If it turns into anything else you can leave in one click.
Your address goes nowhere except this list.
The list isn't wired up yet. Until it is, the honest version: email me and I'll add you by hand.
About
Written, drawn and filmed by one person, in Chengdu.
The twelve pictographs on this site were drawn for it. They are readings of what the early forms depict, not tracings of excavated bronze or oracle-bone inscriptions — where a real inscribed form matters, it will be named and sourced.
Everything here is free. It stays free.