Learn the languages. Preserve the culture.

Why Lantern exists, and what we promise to keep free.

Most Chinese learning apps treat “Chinese” as a synonym for Mandarin and treat learning as a course you sit down to complete. Lantern starts from a different place: language shows up in your life all day, and the moment you meet a word you don't know is the moment worth capturing.

Two pillars

Self-directed learning. A forgiving dictionary, a personal vocabulary that carries real weight, and a widget that resurfaces your own words until they stick. You decide what matters; Lantern makes sure you see it again.

Cultural preservation. Mandarin is where we begin, not where we end. The platform is built from the ground up to hold Cantonese, Taiwanese Hokkien, Hakka, Shanghainese and other Chinese varieties — with native speakers, regional expressions, sayings, and the stories behind them. Much of this language lives only in conversation, and every generation it gets a little quieter. We want it written down and heard.

What stays free

Access to language stays free: the dictionary, search, standard pronunciation, example sentences, saving words, lists, notes, and the widget. Lantern shows no advertising, and no language variety will ever be sold separately.

Study Pro, an optional subscription, pays for the platform by charging for structured study tools — never for the language itself. Revenue goes first to the product, then to paying native speakers and reviewers as we expand into Cantonese and beyond.

How we build

Lantern is small and independent. The dictionary is built on openly licensed data (CC-CEDICT, Tatoeba, wordfreq and others, credited in the app), with our own editorial notes on usage, commonly confused words, and idioms layered on top. Corrections and missing words are welcome — write to us any time.