The rules, under a clock
Grammar Gauntlet
我在家学习汉语 or 我学习汉语在家? Fill the gap in a real sentence, or spot the mistake English speakers actually make. 224 questions drawn from 25 grammar points — and every answer tells you the rule. No clock? Try Fix My Sentence: repair a mistake with word tiles, then use the rule in a new sentence.
- Fill the gap — a real sentence appears with one word hidden and its English meaning underneath. Tap the right word out of four. Keys 1–4 work too.
- Pinyin under every word — the sentence and every answer carry their pinyin, except the hidden word: its reading would give the answer away, so it waits for the reveal. Tap 拼 or press P to read characters only; Expert hides it, along with the hint, on a shorter clock.
- Spot the mistake — two versions of one sentence, one of them the error English speakers actually write, with what the sentence means underneath where the site has a translation. Pick the correct one. Fewer points, less clock, because it is a two-way choice.
- New to Chinese? Start on Beginner — a longer clock that tightens slowly, and three 50/50s a round on fill-the-gap questions (H) that take two wrong answers away. The extra time and the 50/50 earn no speed bonus, so nobody's score is worth more for them.
- Beat the bar — a wrong answer or a timeout costs one of your 3 ❤. Every 4 correct in a row raises your multiplier (up to x5), and faster answers earn a speed bonus.
- Read the reveal — the clock stops here — every answer shows the full sentence with its pinyin, the rule that governs it, and a button to hear it. Nothing moves on until you press Next question (or Enter), so take as long as you like.
- Prefer no clock? Switch to Fix My Sentence above the board: 6 word-order mistakes to repair with tiles, each followed by a new sentence that uses the same rule.
- Clear rounds — 10 questions per round, and each round takes another 0.6 seconds off the clock.
Transcript
- Which one is right? Pick before the bar runs out.
- Number two.
- 我在家学习汉语 (wǒ zài jiā xuéxí Hànyǔ)
- 我在家学习汉语 (wǒ zài jiā xuéxí Hànyǔ)
- After every answer, the clock stops, and you get the rule.
- The place goes before the verb, where English puts it last.
- That was Spot the mistake. The other kind is Fill the gap.
- One word is missing, and the English is your clue.
- 我的手机呢？ (Wǒ de shǒujī ne?)
- 我的手机呢？ (Wǒ de shǒujī ne?)
- Where's my phone? The most useful question in any language.
- A wrong answer or a timeout costs a heart, and you only get three.
- Get four right in a row, and every answer counts double.
- Keep it going, all the way to times five.
- Here's a real run, on Beginner.
- Can you beat it?
- Beat the bar, keep your streak, and read the rule.
- Play Grammar Gauntlet free, at The Pure Language dot com.
Beat the bar, keep your streak, and read the rule.
Fix My Sentence
Six pairs, no clock. First repair a word-order mistake English speakers really make by moving its tiles. Then use the same rule to build a fresh sentence. The rule is explained after every answer.
- Repair. A sentence with one word in the wrong place. Tap a tile, then tap the gap where it belongs (or use the ← → keys), and press Check.
- Use the rule. A new sentence from the same lesson, scrambled. The first word stays put; put the rest in order.
- Read why. Each answer shows the corrected sentence with pinyin, its meaning and the rule, linked to the full lesson.
Two tries per sentence. Pinyin is on by default; switch it off for a harder read. The pattern hint is always there, and a sentence you solve with it is counted separately.
Six sentences fixed
The rules in this set
Keep going
Chinese has no conjugation, no agreement and no cases, which is why it is often called an easy grammar. What it does have is slots: a small set of particles and constructions that must go in exactly one place, and a word order that puts everything framing the verb in front of it. Those are the two ways a sentence goes wrong, so the game asks about them separately.
Fill the gap — do you know which word?
One word is hidden in a real example sentence and you get the English meaning as the clue. The four options are the words that genuinely compete for that slot — if the answer is 了, the other three are the markers you might reasonably reach for instead, never an unrelated noun. You cannot pass by elimination.
Pinyin sits under every word you can see, so the game works before you can read every character — but not under the gap. A romanised sentence contains the reading of the word you are being asked for, so the gap is blank in the pinyin row too, and each button shows its word's usual reading for that rule rather than its reading in this sentence.
Spot the mistake — do you know where it goes?
Two versions of one sentence, and one of them is the error English speakers actually write: place after the verb (我学习汉语在家), 了 stuck on a habit, 很 where the sentence needs 是, 的 where a verb needs 得.
These come from the mistake tables on the grammar pages, so each one arrives with the written explanation of why — which is the half that stops you repeating it.
1 of the library's pairs is deliberately left out: it depends on a scenario written beside only one of the two sentences, and once the pair is shuffled that is a clue rather than a question.
Two Questions, Then a Whole Run
A spot-the-mistake question first: 我学习汉语在家 or 我在家学习汉语, two tries at "I study Chinese at home." The second is right, wǒ zài jiā xuéxí Hànyǔ, and the reveal gives the rule: Place goes before the verb. English puts "at home" last, which is why 在家 at the end is the single most common English-speaker error in Chinese.
Then a gap: 我的手机 and a blank, with "Where's my phone?" as the clue. The buttons might read 吗 ma, 呢 ne, 吧 ba and 了 le. The answer is 呢, which asks where something is: 我的手机呢？ Wǒ de shǒujī ne?
A wrong answer or a timeout costs one of your three hearts, and four right in a row raise the multiplier, up to x5. New to Chinese? Pick Beginner for a longer clock and three 50/50s a round, then press Start Game. Every rule you miss links to its write-up in the grammar library.
Every question in the game is built from one of these, and every answer links back to it. Levels follow the CEFR bands the grammar library already teaches to, so "Advanced" here means the constructions that arrive around B1 — not harder vocabulary.
A1Beginner — 9 rules
- Word order — Subject + Verb + Object
- 是 sentences and 很 with adjectives
- 的 for possession and description
- 不 vs 没 — the two negations
- 吗 and 呢 questions
- Question words stay in place
- 有 — have and there is
- Where time words go
- 二 vs 两 — two ways to say two
A2Intermediate — 10 rules
- Measure words — the top 25
- 了 — completed action and change of state
- 在 — location and "-ing"
- A-not-A questions
- 比 comparisons
- 会 / 能 / 可以 — three ways to say "can"
- 想 / 要 / 需要 — want and need
- 一点儿 vs 有点儿
- Verb reduplication — 看看, 试试
- 快…了 / 要…了 — about to happen
B1–B2Advanced — 6 rules
- 的 vs 得 vs 地
- 把 sentences
- 被 passive
- Result complements — 完, 好, 到, 见
- Directional complements — 上来, 下去, 出来
- 是…的 — emphasising the details
Speaking gives you no time
You can work out where 了 goes given ten seconds and a table. In a conversation you have none of that, and a rule you can only reconstruct is a rule you do not have yet. The countdown is what converts a rule you know about into one you can use.
Your mistakes are predictable
English-speaking learners get the same handful of things wrong, in the same order, because they are the places Chinese and English disagree. Drilling the specific errors is faster than re-reading the rules, which is why half the questions here are mistakes rather than gaps.
Then build the sentence
Recognising the right form is half the job. Produce it from scratch in Sentence Builder, read it in context in the graded readers, or look up any pattern you meet in the grammar library.
Questions people ask
How does the Grammar Gauntlet work?
There are two question types. In Fill the gap, a real Chinese example sentence appears with one word hidden and its English translation underneath as the clue; you tap the right word out of four before the countdown bar empties. In Spot the mistake, two versions of one sentence appear and you pick the correct one. A right answer scores points plus a speed bonus, multiplied by your combo; a wrong answer or a timeout costs one of your three lives. After every answer the game shows the rule and links to the full write-up for that grammar point.
Why are the wrong options never random words?
Every wrong option comes from the same grammar point as the answer — the words that genuinely compete with it in that slot. If the answer is 了, the distractors are the other aspect and change markers, not an unrelated noun. Random distractors can be eliminated without knowing the rule, which teaches nothing, and picking them from a different grammar point risks offering a second answer that is also correct.
Where do the mistakes in Spot the mistake come from?
They are the classic learner errors documented on the grammar pages themselves — the sentences English speakers actually write. Putting place after the verb (我学习汉语在家 instead of 我在家学习汉语), attaching 了 to a habit, using 很 where the sentence needs 是, writing 的 where a verb needs 得. Each one ships with the authored explanation of why it is wrong, which is shown as soon as you answer.
Does the game show pinyin?
Yes. Every word of the sentence and every answer button carries its pinyin underneath, so you can play before you can read every character. The one reading left out is the hidden word's: it would give the answer away, so the gap is blank in the pinyin row too, and its reading appears with the answer in the reveal. Each button shows the word's usual reading for that grammar point rather than its reading in the sentence on screen, because a tone that only changes inside a sentence would point at the right button. Tap the 拼 button (or press P) to hide the pinyin and read characters only; Expert hides it for you.
What are the difficulty levels?
They follow the CEFR bands the grammar library already uses. Beginner is A1 — word order, 是 sentences, 不 and 没, 吗 and 呢 questions, measure words — with a longer clock and three 50/50s a round, neither of which earns a speed bonus. Intermediate is A2 — 了, 在 and progressive, 比 comparisons, 会/能/可以, verb reduplication. Advanced is B1-B2 — 的/得/地, the 把 and 被 constructions, result and directional complements, and 是…的. Mixed draws from all of them. Expert draws from all of them too, with no pinyin, no structure hint and a shorter clock; it scores exactly as the other levels do, and the leaderboard shows which level a run was played on.
What is Fix My Sentence?
An untimed mode on this page. Each of six pairs starts with a real word-order mistake from the grammar library, such as 我吃饭在家, dealt as word tiles in the wrong order; you move the tiles until the sentence is right. Then a new example sentence from the same lesson arrives scrambled, and you use the rule you just repaired to build it. Pinyin sits under every tile and can be switched off, a pattern hint is always available, and after each answer you see the corrected sentence, its meaning and the rule, linked to the full lesson. There is no clock, no score to post and no lives.
Is it free and does it need an account?
It is completely free with no sign-up. Scores, best results and per-rule accuracy are stored in your browser on this device only. Submitting a score to the leaderboard is optional and uses a nickname, never a real name or email.