Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

A. Sign-in Questions

Thank you for purchasing your membership. You should have received two emails: one from PayPal confirming your payment and another from Arch Chinese welcoming you. Your member serial key and sign-in instructions can be found in the welcome email. Please use the member serial key, not the subscription number, to sign in. To avoid typing errors, we recommend copying and pasting the member serial key into the serial key box. If you can't find the welcome email in your inbox, please check your spam folder as it may have been placed there. If you still can't find it, please contact us for assistance.
Your device may be in private browsing mode, which can prevent our website from accessing necessary data in your browser's cache and cookies. Please turn off private browsing and try signing in again. If you're using an iOS device and need guidance on how to turn off private browsing, please refer to this page:

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT203036
If you're having trouble staying signed in, it may be because your browser has cookies disabled. To fix this, you'll need to enable cookies. If you're using an iOS device, you'll also need to turn off private browsing.

Here are the steps to enable cookies in Firefox::
1. Open Firefox.
2. Click on "Tools" and select "Options".
3. Click the "Privacy" tab.
4. Make sure the option "Accept cookies from sites" is selected.
5. Click OK to save your changes.

If you're using Google Chrome, follow these steps:
1. Open Google Chrome
2. Type "chrome://settings/" into the address bar and press Enter.
3. Scroll down and click on "Show advanced settings".
4. Under "Privacy", click on "Content Settings".
5. Under "Cookies", make sure that "Allow local data to be set (recommended)" is selected.
6. Click on "Done".

By following these steps, you should be able to enable cookies and stay signed in.
If you see this message, it may be because your membership has expired or because you've entered an incorrect serial key. To resolve the issue, follow these steps:

1. Restart your browser.
2 Copy and paste your serial key into the designated serial key box.
3. Click the "Sign In" button

If you've recently subscribed, please note that you should not use the PayPal subscription number to sign in. Instead, use the serial key included in the member welcome email.

If you received the message when you were trying to sign in with your email and password, it's possible that you entered an incorrect email or password. If you've forgotten your password, don't worry - you can still access your account. Instead of using your email and password to sign in, use your member serial key to sign in. From there, you can reset your password and email.

If you still cannot log in, it is likely your membership has expired. You can simply go to the membership page to sign up for a new membership.
The sign-in button is on the top-right corner of the page. Before you click the "Print" button, click the "Sign In" button and enter your login credentials. It is recommended to copy and paste your serial key into the serial key box when you sign in. You need to make sure you sign out if you are using a public computer in libraries, cafes, schools, etc. Once you have signed in using your member serial key, you can create your own, easy-to-remember sign-in credentials through the "My Account" link, which is available at the top of the page after you sign in. If you forget your email or password, you can always sign in using your member serial key (leaving the email and password fields empty) and reset your email and password.
Our website works on all modern mobile devices including iOS and Android phones and tablets. This issue may be related to your browser caching on your device. Try the following steps to remove your browser cache on your iPad:

  1. Launch the Settings app from the Home screen of your iPhone or iPad.
  2. Scroll down and tap on Safari.
  3. Now scroll all the way to the bottom and tap on Advanced.
  4. Tap on Website Data. Scroll to the bottom again and tap on Remove All Website Data.
  5. Confirm one more time you'd like to delete all data.

Once the browser cache is cleared, you should be able to log in.

B. Membership Payment & Renewal Questions

Only subscription-based memberships need PayPal accounts. If you go to our sign-up page and scroll down to the bottom of the page, as shown below,

you will see a One-time Purchase option. Select the type of the membership you would like to purchase and click the Buy Now button.

Change the membership quantity from the default value 1 to the number of memberships you would like to purchase. Click the Continue button.

On the payment screen, select the Pay with a Debit or Credit Card button to follow the instruction and finish the payment process with your credit or debit card.

We accept checks and money orders as well. Please make your check payable to Arch Learning Services in U.S. dollars and mail them to

Arch Learning Services
1183 Oak Hill Court
Ballwin, Missouri 63021
USA


For international customers, we also accept wire transfers. Contact us for wire transfer details.

Yes, we do. If your business or accounting department needs a current W-9 form, please contact us. Once your purchase order is approved, you can scan it and email it to us. We will create an account for you right away and email you back with the account access key along with your membership invoice.
You can simply go to the membership page

https://www.archchinese.com/arch_membership.html

to sign up for a new membership. If you have vocabulary lists and games saved on your previous account, you can refer to question #20 on this page to transfer them from your previous account to your new account.

Note that you may renew your membership prior to your membership expiration date or anytime after your membership has expired.

C. Worksheet Generation Questions

The quickest way is go to Chinese Character Worksheet page, enter (or copy and paste) your Chinese characters into the character box and click the Customize button to review and edit the system-provided definitions. Once you are satisfied with the Pinyin and the definitions, click the Print button to generate the worksheets.

The character worksheets are highly customizable. Even though the default settings work for most cases, you can scroll down to the Worksheet Settings section to tweak the worksheet settings to meet your needs. The Reset button allows you to reset the worksheet generation settings to the default values. The system can remember your last-used settings, even if you switch to a different browser or machine.

Note that this site uses a pop-up window to display the generated worksheets. If your browser is configured to block pop-ups, you will need to allow https://www.archchinese.com and https://service.archchinese.com to open pop-ups.
When a character or word is displayed, there is a + icon next to it. Click the icon to add the character or word to your "Temp Vocab List". The "Temp Vocab List" is a temporary vocab list that allows you to manually create or save vocabulary from the dictionary. The "Temp Vocab List" is shown on the right-hand side of the page when you are on the following pages:
Click the "Tools" button to view the tools you can use with the vocabulary in the list.

Your "Temp Vocab List" is automatically saved to the server, so your data is always safe and secure. Once you are done with the list, press the "Save" button to add it to your "Saved Vocab Lists", which maintains all the vocab lists you have created.
If your browser is configured to block pop-up windows, you need to configure it to allow pop-up windows from https://www.archchinese.com and https://service.archchinese.com. The generated worksheet will be shown in a separate tab or window. If you have installed third party applications, including browser add-ons and extensions, to block pop-ups, you may need to check the vendor documentation to allow pop-up windows from the two sites.
You can quickly generate nicely formatted Chinese character worksheets with the three following steps:

1. Go to the Worksheets page
2. Enter (or copy and paste) Chinese characters into the character box
3. Click the "Print" button

Both the Chinese character definitions and worksheet styles are customizable. If you leave the character box blank, the system will generate a general-purpose blank character worksheet for you. You can still customize the page layout, grid size, style, etc. You can even allow the system to generate a blank worksheet on which only the bottom half of the page has writing grids, leaving the top half blank so that younger students may use it to draw pictures or anything they like. To generate this type of worksheets, you must enable the option "Draw writing grids only on the bottom half of the page (applies to blank worksheets only)" and keep the character box empty.

For performance reasons, you can only print a maximum of 50 characters at a time. If you need to generate more characters at a time, you can sign up for a premium membership.
By default, repeated characters are excluded. To show repetitive characters in the worksheet, in the Chinese Character Worksheets settings, enable the following option
12. Show repetitive characters in the worksheet.
Yes, once you become a member, you can generate worksheets for any of the characters defined in the national standard character set of China and over 8,000 traditional Chinese characters.
  1. Go to Chinese character flaschard maker page https://www.archchinese.com/chinese_character_flashcard_maker.html
  2. Enter (or copy and paste) Chinese characters into the character box.
  3. Click the Customize button to review and edit the definitions and Pinyin of the characters.
  4. Press the "Print" button.
The flashcard PDF file will be shown in a separate window. If your browser is configured to block pop-ups, make sure it allows pop-ups from www.archchinese.com and service.archchinese.com.
All the worksheets support images. You can simply click the "Auto Add" button to let the system to automatically add an image to each word entry. You can also customize the images of the words. The customized images will be saved into your own image repository and they will be used when you click the "Auto Add Images" button in the future.
Yes, you can provide your own English (or another language) definitions and Pinyin for any character and word in the system. On the Chinese Worksheets page, the Customize button allows you to review and edit the system-provided definitions.

D. Vocab List Management Questions

All your vocabulary lists are safely stored on our server, even after your membership expires. That way, when you sign up again, you can easily transfer all the vocabulary lists you created before to your new account. Here are the detailed steps:

  1. Sign in using your new member serial key or email and password if you have created your own sign-in credentials.
  2. After signing in, you should see a "My Account" button at the top of the page. Click the button to bring up the "My Account" interface.
  3. At the bottom of the "My Account" interface, you will see an "Old Serial Key" input box and a "Transfer" button. Enter (or copy and paste) your old member serial key into the box and click the "Transfer" button. (Note your old member serial key can only be used to transfer vocab lists. The account associated with your old member serial key is inactive).
  4. Log out and log in again to view your transferred vocab lists, which are listed on the right side of the page
Yes, you can create folders to organize your vocab lists. For the users who have not created a folder, all your saved vocab lists are placed in the default "General" folder. Click the "Manage" button on the title bar of your "Saved Vocab Lists" box to bring up the "Manage Vocab Lists" page. On the "Manage Vocab Lists" page, select one or more vocab lists and click the "Move" button to move the selected lists to a different folder. You can enter a new folder name to create a new folder or use an existing folder.





Our system allows you to merge two or more vocab lists into one and split one vocab list into two.


To merge two vocab lists:

1. Click the Manage button on the title bar of your Saved Vocab Lists box to bring up Manage Vocab Lists page.
2. On the Manage Vocab Lists page, select two or more vocab lists and click the Merge button to merge the selected vocab lists.
To delete one or more vocab lists:

1. Click the Manage button on the title bar of your Saved Vocab Lists box to bring up Manage Vocab Lists page.
2. On the Manage Vocab Lists page, select one or more vocab lists and click the Delete button to delete the selected vocab lists.
Our system offers a set of easy-to-use Chinese vocab management tools. You can quickly create, edit, merge, and split Chinese vocab lists. To split a vocab list:

1. Click the Manage button on the title bar of your Saved Vocab Lists box to bring up Manage Vocab Lists page.
2. On the Manage Vocab Lists page, select one vocab list and click the Split button to split the selected vocab list. Drag slider to choose where to split the list at. The two new lists will be placed in the "General" folder of your "Saved Vocab Lists" box.

Yes. When you are creating a new list or editing an existing list, you can click the gear drop-down button on the upper-left corner and select either the Move Up or Move Down option. Click the arrow buttons to move the entries up or down. Make sure to save the list after you are done editing.

E. Game Creation and Management Questions

You can create your own fun and engaging online Chinese learning games in a few clicks. You can browse and play the games on our Online Chinese Learning Game Gallery page to try them before you start. To create a game using your own vocabulary list:

  1. Go to our online game designer page: https://www.archchinese.com/online_games.html.
  2. Click the Create button.


  3. Select your game type.


  4. Choose your vocabulary list from the Saved Vocab Lists box by clicking the name (rather than the checkbox). If you don't have a list saved, please create a vocabulary list first. Once the list is selected, it will be highlighted in bold, and its name will be shown in the read-only field below under "Step 2."


  5. Enter the name of your new game.
  6. Customize your game as needed.
  7. Click the Save button to save your game.


  8. After the game is saved, click the game link to preview your game before sharing it. If your students use mobile devices, you can also share it with your students using the custom-generated QR code. Your students can simply scan the QR code to start playing!


F. Vocab List Sharing Questions

Our system allows you to create a teacher group to share and exchange teaching materials with your fellow Chinese teachers. Here are the steps:

1. After you log in, click the My Account link and select the My Group tab. Enter a group name and click the Create Group button.


2. Copy the group number from the screen and share it with your fellow Chinese teachers.


3. After logging in, your fellow Chinese teachers can enter the Group Number into the Group Number box and click the Join Group button.


4. Below the Saved Vocab Lists box, there is a Group Vocab Lists box, click the Refresh button to view the vocabulary lists of your group members.



As a teacher, you can create vocab lists and share them with your students so that they can view the animated stroke order, review them using the online flashcards and play learning games.

The easiest way to share a vocab list with your students is to create an external link to the list by clicking the checkbox next to a Saved Vocab List and press the Share icon.





You can post the shortened URLs on your social media or class web pages to share the list with your students. Your students do not need an Arch Chinese account to use the vocab list.



You can go to the Vocabulary Management page to export your vocabulary lists to CSV, Excel, and PDF files. You can also click the "Manage" button on the title bar of your "Saved Vocab Lists" box to navigate to the "Vocabulary Management" page. When you export a vocabulary list to a CSV or Excel file, by default, the Pinyin of your vocabulary are in tone-number format. You can adjust the Pinyin format to tone-mark format when you export a vocabulary list to a CSV file. To create an Excel file with tone-mark Pinyin, you can open an exported CSV file with tone-mark Pinyin using Excel and save it as an Excel file. If you export a list to a PDF file, the Pinyin will be in tone-mark format automatically.


G. My Account Question

Yes, you can change the account name and preferred contact email of the account. After you sign in, you will see a "My Account" button at the top of the page. Click the button to bring up the "My Account" interface to change your account name and set your preferred contact email.



H. Other Questions

Touch events are typically available on devices with a touch screen, but many browsers make the Touch Events API unavailable on desktop PCs and laptops, even those with touch screens. For example, the Touch Events API is disabled in the desktop version of Google Chrome since version 72. To enable touch events, as shown below, you need to set a command line flag at the end of the target path in your Chrome shorcut properties. The command line flag syntax you need to use is

--touch-events=enabled


Just add it at the very end after the .exe. The modified command line should look like this:

"C:\Program Files\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe" --touch-events=enabled

or

"C:\Program Files (x86)\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe" --touch-events=enabled

Note that there are 2 hyphens in front of the touch and one between touch and events if you are not able to see it clearly above.

To enable touch events in the desktop version of Firefox, enter about:config into the address bar of your browser. Click the "I accept the risk" button and scroll down until you find the dom.w3c_touch_events.enabled. Click the entry and change the value of the setting to 1 to enable it. By default, it is set to 0 (disabled) for the desktop version of Firefox. In some versions of Firefox, dom.w3c_touch_events.enabled is set at 2. You need to change it to 1 and change dom.w3c_touch_events.legacy_apis.enabled to True.
The tone color scheme on our site is customizable. You can change the color scheme to match your school's or simply turn off color coding for the tones. To change the color scheme:

1. Go to the Chinese-English Dictionary page.
2. Click the "Display Settings" button, which is on the upper-right corner of the page.
3. In the "Dictionary Display Settings" interface, select a predefined tone color scheme or change the color of each tone by clicking the color boxes
4. Click the "Apply" button to apply the changes and click the "Close" button to close the interface.

If you want to reset the settings to the default values, click the "Reset" button and click the "Apply" button.
Yes. This is one of the greatest features of the Arch Chinese dictionary. You can select a character from
  • Search results
  • Example words
  • Example sentences
  • Character details view
Once a character is selected, the animation will start automatically. You can click the character in the center box to watch the character be written stroke-by-stroke and listen to the stroke names. When all the strokes are written, the animation will start over again.

Alternatively, you can click the "Stroke Forward" button below the animator to write the next stroke. After the character is written, the system plays the pronunciation of the character automatically.
When a character is animated on the Chinese-English Dictionary page, you will see a few buttons below the animated character. Click the "Export Stroke Sequences" button to export the stroke sequences of the character to a PNG image.

You can also directly use the Chinese Character Stroke Sequence Image Generator to generate the stroke sequences of any Chinese characters.
Unlike other online Chinese-English dictionaries, our system has built-in intelligence to help you find the Chinese characters, words, and collocations you need. With our unique, powerful search algorithm, you can search in the Chinese-English dictionary using:

a. Pinyin
To look up a character by Pinyin, you can use "Pinyin with tone notations", e.g. wo3, or "Pinyin with tone marks", e.g. . If you are not sure about the tone, you can use "fuzzy Pinyin" (Pinyin without tones), e.g. wo. When you use Pinyin with tone notations, use v for ü, e.g. lv3 for , and the number 5 for the neutral tone, e.g. ma5.

Similarly, when you look up a Chinese word or phrase with Pinyin, you can use "Pinyin with tone notations"(e.g. bei3jing1 or bei3 jing1), "Pinyin with tone marks"(e.g. běijīng or běi jīng), or "fuzzy Pinyin"(e.g. beijing). Note when you use fuzzy Pinyin to look up words or phrases, make sure the Pinyin is one word (no spaces between the Pinyin of each character).

b. Character Radicals
To look up a character by its radical, you can bring up the Chinese Radical Table and click the radical. For example, radical and 刀(刂). To make it easy for you to locate a radical, the radicals on the radical table can be sorted by radical number, radical stroke count, Pinyin, or definition of the radical. After you click on a radical, all the Chinese characters with that radical will show up on a separate page. They can be grouped by stroke count, Pinyin, or usage frequency. You can move your mouse over the character to show the Pinyin and the definition of the character. Alternatively, check the "show Pinyin and English" option to display the Pinyin and English next to the character. Click the character to view the character details and click the Pinyin to hear the pronunciation



If you know another character with the same radical as the character you intend to find, you can show the character on the Chinese-English Dictionary page and click the "characters with same radical" button to look up other characters with the radical.

c. Character Components
Like Chinese character radicals, character components are the building blocks of Chinese characters. There are about 1,000 unique character components in the standard Chinese character set of mainland China. Most of the components are also standalone Chinese characters, but some of them cannot be displayed on your computer or tablet because they are not included in the Unicode character set.



d. English
To look up a character or word using English, simply enter an English word or phrase. For example, “school” or “pay attention to”, to the search box and click the Search button.

e. Chinese Characters
To view the details of a single Chinese character, you can simply enter (or copy and paste) it into the search box and click the Search button. For example, and . In addition to the character details, the example words and sentences will be shown below the animated character.

f. Chinese Words or Phrases
If you are looking for the English definition or example sentences of a particular phrase or character compound, you can simply enter (or copy and paste) it into the search box and then click the "Search" button. For example, 动物园 and 恋爱关系

g. English and Chinese
You can mix English and Chinese characters or words in your search query. The English and Chinese can be separated by a comma, space, or asterisk. For example, 电,computer, 电*computer or 电 computer.

h. English and Pinyin
You can mix English and Pinyin in your search query. English and Pinyin can be separated by a comma or asterisk. For example, apple,ji1 and fried*fan4. Both tone numbers and tone marks are supported in your searches. For example, apple,sī

i. Chinese and Pinyin
Chinese and Pinyin can be separated by a comma or asterisk. For Pinyin, you can use either tone notations or tone marks. For example 欢,xi3 and 欢*xǐ,

j. English, Chinese and Pinyin
You can use a combination of English, Chinese, and Pinyin in your search query as long as they are separated by a comma or asterisk. For example, chinese,喜欢,cha2 and 好*teacher*ta1
Yes. you will notice minor discrepancies when you compare textbooks from mainland China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong. You can click the Character Standard dropdown on the page header to select the region and standard you would like to follow. In this system, the stroke orders for simplified Chinese characters are strictly based on 《现代汉语通用字笔顺规范》 (Modern Chinese Commonly Used Character Stroke Order Standard) published by 国家语委和中华人民共和国新闻出版署 (China National Language And Character Working Committee and General Administration of Press and Publication of the People's' Republic of China) in 1997. For traditional Chinese characters, you can select either the Taiwan or Hong Kong standard. When the Taiwan standard is selected, our system will use the standard issued by the Taiwan Ministry of Education. When you select the Hong Kong standard, our system will be based on 《香港小學學習字詞表》 (Lexical Lists For Chinese Learning in Hong Kong), a standard created by the Education Bureau of Hong Kong.
On the Chinese-English dictionary page, as an integral part of the Chinese character animator, the Chinese character etymology explorer is shown below the animated character. The character etymology explorer shows the composition of the character. It allows you to study the character components one at a time and can help you understand what components a character is made up from and how characters are related to each other. When a character is animated, the first level component(s) and radical are displayed automatically. Radicals are displayed in blue by default and components are displayed in black by default. If the component can be further deconstructed, you can click the component (or the plus icon) to expand it and view the deconstructed component. The Pinyin and English definitions are shown next to the component or radical. You can also double click a component or radical in the explorer to view more detailed information such as stroke order, character structure, pronunciation, etc.
You need to exit your browser completely after clearing your cache before attempting to access our site again. In Windows, close all your browser windows; in Mac OS X, quit (Command-q) your browser.

A. Google Chrome
Press and hold the Ctrl and Shift keys, and then hit the Delete button to clear your browser cache. You can also follow these steps:
  1. Click the 3 dots in the upper right corner of the browser.
  2. Hover over the More Tools option then click Clear Browsing Data...
  3. Choose All Time in the time range field.
  4. Select Browsing History, Cookies and other site data , and Cached images and files
  5. Click the Clear Data button.

B. EDGE
  1. Click the 3 dots in the upper right corner of the browser.
  2. Choose Settings.
  3. Click Privacy, search, and services on the left navigation pane
  4. Scroll to the Clear browsing data section on the right pane and click Choose What To Clear.
  5. On the Clear browsing data popup, select All Time for the date range and check Browsing history, Download history, Cookies and other site data, and Cached images and files
  6. Click the Clear Now button.

C. Firefox
  1. Click the hamburger menu in the upper right corner of the browser.
  2. Choose Settings.
  3. Click Privacy and Security in the left menu bar.
  4. Scroll to the Cookies and Site Data section on the right pane and click the Clear Data... button
  5. On the Clear Data popup, check Cookies and Site Data and Cached Web Content, and click the Clear button.
  6. Scroll down to the History section and click the Clear History... button.
  7. On the Clear All History popup, select Everything for the Time range to clear. Check all the checkboxes on the History and Data section on the popup and click the Clear button.

D. Safari for Mac
  1. Click the Safari menu, then Clear History...
  2. In the Clear field choose All History
  3. Click Clear History.

E. Mobile Safari for iOS (iPhone and iPad)
To clear cache and cookies:
  1. From the home screen, Select Settings > Safari.
  2. At the bottom of Safari's settings screen, Select Clear cookies and data or Clear Cookies and Clear Cache.
  3. Confirm when prompted.
To clear history:
  1. From the home screen, tap Safari.
  2. At the bottom of the screen, tap the Bookmarks icon.
  3. In the lower left, tap Clear.
  4. Tap Clear History.

F. Android
  1. Select Menu, then More.
  2. Select Settings.
  3. Under Privacy settings, select Clear cache, Clear history, or Clear all cookie data as appropriate, and then OK to accept.