HSKacer

The origins of HSKacer

The idea for HSKacer was born in mid-June 2026 from Gabriele Gatto, a 17-year-old Italian student with a difficult journey with the Chinese language behind him.

“In my first year of language high school I could not memorize anything in Chinese, I was the worst in the class, I got very low grades on tests and I almost failed the year. At one point I even thought about no longer studying it and changing schools. However, I decided to try again by changing my study method. At the beginning of my second year of high school I started cutting out pieces of cardboard, on which I wrote the characters of a Chinese word or grammatical structure on the front and the matching translation and pinyin on the back. I did not know it yet, but I was making ‘flashcards’. This method let me improve enormously right away: within a couple of weeks I managed to catch up on the whole first-year syllabus and started doing better on Chinese tests. I studied more in less time and was able to understand and remember vocabulary and grammar better. I started translating texts faster, guessing meanings, and ‘unlocking’ my understanding of Chinese. Over time, though, I realized that making flashcards by hand took me too much time. So I switched to digital to save time, but with the same effectiveness in studying. Since then I have always used digital flashcards. In my fourth year of high school I took my first HSK exam: it was HSK 3 and I passed with a very high score (which later won me a scholarship for a winter school in China). That is when I got confirmation that flashcards also work well for HSK exam preparation. So I decided to create a site that makes this study method easily accessible to anyone who wants to learn or quickly improve their Chinese language skills. The site I built is the tool I wish I had had a few years ago: it contains ready-made flashcard decks divided by HSK level, lets you rate every word and, thanks to spaced repetition, the system puts words in the deck right when one is about to forget them. You can also customize the flashcards freely to best fit your study needs. These features and much more make HSKacer a useful, versatile, simple and intuitive tool. HSKacer is a tool created by a student for other students; it does not come from a company that wants to sell you a generic course: it comes from someone who really studies Chinese and knows what it means to prepare for an HSK exam. I am sharing a method that worked for me, in the hope that it can help someone else too.

Why these features

The origins of HSKacer

The idea for HSKacer was born in mid-June 2026 from Gabriele Gatto, a 17-year-old Italian student with a difficult journey with the Chinese language behind him.

“In my first year of language high school I could not memorize anything in Chinese, I was the worst in the class, I got very low grades on tests and I almost failed the year. At one point I even thought about no longer studying it and changing schools. However, I decided to try again by changing my study method. At the beginning of my second year of high school I started cutting out pieces of cardboard, on which I wrote the characters of a Chinese word or grammatical structure on the front and the matching translation and pinyin on the back. I did not know it yet, but I was making ‘flashcards’. This method let me improve enormously right away: within a couple of weeks I managed to catch up on the whole first-year syllabus and started doing better on Chinese tests. I studied more in less time and was able to understand and remember vocabulary and grammar better. I started translating texts faster, guessing meanings, and ‘unlocking’ my understanding of Chinese. Over time, though, I realized that making flashcards by hand took me too much time. So I switched to digital to save time, but with the same effectiveness in studying. Since then I have always used digital flashcards. In my fourth year of high school I took my first HSK exam: it was HSK 3 and I passed with a very high score (which later won me a scholarship for a winter school in China). That is when I got confirmation that flashcards also work well for HSK exam preparation. So I decided to create a site that makes this study method easily accessible to anyone who wants to learn or quickly improve their Chinese language skills. The site I built is the tool I wish I had had a few years ago: it contains ready-made flashcard decks divided by HSK level, lets you rate every word and, thanks to spaced repetition, the system puts words in the deck right when one is about to forget them. You can also customize the flashcards freely to best fit your study needs. These features and much more make HSKacer a useful, versatile, simple and intuitive tool.

HSKacer is a tool created by a student for other students; it does not come from a company that wants to sell you a generic course: it comes from someone who really studies Chinese and knows what it means to prepare for an HSK exam. I am sharing a method that worked for me, in the hope that it can help someone else too.

That said, I want to make clear that HSKacer does not completely replace school and/or structured study of Chinese. Alongside flashcard study, I strongly recommend in-depth grammar study and extra activities such as reading texts, writing, listening to podcasts and practicing conversation.

My journey studying Chinese continues, I wish everyone happy studying.”

— Gabriele Gatto

Want to understand why each feature exists? Read Why these features · HSK Guide