Spoken Chinese, in the gaps
You want to learn Chinese. You just never open the app.
So mǎmǎhūhū puts the lesson where you already are. You reach for Instagram, TikTok or X, and a short Chinese lesson comes up first. Do it, get your 15 minutes, carry on scrolling. It taps you again a bit later. All of it aimed at being able to say things out loud.
The problem
Look at what you actually open.
You open these without deciding to, dozens of times a day. Some of them you genuinely need. Some of them just happen.
Your language app isn't on that list. It's on a home screen somewhere with a red badge on it, waiting for you to have a free hour and pick it. You don't have a free hour. And when you do, you spend it on something else.
That isn't a motivation problem. You want to learn Chinese. You just never get round to it.
So the lesson comes to you instead.
mǎmǎhūhū doesn't ask for an hour. It asks for 45 seconds, a few times a day, out of scrolling you were going to do anyway. And you don't have to delete anything — Instagram, TikTok and the rest stay exactly where they are. You just do a bit of Chinese on the way in.
How it works
Six short lessons a day, without setting aside any time.
A normal day of scrolling gets you six or seven of them, spread across the day on their own. Nothing to schedule, and no reminder to ignore.
You reach for Instagram
Or TikTok, or X — whichever ones you picked. It doesn't open yet. A short Chinese lesson comes up instead.
You do 45 seconds
Three sentences, carrying on from where you left off. You hear every new word the first time you meet it, tones and all — and you're never tested on something you've only just met.
You get your 15 minutes
The lesson closes and your app opens. Scroll as long as you like. When the 15 minutes are up, the next three sentences are ready.
You say it out loud
Once a week, send a voice note to the person you're learning for — in WhatsApp, where you'd have messaged them anyway. Then tell the app whether they understood you. Anything they corrected comes back into your lessons.
Who it's for
People with the same problem I have.
- Your day is full. There's no hour in it for a Chinese session, and there isn't going to be one.
- You want to learn properly and keep it up, not cram a few phrases before a holiday.
- Duolingo has turned into a chore. You do one lesson so the streak survives, and that's the whole session.
- You're not deleting Instagram or TikTok. They're useful to you and you don't actually want them gone.
- There's someone you'd like to talk to in Chinese — a partner's family, a colleague, a friend.
How I got here
I kept the streak. I didn't learn much Chinese.
I got together with a Chinese girl.
I downloaded Duolingo and started learning.
I've opened it every day since — but only to keep the streak alive. One lesson, then I close it again.
And Duolingo gives you the basics, not the phrases you need for the situation you're actually in. It was a good start. It wasn't enough.
So I started building mǎmǎhūhū — to interrupt me while I'm scrolling, and get more Chinese into the day that way.
— Felix
Why it's different
A streak waits for you to show up. This doesn't.
11:47 PM
A notification says the streak is about to go. You open the app, do the quickest lesson you can find, and close it.
You kept the number. That's all.
9:12 AM
The first time you reach for Instagram. 45 seconds, then you're scrolling. Another at lunch, another on the train, another before bed.
You never had to decide to do any of them.
What about Duolingo's focus mode?
It greys your apps out and stops there. It doesn't give you a lesson when you reach, and it doesn't hand your app back when you're done — you have to go and find the lesson yourself. That's the part nobody does.
Duolingo's lessons are good — a decade of work went into them. It's the machinery around them that has you opening the app at 11pm for nothing. This keeps the first part.
The path
The lessons build on each other.
Each sentence adds one new word and reuses the ones you've already had, so you're never guessing at three things at once. And they all head somewhere — towards the person you said you wanted to talk to.
You hear all of them. The characters are here so you start recognising them, but the goal is saying the sentence and being understood — not writing it. Tone is most of what decides whether someone follows you, which is why every word arrives with audio the first time you meet it.
- 01好hǎoGood.+ hǎo
- 02好吃hǎochīTasty.+ hǎochī
- 03很hěn好吃hǎochīReally tasty.+ hěn
- 04我wǒ很hěn好hǎoI'm good.+ wǒ
- 05这个zhège很hěn好吃hǎochīThis one's really tasty.+ zhège
- 06我wǒ喜欢xǐhuan这个zhègeI like this one.+ xǐhuan
- 07我wǒ妈妈māma喜欢xǐhuan这个zhègeMy mum likes this one.+ māma
- 08我wǒ妈妈māma也yě喜欢xǐhuan这个zhègeMy mum likes this one too.+ yě
… and 140 more, heading here:
Tap any word
Be early to mǎmǎhūhū.
It's not built yet. If any of this sounds like you, leave your email and I'll let you know when there's something to try.