Hanzi Mosaic teaches Chinese characters the way they are made. Learn a few hundred pieces, build every character with your own hands, write each stroke, and watch what you know turn into a mosaic. All 3,088 HSK 3.0 characters, HSK 1 to 9, in simplified or traditional script.
日 sun + 月 moon = 明 bright
How Hanzi Mosaic works
Most Chinese characters are combinations of recurring components, often called radicals. Learn the pieces once and every new character is a short puzzle instead of a new picture to memorize.
Learn a character
Every character splits into the parts it is made of. Drag the pieces into place, watch them turn from pictures into strokes, and see the tile set. Pinch any character to take it apart again.
Each character comes with a memory story that explains its real structure: 休 (xiū, rest) is a person 亻 leaning against a tree 木. Pinyin, audio, HSK words and example sentences come with it.
Mystery Characters
Once you know the pieces, Mystery Characters hands you a character you have never studied and asks you to work it out: its meaning, or which sound it borrows from a phonetic component.
It is the moment hanzi stop being random and start making sense.
Handwriting
Trace each character with your finger or Apple Pencil, then write it from memory in reviews. Every stroke is checked for shape, direction and order, and you are told exactly what to fix.
Your mosaic
Every character you learn becomes a tile, glazed by the family of its main piece. Watch whole families light up, explore how pieces connect in the constellation view, and complete pictures of a wave and a mountain landscape made of characters you can read.
Everything in the app
An FSRS-style memory model tests meaning, pieces, reading and writing separately, so you review what you actually forget.
Pick a daily session length. New characters and reviews are balanced so reviews never pile up into a backlog.
The whole course in either script, traditional following the Taiwan standard. Switch any time and keep your progress.
Pinyin with tone marks on every character and word, a short tones guide before your first lesson, and every word read aloud.
Pick the HSK level you already know and those characters count as learned, or begin with your very first ones.
No account. Lessons, reviews and handwriting checks run on your iPhone or iPad, and your drawings never leave it.
Coverage
The course follows the HSK 3.0 syllabus published in 2025. Within each level, the most useful characters come first, and every piece is taught before the first character that uses it.
| Level | Characters | What it covers |
|---|---|---|
| HSK 1 | 246 | Beginner: numbers, family, everyday basics |
| HSK 2 | 125 | Elementary: daily routines, shopping, time |
| HSK 3 | 284 | Pre-intermediate: school, work, travel |
| HSK 4 | 441 | Intermediate: opinions, news, social topics |
| HSK 5 | 431 | Upper intermediate: articles and longer texts |
| HSK 6 | 413 | Advanced: abstract and professional topics |
| HSK 7–9 | 1,148 | Near-native: academic and literary Chinese |
| Total | 3,088 | The complete HSK 3.0 character list |
Why it works
Pricing
No account, no card
$39.99/year with a 3-day free trial, or $9.99/month
US prices; local prices vary. Subscriptions renew automatically and can be cancelled in your App Store account settings.
FAQ
Hanzi Mosaic is a Chinese character learning app for iPhone and iPad. Instead of memorizing each character as a separate drawing, you learn the few hundred pieces Chinese characters are built from, then assemble, write and review every character. Each character you learn becomes a tile in a mosaic that grows as you study.
All 3,088 characters of the HSK 3.0 syllabus published in 2025, from HSK 1 to HSK 7–9. They are built from 1,072 pieces and come with 5,700 HSK words and example sentences.
Yes. Every character is tagged with its HSK level and the course goes level by level: 246 characters at HSK 1, 125 at HSK 2, 284 at HSK 3, 441 at HSK 4, 431 at HSK 5, 413 at HSK 6 and 1,148 at HSK 7–9. Within a level, the most useful characters come first, and every piece is taught before the first character that uses it.
Yes. The whole course is available in traditional characters (Taiwan standard) with their own pieces, strokes, words and sentences. You choose simplified or traditional when you start and can switch any time in Settings; your progress carries over.
Yes. Every character and word shows pinyin with tone marks, every word and sentence is read aloud, and a short guide to pinyin and the four tones comes before your first lesson.
Flashcards treat each character as an unrelated picture to memorize. Hanzi Mosaic teaches the components (radicals and other recurring parts) first, so a new character like 明 (bright) is recognized as 日 (sun) + 月 (moon) rather than eight random strokes. Once you know the pieces, Mystery Characters asks you to work out the meaning or sound of characters you have never studied.
Yes. You trace each character with your finger or Apple Pencil, then write it from memory in reviews. Every stroke is checked for shape, direction and order, and the app tells you exactly what to fix. Handwriting in reviews can be turned off in settings.
Reviews use an FSRS-style memory model that tracks meaning, pieces, reading and writing as separate strengths, so you are tested on what you actually forget. You choose a 5, 10, 15 or 20 minute daily session, and the app balances new characters and reviews so reviews never pile up into a backlog.
Yes. When you start, pick the HSK level you already know and those characters count as learned, take the placement test, or begin with your very first characters.
Hanzi Mosaic is free to download, and the first 15 characters are free. Hanzi Mosaic Pro unlocks every character, piece, word and artwork for $9.99 per month or $39.99 per year in the US, and the yearly plan starts with a 3-day free trial. Prices vary by country.
Hanzi Mosaic runs on iPhone and iPad with iOS 26 or later, and supports Apple Pencil for handwriting on iPad. The interface is in English. There is no Android version yet.
No. There is no account, and lessons, reviews and handwriting checks all run on the device and work offline. Your progress and your handwriting stay on your iPhone or iPad.
Character and word lists come from the HSK 3.0 lists by krmanik (CC BY-SA 4.0); decompositions and stroke data from Make Me a Hanzi by Shaunak Kishore (LGPL-3.0, strokes under the Arphic Public License); meanings and word readings from CC-CEDICT (CC BY-SA 4.0); example sentences from Tatoeba (CC BY 2.0 FR); and frequencies from SUBTLEX-CH by Cai and Brysbaert (CC BY 4.0). Memory stories are written on top of this data.
Yes. Kanji Mosaic, by the same developer, teaches Japanese kanji with the same method, covering all 2,136 jōyō kanji from JLPT N5 to N1 plus hiragana and katakana.
Start where you are. Your first 15 characters are free.
