It started with a wall we couldn’t fill. In 2010, a couple of Brits learning Chinese in Taiwan went looking for a poster of the most common characters. It had to be accurate enough to study from and handsome enough to live with. It didn’t exist, so we made it, and called ourselves Mandarin Poster.
The idea was to build a study aid that worked for a complete beginner and a seasoned learner alike. Because the list starts from the most frequently used characters, which are mostly the simplest, it’s a natural starting point for someone on their first week. And because it keeps going, it stays useful as a reference years later. That poster found its way to learners in more than 60 countries.
Then the pandemic made shipping large printed posters around the world slow, expensive and faintly absurd. So we redrew everything for self-printing. It turned out to be the better idea: nothing to ship, nothing to wait for, no customs form, and you can print another copy whenever you want one. Prices came down. Delivery became instant.
Everything we make is designed to be printed. At home, at a copy shop, nothing shipped, nothing wasted.
Along the way, the free practice paper quietly became the most-used thing we’ve ever made. Grids we’d drawn for our own studying, given away because it seemed daft not to. Somewhere in there it became obvious that the paper, not the poster, was the point, so Mandarin Poster became Chinese Printables.
That’s still the whole model. The practice paper is free and always will be: no sign-up, no watermark, no expiring links. The paid packs exist for learners who want more: the poster that started it all, practice sheets with stroke order, reference sheets dense enough to earn a place in your notebook, flashcards you cut yourself. If the free paper helps you, the packs are how you keep the lights on.
We are deliberately small. No app, no subscription, no streak to protect. Just well-made paper for people who believe, as we do, that the hand remembers what the eye forgets.
Dave, Chinese Printables 中文习字