The Sound System: all 10 lessons free
No sign-up needed, but nothing is saved. Sign up free and your progress and mistake book are kept — carry on from any phone or computer.
This practice works best alongside a lesson: to get your sounds right, book one and your teacher listens and corrects you one-on-one.
You Already Speak Chinese
你已经会中文了
Coffee, cola, chocolate, sofa, sandwich — you learned these years ago and nobody told you they were Chinese too.
Sign up free — just an email. Your wrong answers go into your mistake book, and you can carry on on another device.
Sign up / sign inBatch one — say them out loud, you already know these
Read each one before you look at the English. Your mouth will get there first.
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Memory hook
Why they sound familiar: 音译 yīnyì, sound-borrowing
Batch two — longer ones, same trick
Longer words are easier here, not harder: more syllables means more of the original sound survives.
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Pronunciation clinic
You just did a pinyin workout without noticing
Look at what your mouth did. 咖啡 drilled k and f. 巧克力 made you separate q from k — the exact pair beginners confuse. 三明治 put flat s and curled zh in one breath. 卡布奇诺 ran you through four different tones in four syllables. These are the hardest sounds in the first month, and you practised them on words you already knew the meaning of. That is the cheapest practice in Chinese.
看看你的嘴刚才做了什么：咖啡练了 k 和 f；巧克力逼你把 q 和 k 分开——这正是初学者最容易混的一对；三明治把扁平的 s 和卷舌的 zh 放进了一口气里；卡布奇诺四个字四个声调。这些是头一个月最难的音，而你是在已经懂意思的词上练的——这是学中文最划算的练习。
Mark the tones — you know the word, now hear it随堂小练
No pressure — just making it stick.
咖啡
coffee
巧克力
chocolate
沙发
sofa
Famous names, borrowed sound by sound
Say each one aloud before reading the English. The picture is the thing they are famous for — the faces are not ours to draw.
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Now the sentence that unlocks all of them
One question, one answer, and every word above becomes usable today.
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Memory hook
是 shì is not 'is' the way you think
Listen, then point — 这是什么？随堂小练
No pressure — just making it stick.
Which one is she holding? Listen first — you will know before you can read it.
Which picture is this?
Which picture is this?
这是____。
Zhè shì ____.
This is ____.
You hear this while someone points at a cup of coffee. What do you say?
Say it out loud — the microphone is listening随堂小练
No pressure — just making it stick.
Your turn — say it
卡布奇诺
cappuccino
Your turn — say it
这是什么？
What is this?
Before you go课后回顾
- Name three things around you right now using 这是……. If you do not know the word, say it in English with a Chinese accent — you will be right more often than you expect.
- Which sound was hardest today: q in 巧克力, zh in 三明治, or the four tones of 卡布奇诺? Tell me next class and we will drill that one.
- Find one more loanword this week — ask a Chinese friend, or look at a menu. Bring it to class.