About
I'm Cao Wenyi, a Chinese heritage parent. Eleven years ago, looking for a way to make characters less difficult to learn, I stumbled onto the seven-color principle behind Rainbow Chinese. I've been studying this way of teaching ever since, and building a set of tools around it.
At heart, Rainbow Chinese uses color to turn decomposition-based character teaching into something children enjoy. And along the way, while they learn the characters, they gradually build a "precision + logic" way of learning.
This 2026 release of the site uses AI illustrations to make the learning atmosphere lighter still. If there's anything you need while using it, please get in touch with me directly — thank you!
Academic publications
Overseas Children's Chinese Education Research Institute, Beijing Normal University: 5 articles
- May 14, 2025 Cracking the character code with seven-color magic
- Aug 6, 2025 The Rainbow Chinese mobile app launches
- Sep 15, 2025 AI bilingual picture books: tell a story and learn to write, all in one place
- Sep 18, 2025 Making Chinese learning warmer: the teaching design and practice behind AI bilingual picture books
- May 3, 2026 A gift for International Chinese Language Day: the new HSK 1 Rainbow character cards, open-sourced for the whole world
Competition
At the end of 2025, Rainbow Chinese was shortlisted in two tracks of the Global Chinese Language Alliance annual innovation competition.