Creating your account

Signing up happens at the END of onboarding, not the start — which surprises people looking for a registration form. You answer a short set of questions first, we build a study plan from the answers, and only then do you pick an email and a password to keep it. This article walks the whole sequence so you know what is coming.

Why the questions come first

An account with nothing in it is not much use. By asking about your level, your goals and how much time you actually have before you create one, the first thing you see after signing up is a study plan built around your answers rather than an empty dashboard asking you to configure it.

You can stop at any point before the last step. Nothing is stored on our side until you create the account.

What onboarding asks

1. Your name — Used to address you throughout the app. A first name is enough.
2. A little about you — Why you are learning Chinese, and what you have done before. This shapes the tone of what you are shown, not what you can access.
3. Your current level — Pick an HSK level, or say you are starting from nothing. If you are not sure, the placement test answers it in about three minutes.
4. Your goals — Several can apply — travel, work, an exam, family. Your plan weights the four skills differently depending on what you choose.
5. How much time you have — Minutes per day and days per week. Be honest rather than ambitious; the schedule is built from this number and a plan you cannot keep is worse than a small one.
6. A few preferences — Interface language, whether you want pinyin shown by default, and whether to email you. All changeable later in your account.
7. Your account — Name, email address and a password of at least eight characters, confirmed once — or the Google or Facebook button underneath, which fills the same thing in from your provider. That is the whole step either way.

What happens straight afterwards

Two things run automatically once the account exists. A study plan is generated from your answers — that is the 15 credits people notice leaving their balance, and the reason a free account is granted 215 rather than a round 200. And an Orientation Day is placed at the front of your schedule: a single day of short guided walkthroughs before the HSK path begins.

You land on the dashboard with both already waiting.

If you would rather not sign up yet

A large part of the site needs no account at all and never will: the dictionary, grammar, culture and learning materials. You can read the opening of any HSK lesson too. What an account adds is anything that has to remember you.