Paid resource
Fiction / Non-Fiction Books
My notes
This is where in-context and subject-specific vocabulary actually gets absorbed rather than memorised. I found idioms here that I later used in my HSK5 essays because I'd seen them in a real sentence first, not a flashcard. More on specific apps in the reading section, but the point is: reading real content is irreplaceable at the upper levels.
Reading books in Chinese changes your relationship with the language in a way that textbooks simply cannot replicate. I started to notice idioms appearing in context and realised I already knew them from something I'd read weeks earlier — not because I'd drilled them, but because the narrative had made them memorable. At HSK4–5 level, reading real books is no longer aspirational; it's achievable, and the vocabulary you acquire sticks far more reliably than anything from a word list. See the reading section for specific apps that make this more accessible.