Learn Chinese through English
Learn 中文 through English
Every lesson explains Chinese by comparing it directly to English grammar and vocabulary — word order, case marking, formal speech, and more — instead of translating through English.
All Lessons
Greetings & Formality
Greetings & Formality
Chinese greetings are simple to start with — but one of the first surprises is that Chinese has no dedicated word for "yes" or "no" the way English does.
Pinyin & Tones
Pinyin & Tones
Chinese isn't written with letters — every word is one or more characters. Pinyin is the standard romanization system that spells out how those characters sound, using the Latin alphabet plus tone marks. Tones are the single biggest new skill for an English speaker: the same syllable can mean four completely different things depending on its pitch.
Numbers 1–10
Numbers 1–10
Chinese numbers are famously logical and never change form for gender or case — even simpler than English in that respect, since English at least distinguishes "a/an". Once you know 1–10, larger numbers mostly just combine these building blocks.
Pronouns & 是 shì (to be) / 有 yǒu (to have)
Pronouns & 是 shì (to be) / 有 yǒu (to have)
This is where Chinese grammar starts feeling refreshingly light: verbs never conjugate for person, number, or tense — you learn one form and use it forever. There's just one catch: 是 (shì) covers far less ground than English "to be".
Measure Words
Measure Words
Chinese has no articles ("a", "an", "the") and no grammatical gender at all — but it has something English doesn't: a required little word, called a measure word, that goes between a number and almost any noun.
Family
Family
Chinese kinship terms are far more precise than English's — not just splitting grandparents by which side of the family they're on, but requiring even siblings to be named by relative age, something English never requires.
Question Words
Question Words
English fronts its question words — "what"/"where"/"why" move to the start of the sentence. Chinese breaks that pattern completely.
Sentence Structure
Sentence Structure
Chinese word order starts from the same Subject-Verb-Object base as English, but yes/no questions, negation, and where time words go all work differently — and, true to form by now, all three turn out to be simpler than their English equivalents.
Numbers 11–100
Numbers 11–100
This is where the earlier lesson's promise pays off — Chinese numbers above ten are pure, transparent arithmetic, built directly from the 1–10 building blocks you already know.
的 (de) — Possession & Description
的 (de) — Possession & Description
的 (de) is arguably the single most-used character in the entire language — one small syllable that covers what English does with 's, "of", and ordinary descriptive adjectives, all at once.
Talking About the Past: 了 (le)
Talking About the Past: 了 (le)
You already know Chinese verbs never conjugate for tense — so how do you say something happened? Meet 了 (le), the small particle that marks a completed action, without ever touching the verb itself.
Modal Verbs: 想, 要, 能, 会
Modal Verbs: 想, 要, 能, 会
English gets by with one all-purpose "can". Chinese splits that single idea into two completely different words depending on *why* you can do something — plus two more for "want", each with its own shade of meaning.
Location Words & 在 (zài)
Location Words & 在 (zài)
在 (zài) is a small, hardworking word that covers both English "in/at/on" and, on its own, the whole idea of "to be located" — one more place Chinese trims down what English needs several words for.
Comparison: 比 (bǐ)
Comparison: 比 (bǐ)
Comparing two things — "bigger than", "more expensive than" — needs no special adjective form in Chinese at all, unlike English's "-er" ending. One small word, 比 (bǐ), does the entire job.
Daily Routine & Time Words
Daily Routine & Time Words
Describing a typical day pulls together everything so far — 了 for completed actions, time words before the verb, and a clock system that's refreshingly literal.
Colors & Common Adjectives
Colors & Common Adjectives
Colors are a natural place to put the adjectives-as-verbs rule from the earlier 是/有 lesson into practice, and to meet 喜欢 (xǐhuan, to like) — one of the most useful verbs you'll learn.