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For learners

Specialized modules

rì jī yuè lěi — “Day by day, month by month, it accumulates”

Business, diplomatic, academic and other vocabularies, for when general HSK is not the goal.

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The HSK ladder teaches you Chinese in general. The modules teach you the Chinese for one situation — arriving in the country, texting on WeChat, sitting in a meeting — and they sit alongside the ladder rather than inside it, so you can take one at any level.

What a module is

A self-contained course on one domain, built the same way lessons are: vocabulary, dialogue, grammar, practice. What differs is the selection — a module picks its words by usefulness in a situation rather than by HSK band.

That makes them the right tool when you have a deadline. Two weeks before a trip, Survival Chinese is worth more than two weeks of HSK 2.

The nine modules

  • Survival Chinese — Pro — Your first 100 phrases for arrival week in China. The one to take if you are getting on a plane.
  • Everyday Conversations — Pro — The small talk that turns strangers into friends.
  • WeChat Chinese — Pro — Texting, voice notes and emoji like a native. Written Chinese as it is actually written, which textbooks never cover.
  • Tourism Chinese — Pro Plus — Practical Mandarin for travellers, beyond the arrival-week basics.
  • Technology Chinese — Pro Plus — Mandarin for the tech industry.
  • Business Chinese — Pro Plus — Professional Mandarin for the workplace.
  • Media Chinese — Pro Plus — The register of news, broadcast and publishing.
  • Academic Chinese — Pro Plus — For study, papers and the formal written register.
  • Diplomatic Chinese — Pro Plus — Formal Mandarin for international affairs.
Nine module cards in a three-by-three grid. The top row — Survival Chinese, Everyday Conversations and WeChat Chinese — carries a red PRO badge with a padlock glyph; the six cards below it, Tourism, Technology, Business, Media, Academic and Diplomatic Chinese, carry a padlocked gold PRO PLUS badge. Every card shows an emoji, a level pill running from HSK 1+ on Survival Chinese up to HSK 6+ on Diplomatic Chinese, a one-line subtitle, and a lesson count with an hour estimate — 10 lessons and ~8h on Survival Chinese, up to 20 lessons and ~30h on Business Chinese.
The badge marks what your plan does not include yet — red Pro across the first row, gold Pro Plus across the two below — and it disappears once you have that plan. The HSK pill beside it says where a module is pitched, and the grid runs easiest-first, Survival at HSK 1+ through Diplomatic at HSK 6+ — it is not a level you have to reach before starting.

When to take one

  • You have a date — A trip, a posting, a meeting. A module is aimed at a situation, so it pays back inside weeks rather than months.
  • The ladder has gone abstract — Somewhere around HSK 3 the vocabulary stops being obviously useful. A module puts you back in a real situation.
  • You need the register, not the words — Business and academic Chinese are not harder vocabulary — they are a different tone of voice, and that is what these teach.

Progress and credits

Modules record checkpoints, XP and streak days exactly as lessons do, and their vocabulary goes into the same flashcard deck. Working through one spends no credits — only the AI features inside it, priced the same as everywhere else.

Common questions

No. Modules sit outside the ladder and can be taken at any point. Survival Chinese in particular is designed for someone who has barely started.

Continue learning

What Pro unlocksEverything behind the paywall, feature by feature, so you can tell whether you need it.Your study planHow the calendar builds a week around your goals and available time, and how to change it.