The Chinese you will actually hear is not in your textbook.

A feed of real clips by Chinese creators. The full transcript under the video, pinyin over every word, one tap on anything you don't know.

Every sentence of the clip, under the video
Pinyin over each word, the spoken one boxed
Tap a word for the meaning, tap again to keep it

Get lifetime access $19 First 100 people.
$49 a year for everyone after launch.

iPhone first, this autumn. Android after. Refund on request, no questions.

This is the working prototype, not a video of one. Scroll on the clip for the next one, tap any word in the transcript.

Same thought. Only one of them gets said out loud.

People finish a course knowing the grammar and not the feel of the language. Every sentence they were taught is correct, and almost nobody speaks that way. Lilu starts from the other end: real speech at real speed first, with the grammar arriving while you are busy watching something you actually wanted to watch.

In the lesson

wǒ我 xiǎng想 hē喝 kāfēi咖啡。

I would like to drink coffee.

In a real conversation

yǒudiǎn有点 xiǎng想 hē喝 kāfēi咖啡 le了。

Kind of feel like a coffee now.

What one clip gives you.

Everything below is in the demo above, working. It is the same eight clips a real feed would hand you, with the same transcript, the same word cards and the same search.

yèshì夜市

The whole transcript, not two lines of subtitle

Every sentence of the clip sits under the video with its translation. Scroll back to the line you missed while the clip keeps playing.

xiǎng想

The word that is playing is boxed

A green box tracks the audio word by word, so you always know where in the sentence the speaker is. Too fast is a solved problem: drop to 0.6x and it stays in sync.

shénme什么

Pinyin over every word

Not one line of pinyin under the sentence. Over the word it belongs to, so your eyes learn which sound is which character. Turn it off when you stop needing it.

le了

Tap a word, get the meaning

Meaning in this sentence, pinyin, HSK level, and one tap to keep it. No leaving the clip, no dictionary in another app.

yángròu羊肉

Your vocabulary is what you met

Not a list of five hundred words somebody picked for you. The words you ran into, in the clip you ran into them in, with the sentence attached.

duōshao多少

Hear a word in five other clips

Search a word and get every clip where it is said. Hearing it in four different mouths is what makes it stick, and it is the one thing a flashcard cannot do.

Where the videos come from.

Real clips by real Chinese creators, played through the official YouTube player. Lilu does not host, download or re-upload anything. Every clip carries the creator's name and a link to the original, the views count for them, and if they take a video down it disappears here too.

What you pay for is what is built on top: the transcript, the pinyin, the word cards, your vocabulary, the search. Never the video itself.

Straight answer about the demo above: the eight clips are real, and their transcripts are written by hand for now. Automatic transcription checked by a human is the first thing being built after launch.

Why I am building this.

I am Ilya. I design websites for a living, I work alone, and I was learning Chinese with the same apps as everyone else.

Then I went to China. The apps had prepared me for a language nobody around me was speaking. I could recognise words on a screen and could not follow a single real sentence at normal speed: too fast, half swallowed, full of things no lesson had ever shown me.

The problem was never effort. It was the material. Neat sentences, said slowly, by nobody. What actually moved me forward was watching what Chinese people watch, with some way to stop and ask what a word meant. For Chinese, that tool did not exist.

So I am building it. No team, no investors, which is exactly why I am asking a hundred people to pay for it early instead of waiting for someone to fund it.

Ilya, designer and the whole team

Why not just a course app?

Duolingo, HelloChinese, a textbook: they are good at what they are good at. Characters, tones, the first thousand words, the discipline of showing up daily. Lilu is not trying to replace that. It is the part they leave out.

A course

Lilu

Sentences written to fit a lesson.

Sentences said to a camera by someone who is not teaching you anything.

Studio audio, recorded slowly and clearly.

Street noise, accents, people talking over each other. The real difficulty, from day one.

A fixed list of words in a fixed order.

The words you actually ran into, saved in the sentence you met them in.

You finish the course and freeze in a real conversation.

Your first hour is already spent on speech at full speed, with a safety net.

Early access. One hundred people.

$19 once, for life

$49 a year is what it costs for everyone who arrives after launch.

100 seats at this price. When they are gone, the price is gone.

The first version, first. As soon as the build is worth testing, before it is public.
A say in what comes next. I read every message, and the roadmap moves when early buyers push it.
This price forever. When it becomes $49 a year, you are already inside, including everything added later.

The first version ships this autumn, iPhone first. You are buying an app that does not exist yet, from one person, which is a real risk. So the deal is deliberately simple.

If it is not what you hoped for, write to me and I will send the money back. No form, no window, no questions. That is the whole refund policy.

Get lifetime access $19

Payment opens in a new tab. You will get an email from me with the install link when the build is ready.

Not ready to buy? Get launch updates

One email when it launches. Nothing else, ever.

Cards from most countries go through. If yours is refused, write to me and we will find another way. One person selling to a hundred people can afford to solve payments by hand.

What works today, what comes next.

Written down so you can hold me to it. If a date moves, you will hear it from me before you notice it yourself.

Working now

The demo at the top of this page

Feed of real clips, full transcript with the karaoke box, pinyin over every word, word cards with HSK level and save, your own vocabulary, search across every clip, 0.6x speed. Running in a browser, on eight clips.

This autumn · first release

The iPhone app

A real clip library instead of eight, automatic transcription checked by hand, saved words that survive a restart, and the daily goal that actually tracks you.

After that

Spaced repetition, offline, Android

Words you saved coming back at the right moment, clips that keep working on a plane, and the Android build. Order decided with the people who bought early.

Questions.

Anything not answered here, write to me before you pay. I would rather answer than refund.

When does it come out?

The first version ships this autumn. Early buyers get it before it is public, as soon as the build is worth putting in someone's hands rather than the day a store listing is ready.

iPhone or Android?

iPhone first, through TestFlight, because one person cannot ship two platforms at once and do either well. Android comes after the first release. Buying now covers both: the price is for the app, not for a platform.

What if you miss the autumn?

It can happen, and you deserve to hear it plainly rather than discover it. If a date moves I write to everyone with what is actually going on. If you would rather not wait, ask for your money back and you get it, no argument.

Where do the videos come from?

Real clips by Chinese creators, played through the official YouTube player, with the author credited and linked on every clip. Nothing is downloaded, re-hosted or re-uploaded, and the app never sells access to the video: it sells the transcript, the word cards and the vocabulary built around it.

Do I need to know some Chinese already?

No. Zero is a fine starting point: pinyin sits over every word, every sentence has a translation, and nothing is locked. The more characters you know the faster it goes, but the app is built so that the first clip is watchable on day one.

How is this different from the Japanese scroll apps?

Same instinct, different centre of gravity. Those apps put one or two subtitle lines under the clip. Lilu puts the entire transcript there, word by word, with a box that follows the audio, and lets you search a word across every clip you have watched to hear it in other mouths. And it is built for Chinese, where tones and characters make reading along a different job than in Japanese.

Is this a subscription?

No. $19 once, for the app and everything added to it. The subscription is what comes later for everyone else, at $49 a year.

How do I get access after paying?

Checkout takes your email, and that is where I write: an install link when the build is ready, plus short notes on what is being built in the meantime. If the email never arrives, write to me and I will find your payment by hand. There are a hundred of you, not a hundred thousand.