No Chinese → able to get through a trip 24 steps 4 weeks at 15–20 min/day

Ready for a trip to China in 30 days

You have a departure date. This is what to do with the weeks before it — and what to skip.

What you can do at the end

Pay, take a taxi, check into a hotel, order a meal, read the key characters on a menu and ask for help — in Chinese, without looking it up.

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China Trip Ready — complete

Pay, take a taxi, check into a hotel, order a meal, read the key characters on a menu and ask for help — in Chinese, without looking it up.

Pick your next path

Week 1 — sounds and numbers

The two things everything else sits on. Do not skip to the phrases.

What pinyin actually is
Five minutes of context. Pinyin is a pronunciation system, not an alphabet — and it is how you will read every phrase from here on.
The interactive pinyin chart
Click through the sounds. You are not memorising it — you are learning what the letters mean.
Tone Trainer
Fifteen minutes here does more for being understood than a hundred phrases do.
Numbers 1–100
Prices, platforms, room numbers, how many nights. The single most useful vocabulary on a trip.
Number & Date Quiz
Recognising a spoken price is a different skill from saying one. Drill it now.
The 30 phrases you actually need
Read it once. You will come back to it — this is the short list everything else supports.

Week 2 — the four things that break

Payment, taxis, hotels, food. In that order, because that is the order they hurt.

Paying and mobile payment
Set up Alipay or WeChat Pay this week, not at the airport — verification needs your home phone number.
Taxis and ride-hailing
Learn 师傅，去这里 and 请打表, then make your address card.
Make your address card
Your hotel, in characters, at a size a driver can read. Two minutes, and you will use it daily.
Hotel check-in
The deposit and the passport registration are the two surprises. Meet them here rather than at 11pm.
Ordering in a restaurant
服务员, 这个, 不要辣, 买单. Four words and you can eat anywhere.
Airport and immigration
Four questions, four short answers. Learn to recognise them and the arrivals hall stops being an event.

Week 3 — reading, and when things go wrong

The characters worth knowing, and the page you hope not to need.

Reading a Chinese menu
Sixty characters make most of a menu readable. This is the highest-value reading you will ever do for a trip.
Menu Decoder
Ten minutes of play and 炒 蒸 烤 辣 stop being decoration.
Pharmacy and emergencies
Read it once, then write your allergies in Chinese on your phone. That is the whole homework.
Shopping and bargaining
Where haggling is expected, where it is rude, and the number to counter with.
Bargaining Simulator
Find out what walking away is worth before you try it on a real stall.
High-speed rail and the metro
Only if you are travelling between cities — but if you are, the gate closes five minutes early and nobody makes exceptions.

Week 4 — make it automatic

Knowing a phrase and finding it in three seconds are different skills.

Travel Survival Sprint
Play it every day this week. Speed is the whole point.
Airport Roleplay
Say the answers out loud. Reading them silently does not transfer.
Speaking Practice
Ten minutes of saying real words aloud and being told whether they landed.
Print your phrasebook
Tick three or four situations and print one sheet. It works at 3% battery.
Survival Phrases Quiz
A last check on the dozen phrases that cover most emergencies.
Can you travel in China without Chinese?
Read it the night before you fly. It is the checklist, and it will calm you down.

Or take a different route

Absolute beginner → HSK 1

Chinese from Zero

31 steps · 10–12 weeks at 20–30 min/day You have never studied Chinese. Start here and do these thirty things in this order.
Some pinyin already → HSK 1 pass

Pass HSK 1

23 steps · 6–8 weeks at 30 min/day You can read pinyin and know a few words. This is what is left between you and the certificate.
HSK 1 → HSK 2 pass

Pass HSK 2

22 steps · 8–10 weeks at 30 min/day You have HSK 1. This is exactly what HSK 2 adds — and nothing that it doesn't.
Any level — reading and handwriting

Characters from Zero

23 steps · 8 weeks at 20 min/day Characters are not thousands of unrelated pictures. They are a few hundred parts, recombined.

Not sure this is the right path?

Take the 5-question placement quiz — it recommends a path and a starting HSK level in about a minute. Or browse everything at once in the Pinyin Learning Center.