We think crossword puzzles are a good complement to our approach to learning characters. So, we try to design our puzzles to emphasize:

• Character Networks – groups of words that share common characters.
• Homophones – groups of characters that have the same Pinyin (and possibly, the same tone).

We think this is a fun way to practice! Let us know if it’s helpful for you.

Please note – most puzzle software designed for Western languages don’t work very well with Chinese characters – especially Input Method Editors (IME’s).  Our puzzle software is beta and it’s taking awhile to tame it so it works well  with IME’s.

All clues are in English and all answers are in Simplified Chinese.

For Windows, use the Google IME for best results.  However:

• Enter one character at a time in the IME.
• Use your mouse (not the arrow keys) to scroll thru the character list in the IME.
• Select the correct character with the spacebar.

We haven’t tested iOS yet…;>(

The puzzle is not truly responsive on mobile platforms. A few notes for mobile users:

• Use the Google Android Pinyin or iOS Pinyin keyboards.
• Only the puzzle is displayed.  Clues and keyboard are hidden by default.
• For each word, tap the left-most or top-most square, respectively.
• A pop-up window will appear with the word number and clue.
• Tap ANSWER to display the keyboard.
• Tap REVEAL WORD and REVEAL CHAR to show the word and character, respectively.