Chinese Summer Study Plan: Don't Lose Your Progress

The Summer Slide in Language Learning

Every Chinese teacher has seen it. Students leave in June speaking confidently, reading characters fluently, and building complex sentences. They return in September struggling to remember basic vocabulary, stumbling over tones they had mastered months ago, and staring blankly at characters they once wrote from memory. This phenomenon is called the summer slide, and it is one of the biggest obstacles to long-term Chinese language success.

Research on language attrition consistently shows that students who take a 10-12 week break from language study lose between 30-40% of their active vocabulary. A study published in the Modern Language Journal found that foreign language students who did not practice over summer required an average of 4-6 weeks of class time to return to their pre-summer proficiency level. That is nearly a quarter of the fall semester spent relearning material rather than advancing.

Chinese learners are especially vulnerable to summer learning loss for several reasons. First, Chinese characters are logographic -- they do not follow a phonetic alphabet. In Spanish or French, you can often guess the pronunciation of an unfamiliar word. In Chinese, if you forget the character, you have no fallback. Second, tonal memory requires regular auditory reinforcement. Without hearing and producing tones regularly, your tonal accuracy degrades faster than other language skills. Third, unlike Spanish or French, you are unlikely to encounter Chinese characters in your everyday English-language environment, so there is zero incidental exposure to maintain your recognition.

The forgetting curve, first described by psychologist Hermann Ebbinghaus, shows that without review, we forget approximately 50% of newly learned information within one day and up to 80% within a month. Over a 12-week summer break with no review, the compounding effect is devastating. Words that were in your active vocabulary shift to passive recognition, and words that were only weakly learned disappear entirely. The further you are in your Chinese studies, the more you stand to lose -- a Chinese 4 student who loses 35% of 1,000 words has lost 350 words, which can represent an entire semester of learning.

The impact extends beyond just vocabulary. Grammar patterns that were becoming automatic revert to requiring conscious effort. Listening comprehension -- which depends on fast, automatic word recognition -- drops sharply because you can no longer recognize words quickly enough to keep up with natural speech. Writing fluency suffers because you can no longer recall characters on demand. The cumulative effect is that returning students often feel like they have regressed an entire level, even though the underlying knowledge is still there, buried under layers of disuse.

But here is the encouraging news: the summer slide is almost entirely preventable. You do not need to study for hours every day. You do not need a tutor. You do not need to travel to China. All you need is a consistent, minimal daily review habit and the right tools. This guide will show you exactly how to set that up.

The 15-Minute Daily Minimum

If there is one takeaway from this entire article, let it be this: 15 minutes of daily spaced repetition review is enough to prevent summer vocabulary loss. Not 15 minutes of passive review, not 15 minutes of scrolling through a word list, but 15 minutes of active, algorithm-driven flashcard review where you are testing yourself on recall.

Why 15 minutes specifically? Research on spaced repetition systems shows that the optimal daily review session for vocabulary maintenance is between 10 and 20 minutes. Shorter than 10 minutes and you cannot cycle through enough cards to keep your review queue from growing out of control. Longer than 20 minutes and you start hitting diminishing returns -- your attention wanes, your accuracy drops, and you begin forming weak memories instead of strong ones. Fifteen minutes is the sweet spot where you can review 50-100 cards with high focus and attention.

The key principle is that consistency beats intensity. A student who reviews for 15 minutes every single day for 12 weeks (totaling 21 hours) will retain dramatically more vocabulary than a student who does three 7-hour cram sessions spread across the summer (also 21 hours). This is because memory consolidation happens during sleep after each study session. Daily study means 84 consolidation cycles. Three cram sessions means only 3. The math overwhelmingly favors the daily habit.

Here is what a typical 15-minute SRS session looks like in practice: you open HSKLord (or your preferred SRS tool), and the algorithm presents you with cards that are due for review based on your past performance. Cards you know well appear less frequently. Cards you struggle with appear more often. You see the Chinese character, try to recall the pinyin and meaning, then flip the card to check. You rate your confidence, and the algorithm adjusts the next review date accordingly. In 15 minutes, you can typically review 60-80 cards -- more than enough to keep your entire vocabulary fresh throughout the summer.

If you want to do more than just maintain, adding just 5-10 new words per day on top of your reviews will let you grow your vocabulary over summer. At 5 new words per day over 12 weeks, that is 420 new words -- equivalent to an entire semester of Chinese class. Students who do this return in the fall significantly ahead of their peers.

Your Summer Chinese Study Plan: Week by Week

This 12-week plan is designed for any student finishing a year of Chinese (Chinese 1 through Chinese 4 or AP Chinese). The daily SRS column is your non-negotiable 15 minutes. The extra activity column adds an optional but highly recommended 10 minutes of immersive practice. Adjust the specific topics and difficulty level to match your current proficiency.

Weeks 1-2: Stabilize. The first two weeks are about building the daily habit and making sure nothing slips through the cracks. Open your SRS app every morning and work through all due reviews. Your only goal is to hit zero due cards every day. For the extra activity, revisit your textbook audio dialogues -- this reconnects your ear to the rhythm of Mandarin and reinforces vocabulary in context. Do not add any new words yet. Focus entirely on retention.

Weeks 3-4: Strengthen. By now your daily review should feel routine. Turn your attention to weak spots. In HSKLord, look at cards with low accuracy or high lapse counts -- these are words you technically know but consistently struggle with. Spend extra time on these. For immersion, start watching a Chinese show with Chinese subtitles (or English subtitles if your level is lower). Even if you only catch a few words per episode, you are training your ear to parse natural speech patterns.

Weeks 5-6: Grow. Now that your existing vocabulary is stable, start adding new words. Five new words per day is a sustainable pace that will not overwhelm your review queue. Pick words from the next chapter of your textbook, from an HSK word list one level above your current level, or from vocabulary you encounter in your immersion activities. Pair this with graded reading -- simple Chinese texts at your level where you know 90-95% of the characters. Reading reinforces vocabulary in context and builds reading speed.

Weeks 7-8: Food & Culture. Theme-based study makes vocabulary more memorable because words are connected to real experiences. Spend these two weeks learning food and culture vocabulary. Cook a Chinese dish following a recipe with Chinese characters. Visit a Chinese restaurant and practice ordering in Mandarin. Learn the characters for common ingredients you see at an Asian grocery store. This kind of experiential learning creates strong memory anchors that textbook study alone cannot match.

Weeks 9-10: Travel & Directions. Switch your phone or maps app to Chinese for these two weeks. Learn vocabulary for directions (left, right, straight, turn), transportation (bus, subway, taxi, airport), and common travel phrases. Even if you are not traveling to China, navigating familiar routes with Chinese-language directions is a powerful way to connect abstract vocabulary to concrete spatial memory. This is also excellent preparation for the travel and transportation theme that appears on the AP Chinese exam.

Weeks 11-12: Preview & Prepare. The final two weeks are about getting a head start on next semester. If you know which textbook chapter your class will start with in the fall, begin learning that vocabulary now. Preview the grammar patterns. Read the dialogues. When school starts, you will be the student who already knows the first chapter's vocabulary, which frees up mental bandwidth to focus on listening, speaking, and writing practice in class.

The Daily Routine: Morning SRS, Evening Immersion

A summer study plan works best when it fits into a consistent daily schedule. Here is the recommended two-part routine that takes just 25 minutes total:

Morning: 15 minutes of SRS review. Do your flashcard review first thing in the morning, ideally right after you wake up or with your breakfast. Morning is optimal for two reasons. First, your brain is fresh and your recall accuracy will be higher. Second, getting it done early means the rest of your day is free -- no guilt hanging over you about needing to study later. Set a recurring alarm on your phone labeled "Chinese review" so it becomes automatic. Open HSKLord, review all due cards, and close the app. Done.

Evening: 10 minutes of listening or reading. Before bed or during downtime in the evening, spend 10 minutes on an immersive activity. This could be watching a Chinese YouTube video, listening to a Chinese podcast, reading a page of a graded reader, or practicing characters by hand. The evening session serves a different purpose than the morning SRS: it provides exposure to Chinese in natural contexts, reinforces the vocabulary you reviewed that morning, and gives your brain material to consolidate during sleep. Keep it relaxed and enjoyable -- this should feel more like entertainment than homework.

The non-negotiable rule: Even on your laziest, busiest, most vacation-packed days, do the 15-minute morning SRS. The evening session can be skipped without consequence. But the SRS review cannot, because the spaced repetition algorithm depends on consistent daily reviews to function properly. Skipping one day means tomorrow's review queue doubles. Skipping a week means you return to a mountain of overdue cards that takes an hour to clear. Treat the 15-minute morning review like brushing your teeth -- it is not optional.

Summer Activities for Chinese Practice

The evening immersion slot is flexible by design. Variety keeps things interesting over a 12-week summer. Here are proven activities that reinforce your Chinese without feeling like traditional study:

Chinese movies and TV shows. Netflix, YouTube, and Viki have extensive Chinese-language catalogs. For beginners, start with shows aimed at younger audiences or slice-of-life dramas with simpler dialogue. Use Chinese subtitles if your reading level allows it, or English subtitles with Chinese audio. Recommended starting points include animated shows for lower levels and modern dramas for intermediate students. Even with English subtitles, your brain is processing the Chinese audio and building listening comprehension passively.

Chinese music and C-pop. Music is one of the most effective passive learning tools because melodies act as memory aids. Find Chinese songs you genuinely enjoy, look up the lyrics with pinyin, and learn to sing along. The repetitive nature of song lyrics means you hear the same vocabulary and grammar structures dozens of times. Artists like Jay Chou, Deng Ziqi, and Mayday are popular starting points, but explore until you find artists whose music you actually like -- that is what determines whether you will keep listening.

Chinese YouTube channels and podcasts. YouTube channels that teach Chinese through immersive content are excellent for summer practice. Channels that explain Chinese culture, food, or daily life in slow, clear Mandarin are ideal for intermediate learners. For podcasts, look for programs designed for Chinese learners at your level -- many offer transcripts so you can read along. Listening to 10 minutes of comprehensible Chinese audio daily trains your ear to segment words, parse grammar, and process tones in real time.

Language exchange apps. Apps like Tandem and HelloTalk connect you with native Chinese speakers who want to practice English. A 10-minute text chat in Chinese forces you to actively produce the language, which is a different (and important) skill from passive recognition. Even if your conversations are simple, the act of composing sentences in Chinese strengthens your grammar and vocabulary recall in ways that flashcards alone cannot.

Chinese restaurants and grocery stores. If you live near a Chinese restaurant or Asian grocery store, these are free immersion environments. Practice reading Chinese characters on menus and product labels. Order in Chinese if you feel comfortable. Ask the staff about unfamiliar dishes or ingredients in Mandarin. Even small real-world interactions create powerful memories because they combine language with emotion, social context, and sensory experience.

Chinese games and apps. Change the language settings on a familiar mobile game to Chinese. Games you already know how to play provide context clues that help you learn new vocabulary naturally. Puzzle games, card games, and simulation games with text-heavy interfaces are particularly effective. You can also try Chinese-language trivia apps or word games designed for native speakers -- they are challenging but excellent for building character recognition speed.

Journaling in Chinese. Even at a beginner level, writing a few sentences in Chinese each day is powerful practice. Describe what you ate, where you went, or how you feel. Use the vocabulary you already know and look up one or two new words as needed. The act of producing Chinese sentences (rather than just recognizing them) activates different memory pathways and strengthens your ability to use vocabulary in context. Start with 3-5 sentences per day and increase as you get more comfortable.

The key to summer immersion is choosing activities you genuinely enjoy. If you hate dramas, do not force yourself to watch them. If you love cooking, lean into Chinese recipe videos. If you are a gamer, explore Chinese-language games. Enjoyment drives consistency, and consistency is what prevents the summer slide. Rotate activities every 1-2 weeks to keep things fresh.

Level-Specific Summer Goals

Your summer plan should be calibrated to your current level. A student finishing Chinese 1 has very different needs than a student preparing for the AP Chinese exam. The goals below are designed to be ambitious but realistic -- achievable with the 15-minute daily SRS commitment plus 10-15 minutes of immersion. If you are not sure which level you are at, check our guide to Chinese proficiency levels for a detailed breakdown.

After Chinese 1 (Beginner)

• Maintain: 150 core vocabulary words (greetings, numbers, family, food, daily activities)
• Grow: Learn 50 new words over the summer, focusing on high-frequency vocabulary from the next textbook chapter
• Skill focus: Master the four tones. If your tone accuracy is shaky, summer is the perfect time to drill tone pairs until they become automatic
• Immersion: Listen to textbook audio dialogues, watch Chinese cartoons, learn 2-3 Chinese songs
• Daily time: 15 minutes SRS + 10 minutes listening = 25 minutes total

After Chinese 2 (Elementary)

• Maintain: 300 vocabulary words across all topics covered in Chinese 1 and 2
• Grow: Learn 100 new words, including more abstract vocabulary (emotions, opinions, descriptions)
• Skill focus: Start reading simple graded readers or short passages. You know enough characters to begin basic reading practice
• Immersion: Watch a Chinese drama with English subtitles, try reading children's books or short online articles
• Daily time: 15 minutes SRS + 10 minutes reading or listening = 25 minutes total

After Chinese 3 (Intermediate)

• Maintain: 600 vocabulary words across three years of study
• Grow: Learn 150 new words, including topic-specific vocabulary for food, travel, health, and environment
• Skill focus: Watch Chinese shows with Chinese subtitles. Your reading speed should improve noticeably with regular practice
• Immersion: Follow Chinese social media accounts, try a language exchange partner, listen to intermediate podcasts
• Daily time: 15 minutes SRS + 15 minutes immersion = 30 minutes total

After Chinese 3, summer study becomes especially important because this is typically when students transition from learning basic survival Chinese to developing genuine communicative competence. The vocabulary you maintain and grow over this summer determines whether you can handle the jump to advanced-level coursework or AP Chinese preparation in the fall.

After Chinese 4 / Pre-AP (Advanced)

• Maintain: 1,000+ vocabulary words, including formal and academic vocabulary
• Grow: Learn 200 new words, focusing on the six AP Chinese themes (families, personal identity, beauty & art, science & technology, contemporary life, global challenges)
• Skill focus: Prepare for the AP Chinese exam by practicing writing responses and speaking prompts
• Immersion: Read Chinese news articles, watch Chinese documentaries, have conversations with native speakers
• Daily time: 15 minutes SRS + 20 minutes immersion = 35 minutes total

Regardless of your level, the most important thing is to set goals you can actually measure. "Get better at Chinese" is not a goal -- it is a wish. "Maintain a 90% retention rate and learn 75 new words by August 15" is a goal. Write your specific summer targets down, put them somewhere visible, and check your progress every two weeks using your SRS statistics.

How Spaced Repetition Prevents Summer Loss

Spaced repetition is not just another study technique -- it is the single most scientifically validated method for long-term vocabulary retention, and it is the engine that makes this entire summer plan work. If you are unfamiliar with how spaced repetition works for Chinese, here is the essential concept.

A spaced repetition system (SRS) tracks every vocabulary card you study and schedules your next review at the optimal moment -- just before you are about to forget it. When you first learn a new word, you might review it after 1 day, then 3 days, then 7 days, then 15 days, then 30 days, with each interval increasing as the memory strengthens. The algorithm adapts to your individual performance: words you consistently remember get longer intervals, while words you forget get shorter intervals until they stabilize.

This is why SRS is perfect for summer maintenance. The algorithm automatically identifies which of your words are at risk of being forgotten and surfaces them for review. You do not need to guess which vocabulary to study or waste time reviewing words you already know well. The system does the cognitive work of scheduling for you. All you need to do is show up for 15 minutes each morning and review what the algorithm presents.

Over a 12-week summer, a student using SRS daily will review each vocabulary word at precisely calibrated intervals. Words that were well-learned before summer might only appear 2-3 times across the entire break. Weaker words might appear 8-10 times. By the end of summer, every word has been reinforced exactly as much as it needed to be -- no more, no less. This is dramatically more efficient than traditional methods like rereading vocabulary lists or rewriting characters, which waste time on words you already know and give insufficient practice on words you struggle with.

The data is clear: students who use SRS over summer not only maintain their vocabulary but typically end the break with a higher retention rate than when they started. This is because the algorithm eliminates weak spots over time. By September, words that used to trip you up have been drilled into deep long-term memory through precisely timed repetitions.

To put this in concrete numbers: a student with 300 vocabulary cards in their SRS deck, reviewing daily over 12 weeks, will complete roughly 4,000-5,000 individual card reviews. Each review strengthens the memory by a small but measurable amount. After 84 days of this, the average retention rate across all cards typically rises from 85% to 93-95%. That is not just maintenance -- that is a significant improvement in vocabulary mastery achieved with nothing more than 15 minutes of daily review. Learn more about the science behind this in our deep dive on spaced repetition research.

Setting Up Your Summer Review in HSKLord

Getting started takes less than 5 minutes. Here is how to configure HSKLord for optimal summer maintenance:

1. Select your level. Choose the HSK level or high school Chinese course that matches your most recently completed class. If you just finished Chinese 2, select the corresponding vocabulary deck. HSKLord covers Chinese 1 through Chinese 2 and all HSK levels with curated word lists.
2. Set your daily new card limit. For weeks 1-4 (maintenance phase), set new cards to 0. You are only reviewing existing vocabulary. Starting in week 5, increase to 5 new cards per day. This prevents your review queue from growing too large while still allowing steady growth.
3. Set your daily review limit. Set this to 100 cards or "unlimited." The algorithm will naturally present the right number of cards based on your deck size and performance history. For most students, this works out to 50-80 reviews per day, which fits comfortably within 15 minutes.
4. Enable streak tracking. Turn on the daily streak counter. This small feature has an outsized impact on summer consistency. Once you build a 7-day streak, you will be reluctant to break it. By day 30, the streak itself becomes a powerful motivator.
5. Set a summer goal. Use the goal-setting feature to set a target like "maintain 95% retention" or "learn 100 new words by August." Having a concrete, measurable goal gives your summer study direction and purpose.

How to Start the Next Year Strong

If you follow this summer plan, you will walk into your next Chinese class in a fundamentally different position than your classmates who took the summer off. Here is how to maximize that advantage during the first week back:

Week 1 strategy: demonstrate your retention. When your teacher inevitably begins with a review of last year's material, you will know everything already. Use this time to focus on pronunciation precision, grammar accuracy, and helping classmates who are still recovering from the summer slide. Your teacher will notice, and your confidence will set a positive tone for the entire semester.

Transition your SRS to the new semester. In the weeks 11-12 of your summer plan, you already previewed the first chapter of next semester's textbook. Now, as new vocabulary is introduced in class, add those words to your SRS deck immediately. You already have the daily review habit established, so integrating new classroom vocabulary is seamless. While your classmates are struggling to build a study routine from scratch, yours has been running for 12 weeks straight.

Leverage your growth. If you added 5 new words per day during weeks 5-12, you have approximately 280 new words that your classmates do not have. This expanded vocabulary makes classroom listening easier, reading faster, and speaking more natural. You may even find that the first few weeks of class feel surprisingly easy -- that is not because the material is too simple, but because you have built a vocabulary foundation that makes everything else click into place.

Keep the habit going. One of the most common mistakes students make after summer is abandoning their daily SRS habit once school starts again. The thinking is "I have class now, so I do not need to review on my own." This is wrong. Classroom instruction introduces new material, but it does not provide sufficient review to prevent forgetting. Continue your daily 15-minute SRS sessions throughout the school year. The students who do this consistently outperform their peers because they never lose vocabulary once it is learned -- it just accumulates, semester after semester, year after year.

Staying Motivated When School Is Out

Let's be honest: studying during summer break is hard. There are no grades, no teacher checking your homework, and no classmates to keep pace with. Motivation must come from within, and that means building systems that make it easy to stay consistent even when you do not feel like studying. Here are the strategies that work:

Streak goals. The most powerful motivational tool in language learning is the daily streak. Once you have maintained a study streak for more than a week, the psychological cost of breaking it becomes a stronger motivator than any external reward. HSKLord tracks your streak automatically and shows it prominently every time you open the app. Set milestone goals: 7 days, 14 days, 30 days, 60 days, the full 84-day summer. Tell a friend or family member about your streak goal so you have social accountability.

Rewards and milestones. Pair your study milestones with small rewards. Completed your first 2 weeks? Treat yourself to a meal at a Chinese restaurant (and practice ordering in Mandarin). Hit 30 days? Buy a new graded reader or a Chinese novel. Finished the full 12 weeks? You have earned something special -- and you will have the Chinese skills to show for it. The reward structure keeps your motivation fresh across a long summer.

Study buddy. Find a classmate, friend, or online language partner who also wants to maintain their Chinese over summer. Check in with each other daily -- a simple text message like "Done!" with a screenshot of your completed reviews creates mutual accountability. You can also make it competitive: who can maintain a longer streak? Who can learn more new words? Friendly competition adds a social dimension to what is otherwise a solitary activity.

Make it the path of least resistance. Put the HSKLord app on your phone's home screen. Set a daily reminder alarm. Do your review in the same place at the same time every day. Remove friction wherever possible. The goal is to make studying Chinese easier than not studying -- so that on lazy mornings, the default action is to open the app and review rather than to skip.

Remember your why. Why are you learning Chinese? Whether it is for college applications, future career opportunities, connecting with family heritage, a love of Chinese culture, or preparing for study abroad, reconnect with your motivation regularly. Write your reason on a sticky note and put it where you will see it every morning. On the days when 15 minutes feels like too much, your "why" is what gets you to open the app anyway.

What Happens If You Miss a Few Days

Life happens. You go on a family vacation with no wifi. You get sick. You simply forget for three days. The worst thing you can do when you miss days is to give up entirely. A broken streak is not a failed summer -- it is a temporary detour. Here is how to recover:

If you missed 1-3 days, your review queue will be larger than usual. Do not try to clear it all in one session. Instead, do your normal 15-minute review and let the remaining cards roll over to the next day. Within 2-3 days of consistent review, your queue will return to normal.

If you missed 1-2 weeks, you may face a review queue of 200-400 cards. Break this into manageable 15-20 minute sessions over several days. Temporarily pause new cards until your reviews are back under control. You will be surprised at how quickly the knowledge comes back -- most of it is still in your long-term memory, it just needs reactivation.

The important thing is to restart immediately. Do not wait until Monday. Do not wait until next week. Do not wait until you "feel ready." Open the app right now and do one review session. One session breaks the inertia and gets you back on track. The summer is long enough to absorb a few missed days without derailing your overall progress.

A useful mindset shift: think of your summer study plan as a batting average, not a perfect game. If you study 75 out of 84 days, that is a 89% consistency rate -- far more than enough to prevent the summer slide and make meaningful progress. Do not let the pursuit of perfection become the enemy of excellent results. Missing a day does not erase the 30 or 50 days you already completed. Pick up where you left off and keep going.

Common Summer Study Mistakes to Avoid

Even students with the best intentions can undermine their summer progress by falling into common traps. Being aware of these mistakes helps you avoid them:

• Waiting until "next week" to start. The biggest mistake is delaying the start of your summer study plan. Every day without review accelerates forgetting. Start the day after your last class, or even the day after your last exam. The first 2 weeks after school ends are when attrition is fastest.
• Cramming instead of spacing. Studying for 2 hours on Sunday and skipping the rest of the week is far less effective than 15 minutes every day. Your brain needs daily consolidation cycles to transfer vocabulary to long-term memory. Cramming creates the illusion of learning without the retention.
• Only passive review. Reading through a vocabulary list or staring at flashcards without actively testing yourself is passive review. It feels productive but produces weak memories. Always use active recall -- look at the character, try to produce the meaning and pinyin from memory, then check. This effortful retrieval is what strengthens the memory trace.
• Adding too many new words too fast. Enthusiasm at the start of summer can lead to adding 20-30 new words per day. Within a week, your daily review queue balloons to 200+ cards and the session takes 45 minutes. You burn out and quit. Start with zero new words (maintenance only) and increase to 5 per day only after your review habit is solid.
• Ignoring listening practice. Vocabulary flashcards build reading and recall, but they do not train your ear. Without regular listening exposure, you will struggle to understand spoken Chinese in the fall even if your vocabulary is intact. Make sure at least some of your immersion time includes Chinese audio.
• Making it feel like school. Summer study should not replicate the stress of the school year. Keep it light, keep it short, and keep it enjoyable. The goal is sustainability over 12 weeks, not intensity. If you dread your study sessions, you will not last more than 2 weeks. Find the format that feels most like a break and least like homework.

Your Summer Starts Now

The difference between students who struggle in September and students who thrive comes down to a simple choice made in June: will you spend 15 minutes a day keeping your Chinese alive, or will you let 10 months of hard work fade away over 12 weeks?

The plan is straightforward. Stabilize your vocabulary in weeks 1-4. Grow it in weeks 5-10. Preview next semester in weeks 11-12. Do your SRS every morning. Add a bit of immersion in the evening. Find a study buddy, track your streak, and stay connected to your reason for learning Chinese.

Students who follow this plan do not just avoid the summer slide -- they come back stronger. They walk into the first day of class knowing more words, recognizing more characters, and understanding more spoken Chinese than when they left. Their teachers notice. Their classmates notice. And most importantly, they notice, because the confidence that comes from consistent progress is the best fuel for continued learning.

The research is unambiguous, the plan is simple, and the tools are available. The only variable is you.

Fifteen minutes a day. Twelve weeks. Zero excuses. Your future self will thank you in September.