Write Characters Over and Over Again Chinese

Reading and writing Chinese characters is often considered the almost ambitious challenge that language students face in order to achieve fluency. Indeed, the intricacies which accept shaped this graphic symbol system over thousands of years are both complex and vast.

While they may appear bewildering at offset, Chinese characters are actually composed of distinct building blocks that grade a straightforward and logical structure. Once you grasp a bones understanding of Chinese grapheme beefcake, y'all volition be reading and writing your way beyond the Middle Kingdom in no fourth dimension. Explore below and keep along your journey to learn Chinese characters.

Different the Roman alphabet, Chinese characters are used to illustrate meaning rather than sound. In fact, most characters were originally intended as visual representations of physical elements like trees, houses or humans. Evolving since their earliest forms, simplified versions of these symbols, known equally grapheme radicals, serve as the foundation for contemporary written Mandarin.

Making up approximately 80% of the language, radicals—in addition to Chinese pinyin—are an essential starting betoken for anyone who wants to read or write fluently in Mandarin. Jump to the list of the 40 well-nigh used Chinese radicals and continue learning Chinese characters.

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The evolution of the characters 人, 从, and 众. 人=rén=person 从=cóng=from/follow 众=zhòng=oversupply.

When two or more than radicals are combined, they piece of work together to create a single character; the radical on the left indicates the grapheme'due south category or significant, while the radical on the right might indicate its pronunciation. The bulk of the written Chinese linguistic communication is comprised of grapheme compounds, in which several characters are combined to make ane word.

About Chinese dictionaries include almost 20,000 characters, though linguists judge literate speakers know between five,000 and viii,000. For language learners, existence familiar with just two,000 to 3,000 characters will requite you the tools to read virtually newspapers and magazines.

An of import dominion to note is that characters are written according to a standardized stroke club, which typically moves from left to correct, top to lesser and outside to inside. Skritter is an excellent APP to help you learn stroke order. Although Chinese characters may seem daunting at first, patterns will quickly emerge once you lot develop a bones foundation. And then, review your radicals, familiarize yourself with the most commonly used Chinese characters, and spotter as your Mandarin skills grow exponentially!

Chinese Character Basics

Having a deeper understanding of Chinese characters is important for whatsoever educatee of Chinese. Learning characters will help reveal the linguistic communication's logical structure equally well as People's republic of china'southward history and culture. Watch the following video to delve deeper into the pictographic and ideographic nature of Chinese characters. Yous'll larn the difference between the phonetic alphabet and the Chinese character system.

How to Learn Chinese Characters

Contrary to what many new students expect, learning the characters is not a particularly difficult part of learning Chinese.

In fact, many avant-garde students of Chinese say that remembering and achieving expert oral comprehension of the song tones associated with Chinese characters and words is really the hardest aspect of learning Chinese.

At that place are a few different techniques for learning characters and which i is best actually depends on which one works for you. The method used by Chinese school children is the repetition method. Characters are studied and written down again and again until they are remembered.

Many non-native learners of the language criticize this method as outdated and inefficient. However, this is the method used by the Chinese people, almost all of whom learn more characters than the vast bulk of non-native speakers of Chinese ever manage to learn, which is a statistic that makes it hard to criticize the method.

Some other method—ane that is quite popular with Western students of Chinese—involves attaching a story to each character. The story may exist based on the advent of the character or how the grapheme is constructed from different radicals. The theory is that a story is easier to remember than an arbitrary shape.

Take the graphic symbol 吗 (ma) shown below as an instance. This Chinese character has the same significant and use as the question mark does in English language, except that in Chinese, the question mark is not silent, but is spoken at the finish of the sentence. Information technology is pronounced "ma."

If y'all look at the graphic symbol's two component radicals in the figure on the correct, you will see that the radical on the left half is shaped like a box. This is the Chinese graphic symbol 口 (kǒu), which is an former character for mouth and still carries the pregnant of mouth or opening. The radical on the right is the Chinese character 马 (mǎ), which means horse.

If you lot had already learned the two characters that are the radicals for this new character, then the story you lot use to remember the graphic symbol might get something like this: "In ancient times, horses were very expensive. So before buying a horse you would use your rima oris to inquire lots of questions about the equus caballus's pedigree."

Remembering this little story can help to remind you lot that the grapheme 吗 (ma), with the pregnant of a question marker, is drawn past placing the "rima oris" character before the "equus caballus" character.

The method of repetition requires continuous dedication until the characters become so familiar that they volition not be forgotten, and this tin accept many years. For students who might not be able to study the language continuously for such a long time, the story method might exist ameliorate.

No matter which method you lot choose, setting targets and goals is a adept idea. Studying the most mutual characters starting time makes progress quicker and ensures the fastest road to achieving i's goal. A skilful starting point is the 100 most common Chinese characters. If your plan is to eventually acquire a large number of characters in gild to pass an exam such equally HSK four,  5 or 6, then information technology would be a practiced idea to commencement past learning the about mutual radicals (see beneath).

The forty Nearly Common Radicals:

There are over 200 radicals that make upward Chinese characters, though only a portion of them are regularly used in simplified Mandarin today.

Check out the list beneath to find out the 40 well-nigh common character radicals—yous might find that you've encountered nigh of them earlier! Remember, because they serve as the edifice blocks of the written character system, radicals are absolutely crucial in helping language learners become literate in Mandarin.

No.	Radi­cal	pīnyīn	Eng­lish
ane	人	rén	person
two	刀	dāo	knife
three	力	lì	power
4	又	yòu	correct paw; again
v	口	kǒu	mouth
half-dozen	囗	wéi	enclose
seven	土	tǔ	earth
8	夕	xī	sunset
9	大	dà	big
10	女	nǚ	woman
11	子	zǐ	child
12	寸	cùn	inch
thirteen	小	xiǎo	small
xiv	工	gōng	labor；work
xv	幺	yāo	tiny; small
sixteen	弓	gōng	bow
17	心	xīn	centre box
18	戈	gē	dagger;axe
19	手	shǒu	hand
xx	日	rì	sun
21	月	yuè	moon
22	木	mù	wood
23	水	shuǐ	water
24	火	huǒ	fire
25	田	tián	field
26	目	mù	center
27	示	shì	show
28	糸	mì	fine silk
29	耳	ěr	ear
30	衣	yī	wear
31	言	yán	speech
32	贝	bèi	cowrie; trounce
33	走	zǒu	walk
34	⻊	zú	pes
35	金	jīn	gold
36	门	mén	door
37	隹	zhuī	brusk-tailed bird
38	雨	yǔ	pelting
39	食	shí	swallow
xl	马	mǎ	equus caballus

Additional Chinese Learning Resources:

• Chinese Proverbs About the Family
• Beginner's Guide to Chinese Idioms
• Things I Need to Know Before Starting to Learn Standard mandarin
• 12 Mutual Means to Say "Hi" in Chinese
• Superlative five Reasons to Learn Chinese

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Source: https://studycli.org/chinese-characters/learn-chinese-characters/

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