Ni Hao. We are Ben and Gina.
We are two digital nomads living in a self-built van. If you are interested to see our van, here are some photos 👉.
The idea for the WeHanzi was born while we travelled Europe between different car parks, maybe even outside of your house!
The reason we started this project was because Ben, just like many of you, struggled to learn Mandarin.
I remember when he first came back to Asia, his Mandarin was not good but he knew how to say one key word. “Yes!” In Mandarin that is pronounced “Duì”.
When we first visited my family, soemthing like this happened…
So in the end it turned out to be a bit of a disaster. Because he didn’t want to keep offending my family, he decided to really put a lot of effort into learning Mandarin. He found a lot of nice free resources online, but he still encountered many challenges.
But the people spoke so fast he couldn’t understand anything!
Yes! He could recognize the characters. Yes! He could understand the grammar points. But when they were combined together, he couldn’t understand what they meant at all.
However, in the end they, were more useful for something else…
Therefore, in then end, Ben who has 15 years experience as a full stack software developer and Gina, who has 7 years experience as a Mandarin teacher, decided to build this Mandarin graded reader app together. We started doing it as a side-project and gradually after three years, we finally finished the iOS version which has all the functions mentioned above as well as over 100 semi-comic stories.
Ben could start to understand when I was b*tching about him with my friends on the phone.
If you want to be able to understand what native speakers are saying about you, or if you:
Want to learn something that is useful (and you can say to people) straightaway
Want to learn things you will never find in a text book to surprise your native friends like the latest internet slang
Have a limited budget but want to access: reading, writing, listening, dictionary and flash cards in one app
Are a bit naughty, with good sense of humor (sometimes a bit dark).
Want to learn the secret of combining beginner characters into advanced usage
Like to read interesting unusual real-life and historical stories at a level you can manage
If you don't want to talk like a text book, but still want creative and structured content.
Want to learn how to talk 💩 in Mandarin
We are hoping it will turn into a fully supportive community. Since we are just a two-person team, there is still a lot to explore. For us, your ideas and thoughts matter. If you are a learner, we’d love to know how we can use technology to help you with studies.
If you live in Europe we would love to meet you! So far this year, we have run a mobile classroom on our van’s tatami, been shown around Dusseldorf by some passionate Mandarin teachers and even spent a whole evening eating hotpot and playing Mahjong in Belgium.
We publish our route on Instagram so if you would like to hang out, drop us a message and we will make it happen!
If you don’t want to miss out on the newest updates for our project and van life, you can sign up to our mailing list here.
Thank you for reading looking forward to hear or see you in person.
Lots of love,
Ben and Gina
Copyright WeHanzi all rights reserved.
