Inkstone: Learn Chinese

Inkstone is a Chinese reading app built on the wisdom that China has passed down for generations.

Most reading apps write their own material for learners. Inkstone gives you classic Chinese wisdom: from fables & their idioms, philosophy, history, to Tang poems, and strange tales. Every piece comes from a real ancient text, and then retold in clear modern Chinese to match the level you can read.

Inkstone is built to guide you through every word, every phrase, and every sentence and its historical and philosophical context. A voice reads every line aloud and pinyin sits above every character. Tap any word to see what it means, hear it on its own, and read how the rest of the library uses it. Every sentence has an English translation a glance away. An "unpack the story" analysis is also paired with every story to provide further context and analysis.

You never have to leave the page to look anything up, we take care of it all for you.

WHAT YOU ACTUALLY READ

272 texts across twenty-four genres: fables, myths, poems, philosophy, histories, strange tales, and street talk. We ship 50+ handpicked stories on the 1st of every month.

Li Bai looking at moonlight and mistaking it for frost. Zhuangzi's frog at the bottom of the well, certain the sky is small. A scholar in a Tang ghost story who should not have opened that door.

The poems are the original text, character for character, from 唐诗三百首 and 全唐诗. The prose is retold in clear modern Chinese at a level you can read, and the source is always named. You'll know when you are in 聊斋志异 and when you are in 搜神记.

This curated collection consists of stories that lasted two thousand years. They're worth reading and analyzing, over and over again.

WHY THEY LASTED

Every story comes with an interpretation, what it means, how to use it in everyday life and other contexts, along with commentary on how scholars have argued about it over the centuries.

HOW WE GUIDE YOUR READING EXPERIENCE

• A female and male voice for every story. Each word and sentence translated and lighting up as you progress through the story.
• Slow the reading down, loop a line, or step through a story sentence by sentence
• Every word has its own recording in both voices, so you can hear individual words and phrases alone
• Beautiful background music to accompany your reading
• Four levels of pinyin, including a smart level that marks only the words above your grade
• Tap a word for its definitions, its other readings, and how often this book uses it
• An English translation for every sentence without having you leave the story
• Simplified and traditional characters supported
• Save a word and it comes back before you forget it
• Works offline. The whole library is stored locally on your phone. Audio is fetched when you open a story.
• No ads and no account required. You can optionally backup your progress.

LEARNING & PRACTICE

Our learning system is based on SRS. Save a word while you read and it'll come back on a schedule optimized for you to master its meaning quickly.

A STUDY OF YOUR OWN

Inkstone is built as a scholar's studio. You carve your own name seal, and it stamps the spine of every book you finish. Curios collect on the shelf as you read. The window beside your desk follows the hour of your real day. Everything grows as you collect and finish more stories.

Download Inkstone and start reading today.

The annual plan is $49.99 USD per year and opens with a 7-day free trial you can cancel any time before it ends. Monthly is $9.99 and starts billing straight away. Prices in your own currency are shown in the app before you confirm anything.

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