Original
Amedeo Chinese HSK 1: Listening More and Learning More Words
Abstract
Many learners abandon Chinese early, confronted by heavy memorization demands and fragmented study materials. Here we introduce Amedeo Chinese, an HSK 1 platform designed to address two central constraints in second-language acquisition: sustained listening practice at natural speech rates (approximately 3–6 syllables per second) and efficient vocabulary expansion. The official HSK 1 syllabus, published in November 2025,1 lists 300 words alphabetically. To improve their pedagogical usefulness, we reordered them by frequency using a corpus derived from 35 episodes of a Chinese television series, and added the 150 most useful high-frequency words absent from HSK 1, yielding a total of 450 words. Amedeo Chinese integrates sentence-based listening practice and focused vocabulary learning within a single guided environment. Lessons are organized around short texts, word lists, grammar notes and pronunciation support. Each sentence can be replayed, slowed down for beginners and explored word by word. Vocabulary is reinforced through an innovative bubble mode, first introduced in Hanzi Hunter2. As the learning rate depends critically on two factors—daily study time and the ability to sustain undivided attention—Amedeo Chinese was designed to support both by reducing distractions and structuring progress in small, cumulative steps. A controlled study across university students (years 1–3) and adult learners (ages 40–70+) will assess time to mastery per chapter (35–40 new words), retention after 1 and 4 weeks, daily study time, completion rates and learner satisfaction. Amedeo Chinese is freely available in both PDF and app versions3 and is currently offered in 21 languages.4
Link
Keywords
Amedeo Chinese, HSK 1, Mandarin Chinese, listening comprehension, vocabulary acquisition, spaced repetition, educational technology, self-directed study
1 中文水平考试 HSK 考试大纲 / Syllabus for the Chinese Proficiency Test, published by the Center for Language Education and Cooperation (CLEC), November 2025. Official distribution via chinesetest.cn / official HSK hosting .
2 https://amedeochinese.com/Abstracts/HanzHunter.htm
3 Amedeo Chinese contains no advertising or user tracking. Currently, even the Amazon print edition is sold at production cost, with no royalties for the author, the publishing house, or any other party. All app data are stored exclusively in the browser cache and cannot be transmitted to AmedeoChinese.com or to any third party.
4 Available for speakers of 21 languages—Arabic, Bengali, Dutch, English, French, German, Hindi, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Persian, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Tagalog, Thai, Turkish, Ukrainian, Urdu, and Vietnamese—together representing more than three billion native speakers worldwide.