The Hanzi game

Hanzi is a Chinese-only game for practising how to write characters, not just read them.

How a round works

1. You see the source word as the prompt, with pinyin if the card has it.
2. Watch the stroke order - the character is animated stroke by stroke.
3. Now draw it! - you trace the character yourself with the mouse or your finger.
4. You get Nice! if you managed it in under 3 mistakes, or Keep practicing! if not.

That 3-mistake threshold is also what decides whether the item counts as correct for your vocabulary level. A hint appears automatically after two misses on a stroke, so you're never completely stuck.

For a word with several characters, one character is picked at random each time, shown as ? while you draw. Playing the same word again may ask for a different character.

Where it's available

Hanzi appears when:

• The deck's target language is Chinese, and
• The cards contain actual characters.

If a Chinese deck has no character cards, the game reports that rather than starting.

In Mix sessions, Hanzi is capped at about 20% of the cards and offers a Skip button, which counts as wrong.

Practising without a deck

There's also a standalone Hanzi Practice tool that works the same way but lets you type in any character - handy for a character you've just met and haven't made a card for yet. It needs no account.

The companion Hanzi to Pinyin Converter turns a block of Chinese text into pinyin, which is useful when preparing cards.

Pinyin display

Whether pinyin shows during games is controlled per language. Use the Pinyin toggle on the game chooser, or Display pinyin in your language settings. During a session you can also press P.