Check your own Chinese

Write or paste a Chinese text in simplified characters. This page holds it up against exactly the rules the site itself teaches: 142 things Chinese does not write, 170 traditional characters this site does not write and 0 words that are false friends. Each finding comes with the page on which the rule is explained. Everything runs in your browser; the text never leaves your device.

Your text

What it is measured against

Every rule in this checker is on one of these pages — and the same table checks this site’s own Chinese when it is built. A finding without a source would be an assertion; here are the sources, even without you checking anything.

However much: zěnme yě, zài … yě From the view of: duì … lái shuō According to: gēnjù and ànzhào About and regarding: guānyú and duìyú It seems, I hear: kànqǐlai, tīngshuō As things change: suízhe By means of and through: tōngguò In order to: wèile Taking something as: yǐ … wéi … Owing to: yóuyú Under, in, in terms of: zài … xià Worth it, hard to, no choice but Four-character idioms: chéngyǔ So as not to: miǎnde, yǐmiǎn Even and let alone: shènzhì and hékuàng Not necessarily: wèibì, bù yídìng As for: zhìyú Just now: gāng and gāngcái How often: from always to never Three kinds of again: hái, zài and yòu Jiù and cái: earlier or later Also and all: yě and dōu Only: zhǐ and jiù Finally, on earth: zhōngyú, dàodǐ Guo: having done something before Hái méi … ne: not yet Double le, and leaving le out Méi and méiyǒu: it did not happen About to happen: kuài … le Zài and zhèngzài: in progress Describing a noun: adjective, de, noun Possession with de: wǒ de shū Three written forms of de De without a noun: mine, the red one False friends Adjectives as predicates Negation with bù and méi Question words Or: háishi and huòzhě Yes-no questions with ma The particle ne A is B with shì Having and existing with yǒu A-not-A questions Asking politely Formal letters and business Chinese Polite address: nín and titles Duration with an object Result complements Degree complement with de Extremely: jíle, sǐle, huàile How often: cì, biàn, tàng and yíxià Can or cannot: potential complements Figurative direction complements Direction: lái and qù after verbs Must and need not: děi, bìxū and búyòng Can (learned skill): huì Maybe and probably: kěnéng Would like and want: xiǎng and yào The bǎ sentence The passive with bèi Appearing, disappearing and existing Verbs with two objects Make, let, ask: ràng, jiào, qǐng Even: lián … dōu and lián … yě Two verbs in a row Passives with ràng, jiào and gěi From … to … with cóng and dào Zài, yǒu and shì for where things are How far from: lí On, in, under: place words Towards: wǎng, xiàng and cháo Zài: where it is, where it happens A and its sound changes: ya, wa, na Only, that is all: éryǐ, bàle Ma and bei: it is obvious Ne in depth Written adverbs: jiāng, yǐ, wèi Suǒ and the passive wéi … suǒ Written yú, yǐ and ér What a character is Chinese punctuation Zhī and qí in modern writing Verb complements Moreover: érqiě, bìngqiě, shènzhì Otherwise: fǒuzé, bùrán, yàobùrán Since, given that: jìrán … jiù Although: suīrán … dànshì No matter: wúlùn and bùguǎn … dōu As soon as: yī … jiù Two at once: yìbiān … yìbiān Because and so: yīnwèi … suǒyǐ Rather than: yǔqí … bùrú As long as, only if: zhǐyào, zhǐyǒu Comparing with bǐ How much more: bǐ with amounts Not as good as: bùrú More and most: gèng and zuì Not as … as: méiyǒu … nàme The same and different: gēn … yíyàng More and more: yuèláiyuè and yuè … yuè Two kinds of two: èr and liǎng The everyday measure words Number, measure word, noun The suffix men: a plural for people Ordinals, fractions, multiples Roughly: approximate numbers Every one: doubled measure words Counting with shí, bǎi, qiān and wàn Duration after the verb When, before, after: de shíhou Time words before the verb

What this checker can do — and what it cannot

It does not check your Chinese. It checks 312 particular things in it. A text with no findings is not a text without mistakes: tenses, word order, articles and everything there is no rule for here are invisible to this tool. The reverse holds, though: whatever it reports is explained on a page of this site.

Three levels of certainty, and the difference matters. A mistake is a construction this site explicitly rules out — there is nothing to weigh up. A spelling is not a mistake but a choice that has to be kept. 這(zhè) for 这(zhè) and 們(men) for 们(men) are the traditional characters, written in Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau and read everywhere; this site writes the simplified ones, as the mainland does. Mixed in one text they look careless, and an input method set to the wrong script produces them without asking. A note is a question rather than a verdict, kept for words that are good Chinese and may still not be what you meant — a word whose characters seem to say one thing and mean another, or the one of two Chinese verbs that does not fit where English has only one.

Aspect in general, the choice of measure word, tones, characters that sound alike and word order in general are left out on purpose. They are among the commonest mistakes of all, and as a rule none of them can be recognised from a pattern: 我(wǒ)吃(chī)了(le) and 我(wǒ)吃(chī) are both correct, and only the writer knows which was meant. Tones cannot be seen in characters at all. Where a pattern does settle it — 在(zài) typed for 再(zài) in 再见(zàijiàn), a time word left at the very end of a sentence — the checker speaks; everywhere else a checker that guessed would be wrong often enough that nobody believed it the next time it was right. Each has its own page; here the checker stays silent.

The word list below is information, not a mark. It shows which levels the words of your text sit at in this vocabulary. A text made entirely of A1 words can be very good, and one full of C1 words very bad.