Learning Chinese Characters: A Beginner’s Guide

Why Chinese characters seem hard, and why they are not

Written Chinese does not use an alphabet. Each character stands for a syllable and usually for a unit of meaning, so a reader needs to know many characters rather than a few dozen letters. That is the part that worries beginners.

The good news is that characters are not random. A large number of them are built from a much smaller set of components, which repeat again and again. Once you know the common building blocks, each new character becomes a combination of parts you have already seen, not a new drawing to memorise from scratch.

Start with pictographs

Some of the oldest characters began as drawings of what they mean. Their modern forms are simplified, but the picture is often still visible, which makes them the easiest characters to start with:

• 日 rì, sun: once a circle with a dot, now a rectangle with a line inside.
• 月 yuè, moon: a crescent moon, standing upright.
• 山 shān, mountain: three peaks.
• 人 rén, person: a person walking, seen from the side.
• 木 mù, tree: a trunk with branches above and roots below.

Combine characters to build new ones

Simple characters combine into more complex ones, and the meaning often follows from the parts. Learning these combinations is one of the most satisfying parts of studying Chinese.

Meaning from meaning

Two trees, 林 lín, mean woods, and three trees, 森 sēn, mean forest. The sun and the moon together, 明 míng, mean bright. A person next to a tree, 休 xiū, means rest. A woman, 女, beside a child, 子, makes 好 hǎo, good.

Radicals: a hint of the meaning

Every character is listed in dictionaries under a component called its radical, which often shows the general area of meaning. The water radical 氵, three short strokes on the left, appears in 河 hé (river), 海 hǎi (sea) and 湖 hú (lake). The mouth radical 口 appears in 吃 chī (eat), 喝 hē (drink) and 叫 jiào (call). When you meet an unknown character with 氵 on its left, you can guess it has something to do with water.

Sound components: a hint of the pronunciation

Many characters pair a meaning component with a component that suggests the sound. 妈 mā, mother, combines 女 (woman) for the meaning with 马 mǎ (horse) for the sound. The hint is not always exact, since the tone or even the sound may differ, but it helps you remember and guess.

Pinyin and tones: learn the sound with the shape

Pinyin is the standard system for writing Mandarin pronunciation with the Latin alphabet. It is a learning tool, not a replacement for characters, but it lets you read and say a character from the first day.

Mandarin has four main tones, plus a light neutral tone, and they change the meaning of a syllable. The classic example uses ma: 妈 mā (mother) with a high, level tone; 麻 má (hemp) with a rising tone; 马 mǎ (horse) with a low, dipping tone; and 骂 mà (scold) with a falling tone. Pinyin shows the tone with a mark above the vowel.

Learn the tone as part of each new character, not later. Listen to the character, say it out loud and copy the melody. A tone learned wrongly at the start is hard to correct afterwards.

Stroke order: the rules that make writing easier

Each character is written with its strokes in a set order. Following that order makes your handwriting look right, keeps characters in proportion and helps memory, because your hand learns the character as a movement. A few general rules cover most characters:

• Top before bottom, as in 三 sān (three).
• Left before right, as in 林 lín: the left tree first.
• Horizontal before vertical when they cross, as in 十 shí (ten).
• Outside before inside, but close the frame last, as in 日: the sides and top first, then the inner line, then the bottom stroke.
• Centre before the sides when a character is symmetrical, as in 小 xiǎo (small).

How to remember characters: spaced repetition

Seeing a character once is not enough to remember it, and studying it many times in a single evening is not efficient either. Memory works better when you review something just as you are starting to forget it, then wait a little longer before the next review. This is called spaced repetition, and it is how many flashcard apps decide which cards to show you each day.

Test yourself rather than only rereading. Look at the character and try to recall its meaning and sound before you check, or look at the meaning and try to picture or write the character. Making your memory work is what makes the character stick.

A simple study routine

Learn a few new characters at a time, each with its picture or story, pinyin, tone and stroke order. Write each one a few times, say it aloud, then test yourself at the end of the session. Review old characters before you add new ones, and keep sessions short and regular.

Learning characters with Chinese Parrot

Our app Chinese Parrot, for learning Chinese characters with pictures , follows the approach in this guide. Each character, such as 日, 月 and 山, comes with an illustration of its meaning, its pinyin with tone marks and its translation, and you can hear it read aloud by your device’s voice. A Strokes view on each card is there for writing practice.

Lessons are grouped by theme in a beginners course. After a lesson, “Test me” checks what you remember, and the app tells you when characters are due for review. It works offline, and several learners can share one device with their own progress.