A path to spoken Mandarin

A pronunciation-first system for learning modern Mandarin through sound, structure, and reading.

The Pīnyīn Explorer Method

  1. Master the Inventory You begin with the complete monosyllabic, phonotactic, and morphemic inventory of modern Mandarin. This establishes a solid phonological foundation – including the much-worried-about four tones.

  2. Build a Feeling for Words Vocabulary is organized around a foundational inventory of 365 words, sorted by frequency, rather than thematic vocabulary sets. Each word becomes the center of an expanding network of meanings, compounds, and associations, gradually building an intuitive understanding of how the words fit together.

  3. Expand into Real Reading Instead of graded readers and graded podcasts, you will read regular podcast transcripts, articles, stories, novels, anything you actually want to read. Drop it into the Peekaboo Reader. Follow a well-defined progression from recognizing punctuation and a handful of high-frequency words to reading out loud fluently.

The Toolkit

A carefully designed set of tools supports your progression on every stage of the journey, from pronunciation to fluent reading.

1. Pīnyīn Explorer’s A–Z Inventory (App)

The complete monosyllabic, phonotactic, and morphemic inventory of modern Mandarin — written in Hànyǔ Pīnyīn, with recordings by native speakers.

2. Pīnyīn Explorer (App)

A Pīnyīn-first Chinese–English dictionary for exploring Mandarin vocabulary structure.

  • 115,000+ entries adapted for Pīnyīn-based lookup
  • Adjustable, frequency-based dictionary tiers
  • Syllable-grouped columns with click-through headwords
  • A comprehensive inventory of monosyllabic words, browsable by multiple metrics
  • A classic five-box Leitner flashcard and quiz system with pedagogically structured learning progressions
  • Built on original research into modern spoken Mandarin word frequency

3. Pīnyīn Explorer’s Peekaboo Reader (App)

A plain-text reading environment with adjustable Pīnyīn visibility.

→ Read Mandarin from day one
→ Adjust Pīnyīn visibility by frequency or curated sets
→ Click any word to open it in Pīnyīn Explorer

4. Pīnyīn Explorer’s Semantic Word Maps (Pen & Paper)

Every day you will explore one monosyllabic word, through its semantic families and most useful compounds. As you build your own maps, thousands of individual words gradually become an interconnected network.

The basis is formed with the 365 curated words from Pīnyīn Explorer. You will study at your own pace — for example, one word per day for a year, or six words per day for two months.