Understand Chinese characters — don't just memorize them
Every Chinese character was designed: its strokes, components and layout hold a rationale. Reasoning Chinese helps you read that rationale stroke by stroke — the common reading first, then the design reading — so characters stick, and learning goes faster.
The secret of one character: 王
Guess first: three horizontal strokes and one vertical — why does that make 王 (wáng, “king”)?
Common reading (what the dictionaries say)
The Shang and Zhou title of the ruler. The Shuowen quotes Dong Zhongshu: “Those who first made writing joined three strokes through the middle and called it 王. The three are heaven, earth and man; the one who connects them is the king.”
Design reading (the rationale)
The three horizontals stand for the great law of truthfulness, compassion and forbearance, the vertical for cultivating all three; in the human world they are heaven, earth and man, joined by the vertical — whoever connects them is a king among men.
The Reasoning Chinese app · coming soon
This site's research on character rationales, turned into ten minutes of learning a day: from strokes to components, from single-unit characters to compounds, one character family at a time.
- A character rationale a day: common and design readings side by side
- Seven levels: use the components you know to work out new characters
- AI study assistant: ask anytime; answers say whether a point has been reviewed
- Three interfaces: traditional Chinese, simplified Chinese, English
App Store · coming soonGoogle Play · coming soon
Who it is for
Heritage families
Children don't just recognize characters — they know why each is written as it is. Parents can learn alongside.
Adult learners
Understanding instead of rote memory: the components you have learned let you work out characters you haven't.
Chinese teachers
Character-family units: common reading first, then the design reading, a minimal-pair check, and transfer to new characters.
The learning path: retrace how the characters were made
Levels open step by step.
A first taste: three characters
三 stood upright on 一: the three barriers opened, through which one who gains the Way may leave the three realms.
Two mountains stacked: breaking through realm after realm to return to where one was first born.
女 + 子: life is cultivation; more hardship means faster progress, and that is good.
Tell me when the app launches
Leave your email and we will send one message when the app launches. We use it only for that, and you can unsubscribe at any time.
About the author and the discipline
Our research and courses rest on LI Xutong's Exploring the Design Mysteries of Chinese Characters: the script was designed as a whole, and every basic character holds a rationale that can be recovered and taught. The book's New Six Scripts turn that rationale into a learnable method; on this site every research entry is also a teaching unit — and the app grows out of that.
Questions
Can I learn without knowing Chinese?
Yes. A native speaker's feel is an implicit grasp of how characters combine; once those rules are made explicit, beginners have rules to follow too.
How is this different from an ordinary Chinese course?
Most courses rely on memory. Here you first learn why each character is written as it is — common and design readings side by side — and use what you know to work out new characters.
When will the app launch?
We will email everyone who signed up. Until then, the worked examples, articles and starter guide on this site are free to read.
