Why Ember starts with reading
A word you met in a story you cared about is a word you keep. That is the whole idea behind Ember.
Most vocabulary apps hand you a list and ask you to care about it. Ember does it the other way round: you read first, and the deck grows out of what you read.
A word needs a place to live
A card that says 附近 — nearby is easy to forget. The same word is much harder to lose once you have met it in 我家附近有一个早市 — "there is a morning market near my home" — in the middle of a short story about buying tomatoes. The sentence gives the word somewhere to live.
Tap, understand, keep
Every text in Ember is graded, so most of the words are already yours. When one is not, you tap it. A sheet slides up with the reading, the meaning, an example and audio. Save it and it becomes a flashcard the same day, while the story is still fresh.
Short on purpose
Texts are sized to finish in one sitting. We would rather you finish something short today than start something long and feel behind tomorrow. A story worth finishing, not a streak to protect.
Read a little, keep what you meet, see it again.
More from the blog
Reading with pinyin, and learning to read without it
Pinyin above every character is a gift at LV 1 and a crutch by LV 4. Ember lets you take it away one text at a time.
How Ember decides when you see a word again
Four honest buttons and a scheduler called FSRS. Here is what happens after you press one.