about

the listening-first way to learn chinese.

hanzen is a free tool for learning chinese characters, ears first. it's for students, teachers, and anyone who wants to read hanzi and hold onto what they hear. no ads, no tracking, no account needed.

what hanzen is

hanzen teaches the 3,000 most common chinese characters, built around listening. the method is attune. you hear a word, then pull the meaning back by ear. a small picture gets a hard character in the door, then that scene fades.

reading is the scaffold, not the goal. you keep your reading and build the ear to match. you learn one character, then the next, and the app remembers where you are.

how it works

• open app.hanzen.app in any browser. nothing to install.
• each day you hear your words first and pull the meaning out of the sound. the character comes last, as backup.
• tone is trained by ear, where it matters, not parked in a room or a colour.
• characters that share a sound part 声旁 come up together, so a sound you know helps you guess the next.
• your progress saves in your own browser and works offline. cross-device sync is coming.
• hanzen watch, an optional chrome add-on, reads along with chinese videos on youtube and bilibili.

who makes it

hanzen is an independent product made by one small team. it's not a marketplace, a forum, or user-posted content. it's a fixed set of study material we write and maintain. we don't sell data and we don't run ad networks. reach a real person any time at support@hanzen.app.

safe for classrooms

hanzen suits schools and universities. there's no chat, no user-generated content, and no advertising. the app runs in the browser, and study data stays on the device. network admins can email support@hanzen.app for help clearing hanzen.app and app.hanzen.app through a filter.

free

all 3,000 characters are free. no card, no paywall, no signup wall. open it and start listening.