Focus mode takes everything off the screen except the thing you are studying, and walks you through it one step at a time. It is the single best answer to "I open a lesson and then I am somehow reading about the Silk Road" — which is a real hazard on a site this large.
What it does
- Removes the chrome — Navigation, the red banner, the footer, the mascot — all gone. What is left is the content and a progress bar.
- Splits the page into steps — One section at a time with Back and Next, instead of a long scroll where it is unclear how much is left.
- Shows how far through you are — A step counter and a completion percentage in the header, so "how much more" has an answer.
- Puts a background behind it — Eighteen of them, from Plain to the Temple of Heaven, Victoria Harbour and the Longji rice terraces. Pick one and it stays.
Where you can use it
Most things worth reading end to end: HSK lessons, unit overviews and reviews, dictionary entries, grammar points, culture articles, the day’s Dragon Daily, and flashcard review.
Look for the "Focus" link near the top of the page. If it is not there, that page does not have a focus flow.
It still counts
Checkpoints, XP and your streak all work exactly as they do outside focus mode — the sections you complete are the same sections. Leaving focus mode partway through loses nothing; what you finished stays finished.
Getting out
The Exit button in the bottom bar, or the close control in the header. You land back on the ordinary page at the section you were on.
Common questions
No. It is a way of displaying a page you can already read; nothing about it calls an AI.