Learn Chinese!

What is it? Characters that Stick is a fun interactive learning app to help you learn the most frequently-used Chinese characters. These characters are the basic building blocks for hundreds of other characters, so learning them lays the foundation for learning the Chinese language.

Who's it for? It's for Chinese language learners of all ages and backgrounds, beginner, intermediate, or advanced students of Chinese.

How is it used? Characters that Stick is available through the Apple iPad App Store. (this will be a link to the App store)

Take a Peak

Take a look at a sampling of ten characters from the iPad app "Characters that Stick." It's interactive so you can watch animated characters come to life just by clicking on the images.

You will also hear a character's pronunciation by clicking the bar graph next to "What it sounds like."

You'll see Family trees that show the relationship between characters. Word Maps bring Chinese words and phrases to life by showing how the character is used in context.

And the app lets you distinguish one character from another by helping you to learn about sound-a-like and look-a-like characters.

You will find that this iPad app is a wonderful supplement to your Chinese learning experience.

See a sample.

Why Chinese?

China is the second largest economy in the world and many pundits are calling the 21st Century, the China Century. Over a billion people speak Mandarin and every year a significant number of them are moving out of poverty and into the middle class.

These are the world's new customers. They are the reason businesses and governments are trying to enter the Chinese market.

The number of American students learning Mandarin has exploded in recent years and is expected to grow exponentially in the next decade. The U.S. and Chinese governments are encouraging people to learn Mandarin. In 2006, the U.S. established the National Security Language Initiative, declaring the dearth of foreign language competency as a national security issue. The U.S. State Department declared Mandarin a “Super Critical Needs Language.”

There should be no doubt that learning Mandarin Chinese is a valuable 21st century skill.