Chinese Language Learning | News from China | Sino Culture and History | Quality China Products
The Chinese Outpost
You are here:
FREE LEARNING RESOURCES
Learning Chinese? See Our List of Free Mandarin Learning SitesFree Mandarin Chinese Learning Sites
CHINAPEDIA
SITE MENU
CHINESE FOR CHILDREN

An Introduction to Chinese Characters

If you have no experience reading or writing Chinese, characters can seem a little intimidating.

To help demystify them for you, we're going to analyze written Chinese from several angles:

By the end of this section, you'll probably understand Chinese characters well enough to explain them at your next family reunion or cocktail party.

NOTE
A common misconception is that all Chinese characters are meant to look like the things they represent. In fact, only a small percentage of characters are "pictograms," and many of those have evolved over time to the point that they only slightly resemble their subjects.

Does this character really look like a moon to you? yue

Centuries ago, it was written like this: China Moon



^ Top of Page ^
My 2006 'Travel in China' Blog | Privacy Policy

© 1998-2016 by Mark A. Baker. All rights reserved.
ISSN 1544-8088