Reading
Stories and Talks are yours. Reading is where the app meets you at your level — short graded lessons you can actually read, that grow as your characters grow.
Three places lessons come from
| Group | What it is |
|---|---|
| 🏫 Lessons | A built-in HSK 1 course — 50 sequenced lessons for absolute beginners, each introducing just a few new characters, ending with review stories — plus two bridge lessons for each level HSK 2–6. |
| ✨ AI Generated | Lessons written for you by the AI — your own story or talk extended, or a brand-new lesson at an HSK level you pick (more below). |
| 📥 My Imports | Text you paste or upload as a .txt file, turned into a fully-featured lesson. |
The blue HSK pill — "readable at"
Every lesson card shows a small blue HSK n pill. It means exactly this: if you have finished HSK level n, you can read this lesson — the label is the lowest level whose vocabulary covers 90% of the lesson's characters. A few harder words may still appear; tap them for their meaning (that's the natural next step). On the Imports page, a How? link opens the full explanation in the app.
AI Generated — written for you
Tap ✨ Generate on the AI Generated page and choose one of four options (all written online by the AI — they need an AI key and internet; everything else in Reading works fully offline):
| Option | What the AI writes |
|---|---|
| 🖼️ From your Story | Pick one of your stories and set how many new characters to add (1–10). The AI rewrites that same story — same people, same events — extended just enough to naturally weave in the new characters. |
| 🦜 From your Talk | The same, for a conversation: the AI extends your talk, keeping its speakers. Speaker names are kept exactly as you named them — Mom stays "Mom:", never translated. |
| 📚 HSK story | A brand-new story at an HSK level you pick — plus an optional topic title and notes if you have one in mind. |
| 💬 HSK conversation | A brand-new conversation at your chosen level between speakers you pick (at least two). Lines look like Mom: 你好！ |
Every generated lesson carries a plain-word badge showing how it sits against your level today: Review (nothing new), Just right (a few new characters — the sweet spot), Stretch and Challenge (more). The badge and the new-character count are computed on your device from the actual text — never just trusted from the AI — and they recompute as you learn, so a Challenge lesson gradually softens.
The AI Generated page shows "Your reading level covers about N characters." Tap Breakdown to see each character and where it comes from: ★ characters you earned in Remember, characters your own Stories & Talks brought into your card deck, and everything assumed by your HSK level in Settings. Studying a character that's already covered moves it to ★ Learned; learning a brand-new one raises the total — and unlocks new lessons from the same stories.
Import your own text
Found a short text you'd like to read — a song, a graded reader excerpt, a message from a friend?
📥 Import accepts a .txt file or pasted text, with a live preview
(line count, pairing, and how it sits against your level) before anything is saved.
Four layouts are understood automatically:
- Chinese line, English on the next line — or the reverse order (English first);
- Both on one line separated by a Tab — the format of Anki's "Notes in Plain Text" export;
- Chinese only.
Same little diary, saved five ways. Look at the file on the left of each picture; that's all the app needs to see — it figures out the rest by itself. Every sample is downloadable — grab one and try a real import.
1 · One line, Chinese [Tab] English — both columns import ✓
Works with Anki's plain-text export too. The app finds the Chinese column no matter how many tabs there are.
Download this sample file (my-weekend-hsk2.txt)
2 · Chinese line, English under it — both columns import ✓
The textbook way — paste a dialogue or reader page as-is.
Download this sample file (my-weekend-interleaved-zh-first.txt)
3 · English line, Chinese under it — both columns import ✓
Same idea, opposite order. The app votes on the dominant order and pairs correctly — you don't choose anything.
Download this sample file (my-weekend-english-first.txt)
4 · Chinese only — imports, English column stays empty ✓
Song lyrics, a WeChat message, a story with no translation. Add English later with ✨ Add English.
Download this sample file (my-weekend-chinese-only.txt)
5 · English only — can't import as-is ✗ → ✨ Translate to Chinese
A lesson needs Chinese to read. For English-only text the preview offers ✨ Translate to Chinese (AI key),
which converts it into Chinese lines first — then it's a normal import.
Only have English? The preview offers ✨ Translate to Chinese, and a Chinese-only text can gain ✨ Add English the same way (AI key needed). And if a text file from an older Chinese app opens as garbage characters (乱码) elsewhere — don't worry, the app recognizes that old format and reads it correctly. Re-importing the same text warns you first; files over 200 lines import their first 200. Each import can have a title, a description, and a cover picture — and the ✎ button reopens the editor anytime.
Inside a lesson
Reading works like the rest of the app: tap any word for its pinyin and meaning, and new words quietly enter your flashcard deck the first time you open a lesson. ▶ plays one line; the play bar reads the whole lesson aloud and highlights each line as it goes. Rate a lesson with stars after reading, and on AI-generated and imported lessons the cover picture is editable — the same ⬆️ / ↻ design as Stories and Talks.
When a line's spoken tones differ from the dictionary (tone sandhi — 你好 is written nǐ hǎo, said ní hǎo), the reader shows both: dictionary pinyin (green) over spoken pinyin (blue, changed syllables in red). Settings → Reading display → Pinyin display has four modes: Both rows, Spoken only, Dictionary only, or the Smart single row — spoken pinyin where tones change, dictionary pinyin everywhere else, so every line keeps exactly one row. The colors never change in any mode.
Reading is fully offline: the lesson library, imports, word look-ups, audio playback, and card integration all work with no connection. Only the four AI Generate options and the ✨ translate helpers ever need the internet.
Flashcards — how review adapts →
Remember — the memory palace →