Learning Paths
Chinese Learning Path
A structured journey from first concepts to advanced usage. Follow the stages in order, or jump to the topic you need.
45
45 topics
45
45 topics
36
36 topics
Foundations
Start here. These concepts form the bedrock of the language.
Adjectives
How adjectives modify nouns in Spanish, English and Chinese.
Learn →Adverbs
How adverbs modify verbs, adjectives and other adverbs in Spanish, English and Chinese.
Learn →Articles
How definite and indefinite articles work in Spanish, English and Chinese.
Learn →Classifiers
How classifiers (measure words) work in Chinese, compared to articles and gender in Spanish and English.
Learn →Making Comparisons
How to compare things in Spanish, English and Chinese.
Learn →Complement Clauses
How clauses function as subjects, objects, and complements in Spanish, English and Chinese.
Learn →Conjunctions
How conjunctions connect clauses and ideas in Spanish, English and Chinese.
Learn →Consonants
The consonant inventories and phonotactic patterns of Spanish, English and Chinese.
Learn →Copula & Linking Verbs
How Spanish, English and Chinese link subjects to predicates that are not actions.
Learn →Correlative Constructions
How paired elements work together in comparative, conditional, and alternative structures across Spanish, English and Chinese.
Learn →Demonstratives
How demonstrative pronouns and adjectives work in Spanish, English and Chinese.
Learn →Determiners
How Spanish, English and Chinese use words that specify or quantify nouns.
Learn →Direct and Indirect Objects
The distinction between Spanish direct and indirect objects, their pronouns, and how English and Chinese express equivalent relationships.
Learn →Exclamations
How surprise, admiration, anger and intensity are expressed in Spanish, English and Chinese.
Learn →Existence & Location
How existence, presence and location are expressed in Spanish, English and Chinese.
Learn →Formal vs Informal Register
How politeness, formality and social distance are encoded in Spanish, English and Chinese.
Learn →Future Forms
Learn how to express the future in English (will, going to, present continuous), Spanish (futuro simple, ir a + infinitivo), and Chinese (会, 要, 将).
Learn →Grammatical Gender
How grammatical gender works in Spanish, English and Chinese.
Learn →Grammatical Case
How Spanish, English and Chinese mark the grammatical role of nouns and pronouns through case.
Learn →Grammaticalization
How lexical words become grammatical markers in Spanish, English and Chinese.
Learn →Imperatives
How commands, requests and instructions are formed in Spanish, English and Chinese.
Learn →Interjections
Learn how Interjecciones works in Spanish, English and Chinese.
Learn →Measure Words
How units, containers and portions are expressed in Spanish, English and Chinese.
Learn →Modals
How modal verbs express possibility, obligation, permission and ability in Spanish, English and Chinese.
Learn →Negation
How sentences are negated in Spanish, English and Chinese.
Learn →Nouns
How Spanish, English and Chinese form and use nouns: countability, gender, proper vs common, and abstract vs concrete.
Learn →Numbers & Counting
How cardinal and ordinal numbers work in Spanish, English and Chinese.
Learn →Orthography
The visual representation of language in writing across Spanish, English and Chinese.
Learn →Phonology
The sound systems of Spanish, English and Chinese: consonants, vowels, syllable structure, and phonotactics.
Learn →Plurals
How nouns form their plural in Spanish, English and Chinese.
Learn →Prepositions
How prepositions work in Spanish, English and Chinese.
Learn →Preterite vs Imperfect
The distinction between Spanish past tenses and how English and Chinese express completed versus ongoing past actions.
Learn →Prohibitives & Negative Commands
How languages express commands not to do something in Spanish, English and Chinese.
Learn →Pronouns
How personal, possessive, and demonstrative pronouns work in Spanish, English and Chinese.
Learn →Punctuation
How Spanish, English and Chinese use marks to structure written text.
Learn →Questions
How yes/no and wh-questions are formed in Spanish, English and Chinese.
Learn →Register & Formality
How Spanish, English and Chinese vary language according to social context.
Learn →Ser vs Estar
The fundamental distinction between Spanish copulative verbs and how English and Chinese handle equivalent meanings.
Learn →Spelling & Writing Systems
How Spanish, English and Chinese represent language in writing.
Learn →Superlatives
How Spanish, English and Chinese express the highest degree of comparison.
Learn →Verb Tenses
How past, present and future are expressed in Spanish, English and Chinese.
Learn →Vocative & Direct Address
How languages directly address people, get attention, and use names in Spanish, English and Chinese.
Learn →Vowels
The vowel inventories and phonological patterns of Spanish, English and Chinese.
Learn →Word Order
How sentences are structured in Spanish, English and Chinese.
Learn →Yes-No Questions
Learn how Preguntas Sí/No works in Spanish, English and Chinese.
Learn →Building Blocks
Expand your range. Connect ideas and express more nuance.
Adjective Order
How multiple adjectives are sequenced before nouns in Spanish, English and Chinese.
Learn →Aspect
How grammatical aspect expresses whether an action is completed, ongoing, habitual, or repeated in Spanish, English and Chinese.
Learn →Concord & Agreement
How subjects agree with verbs, and modifiers agree with nouns in Spanish, English and Chinese.
Learn →Conditional Mood
How languages express hypothetical, counterfactual, and uncertain situations in Spanish, English and Chinese.
Learn →Wishes & Hypotheticals
How unreal, wished-for, and imagined situations are expressed in Spanish, English and Chinese.
Learn →Conditionals
How if-clauses express hypothetical, probable, and impossible situations in Spanish, English and Chinese.
Learn →Coordination
How Spanish, English and Chinese join words, phrases, and clauses with conjunctions.
Learn →Ellipsis & Dropping
How subjects, objects and verbs are omitted in Spanish, English and Chinese.
Learn →Finite vs Non-Finite Verbs
How Spanish, English and Chinese distinguish verbs that carry tense from those that do not.
Learn →Focus
How Spanish, English and Chinese mark the most important information in a sentence.
Learn →Infinitives
How infinitive forms work in Spanish, English, and Chinese.
Learn →Inversion & Fronting
How word order is reversed or rearranged for emphasis in Spanish, English and Chinese.
Learn →Light Verbs
How common verbs combine with nouns to create verbal meaning in Spanish, English and Chinese.
Learn →Morphemes
How Spanish, English and Chinese build words from the smallest meaningful units.
Learn →Nominalization
How verbs and adjectives become nouns in Spanish, English and Chinese.
Learn →Participles
How present and past participles work in Spanish, English, and Chinese.
Learn →Particles
How Chinese particles express aspect, mood and tone, compared to verb conjugation in Spanish and auxiliaries in English.
Learn →Partitive & Quantitative Expressions
How languages express a part of a whole in Spanish, English and Chinese.
Learn →Passive Voice
How the passive voice is formed and used in Spanish, English and Chinese.
Learn →Phrasal Verbs
How English verb-particle combinations contrast with Spanish and Chinese verb constructions.
Learn →Por vs Para
The distinction between Spanish prepositions por and para and how English and Chinese express equivalent semantic relationships.
Learn →Possession
How ownership and relationships are expressed in Spanish, English and Chinese.
Learn →Predication
How Spanish, English and Chinese structure predicates around verbs, adjectives, and nouns.
Learn →Pro-Drop
How Spanish, English and Chinese omit subject pronouns in finite clauses.
Learn →Pro-Verbs & Verb Substitution
How languages substitute for a repeated or understood verb phrase in Spanish, English and Chinese.
Learn →Quantifiers
How quantity and scope are expressed in Spanish, English and Chinese.
Learn →Question Tags & Echo Responses
How speakers seek confirmation, express doubt, or echo statements in Spanish, English and Chinese.
Learn →Reciprocal Constructions
How mutual actions are expressed in Spanish, English and Chinese.
Learn →Reflexive Verbs
How reflexive verbs express actions done to oneself in Spanish, English and Chinese.
Learn →Relative Clauses
How relative clauses modify nouns in Spanish, English and Chinese.
Learn →Relative Time Expressions
Learn how Expresiones de Tiempo Relativo works in Spanish, English and Chinese.
Learn →Reported Speech
How direct speech is converted to indirect speech in Spanish, English and Chinese.
Learn →Result Clauses
How to express consequences and degrees in Spanish, English and Chinese.
Learn →Serial Verb Constructions
How multiple verbs combine in a single clause in Spanish, English and Chinese.
Learn →Subjunctive Mood
Learn how Modo Subjuntivo works in Spanish, English and Chinese.
Learn →Subordination
How Spanish, English and Chinese embed clauses within larger structures.
Learn →Syntax & Constituents
How Spanish, English and Chinese organize words into phrases, clauses, and sentences.
Learn →Temporal Clauses
How time relationships are expressed in subordinate clauses in Spanish, English and Chinese.
Learn →Time & Dates
How to express time, days, months, years and duration in Spanish, English and Chinese.
Learn →Topic-Comment Structure
How information is organized into topic and comment in Spanish, English and Chinese.
Learn →Topic vs Subject Prominence
How Spanish, English and Chinese organize sentences around topics or subjects.
Learn →Transitivity & Argument Structure
How verbs take objects, drop them, or shift between transitive and intransitive uses in Spanish, English and Chinese.
Learn →Valency & Argument Structure
How Spanish, English and Chinese distinguish transitive, intransitive, and ditransitive verbs.
Learn →Verb Complementation
What verbs require infinitives, gerunds, or clauses as objects in Spanish, English and Chinese.
Learn →Word Formation
How new words are created through affixation, compounding, and conversion in Spanish, English and Chinese.
Learn →Mastery
Refine your command. Handle subtle distinctions and complex structures.
Adjuncts
How Spanish, English and Chinese add optional information about time, place, manner, and reason.
Learn →Anaphora
How Spanish, English and Chinese refer back to previously mentioned entities.
Learn →Apposition
How nouns are placed next to each other for identification or clarification in Spanish, English and Chinese.
Learn →Binding & Reflexivity
How Spanish, English and Chinese constrain the relationship between pronouns and their antecedents.
Learn →Causative Constructions
How to express 'making someone do something' or 'having something done' in Spanish, English and Chinese.
Learn →Emphasis & Cleft Sentences
How to emphasize specific parts of a sentence in Spanish, English and Chinese.
Learn →Clitics & Pronoun Placement
How unstressed pronouns attach to verbs in Spanish, English and Chinese.
Learn →Code-Switching & Borrowing
How speakers alternate between Spanish, English and Chinese in multilingual contexts.
Learn →Compounding
How words are combined to form new lexical items in Spanish, English and Chinese.
Learn →Concessive Clauses
How languages express that something is true despite contrary expectations in Spanish, English and Chinese.
Learn →Dative Shift & Indirect Objects
How objects are reordered when an indirect object is present in Spanish, English and Chinese.
Learn →Deixis
How languages point to people, places and times relative to the speaker in Spanish, English and Chinese.
Learn →Dialects & Variation
Regional and social dialect variation across Spanish, English and Chinese.
Learn →Directional Verbs
How movement, direction and path are expressed in Spanish, English and Chinese.
Learn →Discourse Connectors
How ideas are linked across sentences and paragraphs in Spanish, English and Chinese.
Learn →Double Negation
How multiple negatives interact in Spanish, English and Chinese.
Learn →Equatives
How Spanish, English and Chinese express equality or similarity between entities.
Learn →Etymology
The origins and historical development of words in Spanish, English and Chinese.
Learn →Evidentiality
How speakers mark the source of their information in Spanish, English and Chinese.
Learn →Existential Constructions
How languages express that something exists or is present in Spanish, English and Chinese.
Learn →False Friends
How cognates and similar-looking words can mislead learners across Spanish, English and Chinese.
Learn →Hedges & Mitigation
How speakers soften statements, express uncertainty, and avoid commitment in Spanish, English and Chinese.
Learn →Honorifics & Social Register
How respect, hierarchy and social distance are encoded in grammar in Spanish, English and Chinese.
Learn →Idiomatic Phrases
Common idiomatic expressions that don't translate literally across Spanish, English and Chinese.
Learn →Impersonal Constructions
How languages express actions without a specific agent in Spanish, English and Chinese.
Learn →Indirect Questions
How yes/no and wh-questions are embedded as complements in Spanish, English and Chinese.
Learn →Intonation & Sentence Melody
How pitch and tone convey meaning in statements, questions, and emphasis in Spanish, English and Chinese.
Learn →Loanwords & Borrowing
How Spanish, English and Chinese adopt and adapt words from other languages.
Learn →Mood
How grammatical mood (indicative, subjunctive, imperative, conditional) works in Spanish, English, and Chinese.
Learn →Sounds & Interjections
How sounds, interjections and expressive words work in Spanish, English and Chinese.
Learn →Reduplication
Learn how Reduplicación works in Spanish, English and Chinese.
Learn →Semantic Roles
How Spanish, English and Chinese encode who does what to whom in a sentence.
Learn →Sentence-Final Particles
How Spanish, English and Chinese mark sentence tone, attitude and illocutionary force at the end of utterances.
Learn →Sentence Types
How Spanish, English and Chinese form declarative, interrogative, imperative, and exclamatory sentences.
Learn →Speech Acts
How Spanish, English and Chinese perform actions through language — promising, requesting, apologizing, and more.
Learn →Wh-Movement
How Spanish, English and Chinese form questions by moving or placing wh-words.
Learn →