babu chinese – The smart way to learn Chinese

With babu chinese, you learn simplified Chinese characters fast and start reading right away!

Our distinctive method, grounded in visual similarity and radicals, facilitates easy memorisation of characters.
Begin reading with WORDS, CHENGYU or READ. Our algorithm seamlessly aligns your reading material with the characters you’ve learned.
Enhance your understanding through our LISTEN, TONES, and WRITE (Android) features.
The spaced repetition system (SRS) ensures that you revisit your study material regularly, based on your settings.

babu is suited for all types of learners, from beginners to advanced students.
It can be used to study for a specific exam, course or glossary.

App guide

How to learn

We suggest you begin your learning journey with CHARACTERS and explore our unique method, based on radicals and visual similarity.
Once you’ve acquired some proficiency, open WORD, READ or CHENGYU to discover the new words, sentences and proverbs you can read. (Feel free to start from another learning feature if you prefer.)
Use TONES and WRITE (exclusive to Android) to refine your knowledge of characters.
Enhance your auditory skills with LISTEN.
With GAMES, keep reviewing with new learning activities to stay on top of your material. GAMES do not count for STATS.

How to select the material you want to study

You start by default with INTRO
Go to MATERIAL to select another level.
You need to have enough points OR to become a subscriber to the premium version (go to SHOP)

How to earn points and mooncakes (ad version only)

3 points for a correct answer, 1 point for an incorrect one.
When you have enough points, go to MATERIAL to purchase your preferred level and access it for 30 days.
Don’t let your mooncakes fall to zero.
Every day you don’t use babu, you lose 1 mooncake (you start with 8).
If you run out of mooncakes, you will lose your progress and level.

Switch to ad-free / Glossary

Ad-free, uninterrupted learning experience
No mooncakes, your progress will always be saved even if you don’t use the app
Unrestricted access to all levels for the ad-free version, to all levels and selected glossary for glossary subscribers.

Exams

Content is cumulative (by ex., HSK 4 is all material from HSK 1, 2, 3, 4)

If you don’t study a particular textbook or exam, why not start with our Most Frequent Chinese Characters series?

Textbooks

Finance, Medical, Legal glossaries

Custom

Leverage visual memory for CHARACTERS

In general, we memorise better what we perceive as organised and structured
Reading actively uses and engages our visual memory
We can leverage this to our advantage with Chinese characters, by taking into account the fact that most characters were created by using and re-purposing the same visual elements or ‘building blocks’ (see Chinese writing)
This is the case for radicals, by example: a radical is a specific visual element present in other characters, this grouping system is used in Chinese dictionaries to rank content.
With babu, you review by small groups of similar-looking characters.
This logic will reinforce your visual memory. By studying characters in a visually structured way, you will naturally improve your focus, deepen your retention, assimilate faster and better.

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