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Comparisons, study-method posts, and reference entries for the terms you meet while learning.
- Bookverse — Competitors A fair, direct comparison of Bookverse against the apps people choose between — what each is best at, and when Bookverse is the better fit.
- Bookverse — Similar Apps An honest look at the tools in the same space as Bookverse — graded readers, SRS decks, dictionaries, and structured courses — and how Bookverse draws on the best of each.
- CEFR The Common European Framework of Reference — the A1-C2 scale used to describe language proficiency.
- Measure word A small word Mandarin requires between a number and a noun. English has them too — 'two slices of bread' — but Mandarin uses them everywhere.
- Radical A semantic component of a Chinese character — the building block dictionaries are organised by.
- Simplified vs Traditional Two writing standards for Chinese characters. Mainland China and Singapore use simplified; Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau use traditional.
- Hanzi The Chinese characters used to write Mandarin — logograms, not letters.
- Mandarin tones Mandarin's four (plus one) pitch contours — the difference between 'mother' and 'horse'.
- Pinyin The official romanisation system for Mandarin — the bridge between Chinese characters and how they sound.
- HSK 3.0 The new Chinese Proficiency Standards — nine levels grouped into five bands, replacing the old six-level HSK.
- Why you forget what you study (and how to stop) What the forgetting curve, SuperMemo and Anki can teach a language learner about which 60 minutes of study actually stick — and which evaporate by Friday.
- Nobody understands your Mandarin. It's almost certainly the tones. The wall most intermediate Mandarin learners hit isn't grammar or vocabulary — it's tones. Why beginner courses let you get away with ignoring them, and what actually fixes it.