The Chinese character app for iPhone & Android

Chinese characters that stick. Lessons that add up.

Haniverse gives every character a short, vivid story, so it’s easy to recall, spot and write. And it never teaches anything before its parts: each lesson, down to your first pinyin tone, is made from what you’ve already learned.

Download on theApp StoreGet it onGoogle Play

Free to start · Simplified & Traditional · HSK 1 and up

A story for every character

Strange shapes become scenes you won’t forget.

Haniverse gives every stroke and component a simple name, then strings those names into a short scene around the character’s meaning. Picture the scene, and the meaning, the shape and even the strokes come back with it.

  • Remember

    Recall the scene, recall the meaning.

    Picture a lollipop: a stick丨 you put in your mouth口 to get to the center.

    There’s no drilling 中 as “center”: you see the lollipop, and the meaning comes with it.

  • Recognize

    Lookalikes stop being a coin flip.

    One can only blame oneself if drip coffee gets in one’s eye目.

    自 is 目 with one more stroke on top. Its story says what that stroke is: the drip.

  • Write

    The story spells out the strokes.

    A powerful boxer𠃌 needs power in order to throw丿 their opponent out of the ring.

    Single strokes have names too. The story names both strokes of 力 in the order you write them.

Lessons that build

Nothing shows up before its parts do.

Haniverse orders its lessons so each new character is made only from pieces you’ve already learned. Every step is a small one, and you spend it combining what you know instead of memorizing yet another shape from scratch.

岸 HSK 6

“Shore” is an HSK 6 character, yet it closes your very first level. By lesson 20 it’s only three things you already know: mountain, cliff and dry.

Level 1 · Strokes, components and primitives

From one stroke to 岸 in twenty lessons

  1. Lesson 3
  2. Lesson 4
  3. Lesson 9
  4. Lesson 11
  5. Lesson 16
  6. Lesson 20

    Picture Han on a mountain山 cliff厂, sitting on dry干 land and admiring the shore far below.

Pinyin from zero

Even the sounds start from scratch.

No wall of syllable charts on day one. Pinyin lessons teach the sounds of characters you already know, adding a final, an initial or a tone at a time. A reading stays locked until you’ve learned every sound in it.

  1. Step 1

    Level 1 character

    岸àn

    One final, one tone

    Your first syllable is a lone final with the falling tone, said like an exclamation: àn ≈ “an!” as in announcer.

    • Final -an
    • Falling tone

  2. Step 2

    Level 1 character

    干gàn

    Add an initial

    Then a consonant joins in front. Many initials sound close to English, like g- as in gun.

    • Initial g-

  3. Step 3

    Level 1 character

    干gān

    Change the tone

    The same syllable with the high tone means something else: gàn is “to do”, gān is “dry”.

    • High tone

  4. Step 4

    Level 1 character

    山shān

    Meet sh-

    Two letters, one sound: sh- as in shirt, taught alongside ch- and zh-.

    • Initial sh-

The first pinyin levels, one layer each:

  1. 1Initials, finals and tones
  2. 2The final -i
  3. 3The final -e and the neutral tone
  4. 4Finals -ang, -iang and -uang
  5. 5The rising tone
  6. 6Finals -ong and -iong
  7. 7The final -iu

Inside the app

From first stroke to lasting recall.

Every screen below is the real app, captured on iPhone and Android.

  1. A new-character lesson for 好 in Haniverse on iPhone, with its stroke-order animation

    01

    Meet a character

    Watch each new character write itself, stroke by stroke.

  2. A Haniverse lesson on Android explaining that 明 (bright) is built from 日 sun and 月 moon

    02

    See why it looks that way

    Its parts, their sounds and a story that ties them together.

  3. The stroke order of 明 on a practice grid in Haniverse on iPhone

    03

    Write it properly

    Step through the stroke order on a practice grid.

  4. A Haniverse review on Android revealing 三 (three) with Again, Hard, Good and Easy buttons

    04

    Remember it for good

    Reviews come back right before you’d forget, scheduled by FSRS.

  5. Browsing characters by HSK level in Haniverse on iPhone

    05

    Follow a real curriculum

    Work through levels where every new character is made of pieces you know.

Questions

Good to know before you download.

Is Haniverse free?

Yes, to start. The free tier includes every lesson up to roughly HSK 1, reviews for everything you add, and the full character reference. Premium unlocks the lessons beyond that.

I’m a complete beginner. Is Haniverse for me?

Yes. Level 1 starts with single strokes, and your first pinyin lesson starts with one sound and one tone. No lesson expects anything an earlier lesson didn’t teach you.

Do I have to memorize the stories?

No. A story is there to make a character stick while it’s new, and once you know the character you won’t need it. If a different picture works better for you, every character has room for your own notes.

Simplified or traditional?

Both. Pick simplified or traditional characters, switch any time, and see how the two forms relate.

What makes the reviews different?

Haniverse schedules meaning, pronunciation and word reviews separately with FSRS, a modern spaced-repetition algorithm. Knowing what a character means never hides that you’ve forgotten how to say it.

Does my progress sync between devices?

Yes. Sign in on any iPhone or Android phone and your cards and review history come with you.

Get Haniverse

Your first story is a minute away.

Start with a single stroke and build from there. Free to start on iPhone and Android, with your progress synced between devices.

Download on theApp StoreGet it onGoogle Play
A Haniverse lesson on Android explaining that 明 (bright) is built from 日 sun and 月 moon
Haniverse search results on iPhone for “water”, with tone-colored pinyin and meanings