中文 Literacy Speedrun II: Character Cyclotron • Hacker News Board

Re: 中文 Literacy Speedrun II: Character Cyclotron

#31

Post by pioyi » Fri, Apr 17, 2026, 3:33 PM UTC

maenbalja wrote: post #13

I liked the 10% @@@ example, demonstrated their point pretty well. Also for anyone who speaks or is currently learning Chinese... I've been working on a multiplayer CJK word game that shares a similar efficient brute force style of learning to the author's approach (although presented via gameplay instead of tooling). Every turn you get a random character and must type in a word that contains the char in ANY position…

Hahahhaha you are everywhere!

I remember learning about your game in a mandarin forum. Thanks for making it, it's very cool!

Re: 中文 Literacy Speedrun II: Character Cyclotron

#32

Post by Liftyee » Fri, Apr 17, 2026, 3:40 PM UTC

I can speak Chinese fluently but I need to improve my reading hugely. This sounds like exactly my usecase. I would actually be willing to pay for this (though less certainly for a subscription, preferably Pleco-like one-time fee - even if larger).

Re: 中文 Literacy Speedrun II: Character Cyclotron

#33

Post by vunderba » Fri, Apr 17, 2026, 4:25 PM UTC

kdheiwns wrote: post #5

wren6991 wrote: post #3

> I decided to go against the grain of the near-universal advice to "learn to read by reading". ...Why? That advice is universal for a reason. The side adventure with Claude Code strikes me as a distraction from the fact that there is a hard thing you want to do but are avoiding because it's hard.

This is a hilariously common thing with studiers of Asian languages. There are countless posts with people spending years, even more than a decade, just trying to memorize every single kanji and how to write it before even beginning vocabulary or basic grammar, then lamenting how difficult the language is and how they can't pass kindergarten level tests. So then they spend loads of money on apps, make custom tools, a…

Lived in Taiwan for years while studying traditional Chinese. This is spot-on. There’s this bizarre almost Pokémon level obsession (gotta catch'em all!) among foreign language learners with a STEM background where they fixate on amassing huge numbers of “memorized words.” Learning words in isolation is exactly what you don’t want to do, you need to see them in their context.

It’s like thinking you can get good at chess by just memorizing how each piece moves. You need the board, the surrounding "context", and not just study in isolation.

Re: 中文 Literacy Speedrun II: Character Cyclotron

#34

Post by conjuredsp » Fri, Apr 17, 2026, 4:37 PM UTC

The hack Chinese app is pretty slick. I really wish I had this when I was taking Chinese in college.

Re: 中文 Literacy Speedrun II: Character Cyclotron

#35

Post by maenbalja » Fri, Apr 17, 2026, 4:41 PM UTC

pioyi wrote: post #31

maenbalja wrote: post #13

I liked the 10% @@@ example, demonstrated their point pretty well. Also for anyone who speaks or is currently learning Chinese... I've been working on a multiplayer CJK word game that shares a similar efficient brute force style of learning to the author's approach (although presented via gameplay instead of tooling). Every turn you get a random character and must type in a word that contains the char in ANY position…

Hahahhaha you are everywhere! I remember learning about your game in a mandarin forum. Thanks for making it, it's very cool!

haha nice to meet you here too, thanks for enjoying it!

Re: 中文 Literacy Speedrun II: Character Cyclotron

#36

Post by leo150 » Fri, Apr 17, 2026, 5:03 PM UTC

I’ve switched from Duolingo to Immersive Chinese: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/immersive-chinese/id1451785130 It literally starts with wǒ and builds on top of the previously learned vocab

Re: 中文 Literacy Speedrun II: Character Cyclotron

#37

Post by RedShift1 » Fri, Apr 17, 2026, 5:37 PM UTC

leo150 wrote: post #36

I’ve switched from Duolingo to Immersive Chinese: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/immersive-chinese/id1451785130 It literally starts with wǒ and builds on top of the previously learned vocab

Anything similar to that for Japanese?

Re: 中文 Literacy Speedrun II: Character Cyclotron

#38

Post by comboy » Fri, Apr 17, 2026, 6:04 PM UTC

rockluck wrote: post #29

comboy wrote: post #23

Great minds think alike :D https://hanzirama.com/character/%E5%AD%A6 It is also allowing me to see all relevant associations easily when revealing the card in built in SRS, you add cards to SRS as you browse, so they are related to what you already know / currently exploring. Mind you, all data visible is collected from different reputable available sources. When you click "explain" there's a clearly marked LLM expla…

this looks incredible and exactly like something i've been wanting. is there the same amount of depth for the 9k+ characters? if this is open source, id love to build on it;i was wandering if op had posted his on github.

Only about 5K explanations now I'm still trying to polish the pipeline before covering more. Due to all these verification and associated regenerations the cost is quite high.

It's not opon source but it is completely free. Open sourcing is on the table but currently it would be additional work and distraction. Just licenses seem like a headache, from a quick poke even when ok for use on non-commercial data redistributing may not be ok. So not any time soon, but if you are working on something similar I can at least share detailed datasources, finding good ones was not easy and LLM integrate them fast.

Re: 中文 Literacy Speedrun II: Character Cyclotron

#39

Post by __patchbit__ » Fri, Apr 17, 2026, 6:21 PM UTC

kdheiwns wrote: post #5

wren6991 wrote: post #3

> I decided to go against the grain of the near-universal advice to "learn to read by reading". ...Why? That advice is universal for a reason. The side adventure with Claude Code strikes me as a distraction from the fact that there is a hard thing you want to do but are avoiding because it's hard.

This is a hilariously common thing with studiers of Asian languages. There are countless posts with people spending years, even more than a decade, just trying to memorize every single kanji and how to write it before even beginning vocabulary or basic grammar, then lamenting how difficult the language is and how they can't pass kindergarten level tests. So then they spend loads of money on apps, make custom tools, a…

The polyglot og Chaz Freeman is interviewed on the CGTN YouTube channel and has amusing thumbnail sketches on his language learning journey.

Re: 中文 Literacy Speedrun II: Character Cyclotron

#40

Post by fc417fc802 » Fri, Apr 17, 2026, 8:13 PM UTC

comboy wrote: post #38

rockluck wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

this looks incredible and exactly like something i've been wanting. is there the same amount of depth for the 9k+ characters? if this is open source, id love to build on it;i was wandering if op had posted his on github.

Only about 5K explanations now I'm still trying to polish the pipeline before covering more. Due to all these verification and associated regenerations the cost is quite high. It's not opon source but it is completely free. Open sourcing is on the table but currently it would be additional work and distraction. Just licenses seem like a headache, from a quick poke even when ok for use on non-commercial data redistrib…

> even when ok for use on non-commercial data redistributing may not be ok.

What do you mean by that? Is this relating to the LLMs or the datasets used as inputs or something else?