Chinese for beginners
If you are starting from zero, you do not need an overview but an order. This page gives you one — six steps, each with its grammar topic, the matching words and a reason why it sits where it does.
Why an order and not a list
This site has 145 grammar topics. For someone just starting out, that is not an offer but a wall: everything looks equally important, and the obvious way in — starting at the top — leads into the tense system before a single sentence is in place.
So the order below is not a sorting of the material but a recommendation, and it follows one rule: every step must make one more sentence possible that you could not say before. Anything that does not — however correct it may be — comes later.
Three things first
- Twenty minutes on six days beats two hours on one. That is not a lecture but the reason this site has a daily goal: revision works through intervals, and you need more than one interval.
- You will not learn pronunciation here. This site explains and tests, both in writing. Speaking and listening are learnt with people or with recordings — the site is no substitute for that and does not try to be.
- Mistakes are the point of practice, not its failure. Whatever you get wrong comes back tomorrow; whatever sticks, only in five weeks. If you only practise what you already know, you do not move forward.
The first six steps
The four tones first. 妈, 麻, 马 and 骂 are four different words, and every word on this site carries its tone in the pinyin under it — learn to hear the tones before anything else, and the rest of the site opens.
To go with it: Greetings and set phrases — 40 words.
The simplest Chinese sentence is two nouns joined by 是: 我是学生, “I am a student”. There is no “a”, and the verb never changes — not for “I”, not for “she”, not for yesterday.
To go with it: People and family — 40 words.
Subject, verb, object — the order English uses, which makes the first sentences easy. The difference comes with time and place: they stand before the verb, not at the end (我明天去, “I am going tomorrow”).
To go with it: Basic verbs — 40 words.
A number cannot stand directly before a noun. A measure word goes between them: 三本书, three books. 个 fits almost anything at first; the right word for each noun comes with practice.
To go with it: Numbers and money — 40 words.
A statement becomes a question by adding 吗 at the end. The answer repeats the verb instead of saying yes: 你去吗？ — 去。
To go with it: Pronouns and question words — 40 words.
Chinese verbs have no tenses. What English does with “ate” and “has eaten”, Chinese does with small words after the verb or at the end of the sentence, and 了 is the first and most important of them.
To go with it: Food and drink — 40 words.
And after that?
After these six steps you can manage simple sentences in the present and the past, questions and the first few hundred words. That is the point at which an order is no longer needed: from here, the way forward depends on what you need the language for.
All 27 topics of level 1 are on the 1 page; if you would rather practise straight away than read, start with the daily dose — it decides for itself what comes up today.