How to Understand Chinese Characters Easily

If a language is a door to a new room, when you learn mandarin, you find yourself in right front of a, particularly involved one.

• It is got carvings 
• It is got gold bits 
• It is intensely painted 
• It is got stylish doorknobs 
• It is got lion heads

Chinese language a reputation of difficulty, for one key reason is Chinese characters.

But don’t worry!

I am here to help you.

So, just like this fantastical door, the difficulty of characters is also what makes them so fascinating and beautiful. And likewise, although, the whole effect can be incredible, once you breakdown them into their shapes, they start to look less complex!

Yes, read right!

After reading this blog, you would not find understanding Chinese characters quite so daunting anymore.

Working for a mandarin language learning course, I hear over and over again, I am not going to learn the Chinese characters. I will just learn to speak Chinese properly. 

And, that is enough for me.

To put squarely, trying to learn mandarin without learning the characters is normally not a great idea. 

The good news is you’ve no reason to be afraid or understanding Chinese characters. I m here to explain to you! So, let’s start!

Do you need to learn Chinese characters?

You might already learn that the learn Chinese has a phonetic system, Chinese language, that utilizes the Latin based alphabet to elicit the right pronunciation of the world. Though, the Pinyin system is in no way a proper system utilized for communication – it is only utilized for the language learning process, and would not be found anyplace outsides of a dictionary or a textbook.

Are you going to order from a Mandarin menu? Sorry, no Pinyin there.

So, read a map? Nope.

Get off at the right stop? It is better to bring a Chinese buddy!

And if you are messaging with an attractive Chinese lady, there is a possibility they will recognize your Pinyin texts, but they are most probably going to a slightly confused most of the time.

You are probably the only person that is ever tried to use Pinyin to chat with them. Imagine if somebody messaged you in Eng using the dictionary’s phonology process instead of the actual words or sentences!

Characters also play a vital part in learning Pinyin. For instance, you will learn that jiàoshì and jiàoshī mean teacher and classroom. 

I know you are confused here, but don’t worry I’ll explain to you how.

If you were looking at the characters instead of the Chinese words, it’d be a lot clearer.

Not only will these characters help you distinguish words, they all help you memorize them the right way. Attaching words to a picture is a fine method to store the memory of that word in your brain, and when you see that character once again, you will be able to draw that memory process back up. That procedure would be very less proficient if all you know is “shi.”

To Understand Chinese characters how many do I need to learn?

The Mandarin writing style (which contains anywhere up to 80 thousand plus characters, all depending on which dictionary you refer to) can look intimidating at first.

Luckily, you just need to learn 3000 to 3500 characters for basic Chinese literacy – a lot more manageable.

One important question to answer early on is whether to start out learning Simplified or traditional Pinyin.

Traditional characters are still utilized in Taiwan and Hong Kong. So if you live in these countries or mostly plan to interact with natives from these areas, Traditional Chinese characters are the most helpful for you.

Otherwise, the majority of the 2nd language learners tend to begin with simplified Chinese characters, which can stand in the mainland in China since the 50s.

Why Learning Chinese characters seem too impossible?

If characters depress you, you might narrate to one of the following declarations:

• Every Character seems like a small painting, how could I ever memorize tons of paintings?
• I do not know how I’d look up the meaning of every character in the dictionary, particularly if I don’t even know how it is pronounced.
• If I understand how to read these characters, I’d never be capable to keep in mind how to write them perfectly.
• I know more than 30 thousand Eng words; does not that mean I will have to learn 30 thousand Mandarin characters?

Do not jump ship yet, the trip to Mandarin fluency is not a cake of walk, but it is not nearly as difficult as these declarations make them look. 

Slight confused, I will explain to you, and this is because:

• It is simply to seem up a Chinese character in a dictionary
• Mandarin characters are not like artwork or paintings
• You do not need to keep in mind how to write all entire the Chinese characters from memory 
• There’re very few Mandarin characters than there’re English words.

Chinese characters are not like artwork or Paintings 

A painting can be created with a number of paintbrushes and strokes, on any side, in any sort of combination. And simplified character, on the other side, is made with only 8 different sorts of strokes. 

Furthermore, these 8 different strokes are not just made in randomly picked combinations. They are composed of a very limited amount of radicals or proper character segments.

Tons of Chinese characters are entire made up of only two hundred and fourteen different radicals. Understanding these 214 radicals will let you rapidly memorize tons of Chinese Characters. 

Hope you understand here, what is my point.

Because it is very simple to pick!

If you looked at the Chinese character, you’d view it for just 2 seconds then look away and simply draw it from memory. 

Why?

Because it is a combination of 4 shapes that are extremely familiar to you. You did not have to memorize how to write every shape. Here, you already knew how to write them. You just needed to memorize the order of the shapes. That’s it!

So simple, I am right?

In a similar way, most of the Chinese characters are formed up of a combination of radicals and shapes. Chinese Characters are made of 3 radicals, you can see these radicals are reduced all through several different Chinese characters that you learn, easily placed in various orders.

Over time, the radicals will be become as familiar as the shapes you understand as a kid. When you learn a new mandarin character, it will become as easy as memorize arrow 2 triangles, circle, and heart.

Here you can use Chinese characters Chinese Dictionary.

How do I look up a Mandarin Character in a Chinese Dictionary?

If you know how the Chinese character is pronounced, just look it up according to its Chinese characters system.

I know you thought, But How? 

Let me explain!

If you do not know how to pronounce it, you to the option of using Chinese characters Chinese Dictionary:

Chinese characters Chinese Dictionary has features that can automatically properly detect a character. With tons of features available which is very helpful for you to learn and understand cchatty properly and simple way.

Do I need to bear in mind how to write each Mandarin character from memory?

No. not at all!

For daily use, this is not necessary. 

Unless your profession is directly linked to Chinese handwriting, the single frequent handwriting you will do is writing your Mandarin name. Otherwise, you will likely be communicating via email, texting, and social messaging, etc.

When typing in mandarin in cchatty Chinese Dictionary, a Pinyin input system is utilized. You will simply enter the cchatty unit of character you wish to pick the corresponding characters.

To say Classroom, you will simply type “jiaoshi” in cchatty Chinese Dictionary

You will see why the reading ability of the Chinese character is very important. There’s more than a single “jiaoshi” and you will need to pick to correct one. Writing from the memory, in this matter, is not as necessary.

Though, this is not to say writing ability altogether is unessential or unneeded. You’ll occasionally encounter situations such as requiring writing you some address on a form. For this, you will likely be capable to look at the address on your mobile or PC while copying it down by hand. In this situation, you’ll need to understand how to write, just not from the memory.

Having a basic foundation in writing stroke and radicals order should be sufficient for this sort of learning situation.

How many Mandarin Characters are there?

Though there are over 50 thousand mandarin characters, you can find them all in Chinese characters Chinese Dictionary. But as I mentioned before, you will only need to know 3000 to 3500 characters to achieve fluency.

Fluency in Chinese is normally measured by passing level six of the HSK in the Standardized Chinese test. The HSK 6 needs to learn to know more than 3000 characters and 5000 words.

Individual cchatty have their meaning, and even act as a word by themselves, but most of the words are made up of 2 or more mandarin characters. 

It looks like a slightly complex process, but in reality, it is not.

Pinyin are reused via several different words, so when you learn a new character or word, it does not always mean you will need to learn a new character.

Don’t confuse, let me explain to you.

For instance, maybe you have learned 1 of the words for teacher - 教师

教 means here teach 师 to mean expert or specialist. A “teaching professional or expert might be a teacher, within the true meaning. Now that you have learned 师 you will already recognize it when you understand these Pinyin:

• 工程师 – “engineering professional or expert” – Engineer
• 律师 – “law professional or expert” – Lawyer
• 会计师 – accounting professional or expert – Accountant 

And since you already understand 教, you will also understand it when learning:

• 教案 – lesson plan
• 教育 – education
• 教材 – teaching material

When a non-Eng learner studies a new character or work, they’ve to keep in mind a unique spelling for every word. But for mandarin learner often just need to keep in mind which Chinese character is used and the characters might already be known to them.

Learning Mandarin Characters is extremely valuable 

With the largest number of natives of any language in the whole world, knowing Mandarin surely opens a lot of doors. Not just will cchatty characters take you on a stunning and captivating expedition from side to side cchatty and culture, it might even change the entire course of your life’s journey itself.

The single method to discover what is on another way is to open the door!

Using the Chinese characters Tools and my advice in this article, you can Chinese characters characters in a method that works for you very quickly. And you can do it without spending too much time copying them or trying to memorize them all.

As you have learned, you can break down the Chinese words to assist you to learn and bear in mind them. As well as you can use technology repetition learn mandarin, Chinese copybook generators, or social media to help commit Mandarin characters to memory.

Others Have Specialized in Chinese Character you can too!

Hundreds of thousands of nonnative Chinese learners pass the HSK 6 every year, when they first started learning, they probably had a similar fear about these characters that do now. if they can do it with ease, there is no reason that you cannot!

To be fair, Mandarin is not one of the easiest and smooth foreign languages to learn, but it now the way is impossible to understand. If you had a plan to take on the challenge, do not skip the Chinese history! I recommend you to try cchatty tools and learn Mandarin Chinese dictionary to try out. With this Chinese charters will be one of your coolest allies in the learning procedure.