How to Learn Chinese Characters effectively?

Learning Chinese characters is not an easy task. Luckily, there are many resources and methods available that not only help you learn Chinese characters, but also save your time and increase your interest in learning Chinese. 

I am a Chinese learner. I have seen both effective and ineffective methods to learn Chinese characters. If you use the right method, you could learn Chinese characters effectively and faster. The learning method that I choose makes me able to learn Chinese characters so much faster.

In this post, I have shared the learning methods which are effective for learning Characters that you can copy, and I share the mistakes that I have made that you should not do.

First, I would like to share my mistakes. These are the common mistakes that many people do while learning characters. You should learn from my mistakes. The two major mistakes I made while learning Chinese characters: 

1) Rote Memorized Chinese Characters 

For many years, I used to learn Chinese characters with rote memorization without understanding the actual structure of each character. 

Many learners do the same mistake. Most people think that it is not necessary to waste time on getting the details when you can memorize characters based on appearance. Though, this method is wrong. 

Take a Chinese character, for example, 脸/Liǎn, which means ‘face’. It is not very difficult to memorize after comprehending its structure and appearance.  

But it can be difficult to distinguish similar-looking characters. Can you point out the equivalent character from the similar-looking characters below?

验 脸 检 险 签 剑 捡 俭

If you can do so, you have a superb mind. If you can't distinguish a similar character, I hope you have understood my point that Chinese characters can’t be learned through rote memorization. 

2) Learning Chinese Characters in Pairs 

The second mistake I made was learning characters in pairs as they are presented in textbooks. It can make it difficult to determine the meanings in other perspectives. 

For example, take a character combination; I take 结婚/Jiéhūn, which indicates the verb to marry. When you learned it as a pair and basing the meaning on the English characterization, you likely think that each character has some connection with marriage. 

But when you take the first character 结/Jié, and determine it in other combinations like 结合/Jiéhé means link, 结果/Jiéguǒ means result/outcome, or 团结/Tuánjié means unity, you will find the characters itself have a mean.  

The best method to Learn Chinese Characters

The best way to learn Chinese characters is to break down the characters into basic parts, and then learn the meaning of each part and remember how to identify and write it. 

You can do this in different ways. When I was learning Chinese characters, I used the popular Remembering Simplified Hanzi textbook. This book has presented each character in an interesting way with helpful mnemonics and stories. 

But I have faced a problem that the stories and mnemonics did not follow the real meaning of individual or even the character combination. However, the book helps me to remember how to write characters properly. 

As you know, the Chinese characters are complex structures. Learning the characters by dividing them into basic parts and studying the logic behind the structure of each Chinese character is the most effective way to learn Chinese characters. 

How it works: You can divide a Chinese character into three functional components: form, sound, and meaning. There are many apps and resources that offer this way to learn Chinese characters. This method helps you learning Chinese characters individually. If you are a beginner you should start learning characters through this method. 

While learning the functional components of a character, you will be able to:

• Quickly and effectively learning Chinese characters without rote memorization 
• Recognize the characters you have already study and remember how to write them
• Quickly distinguish the difference between characters with the same components
• Get extra time for learning new Chinese characters or achieving other language goals

I have shared my experienced method, which I found the best of all. You can use different tools and resources for learning Chinese characters through this method.

Final Thoughts

There are plenty of methods you can use to learn Chinese characters quickly and effectively. However, you should test the methods first to find the best one. Avoid learning with rote memorization. Focus on understanding the structure and components of each Chinese character.