LEARNING CHINESE CHARACTERS
How can I learn to write Chinese characters at home?

Learning Chinese Characters - How can I learn to write Chinese characters at home?

Learning Chinese Characters Learning to write Chinese characters is no minor undertaking. We have all heard stories of the astronomical number of Chinese characters and the extreme complexity of some of those. However, the truth is that this task is not so difficult as it seems. It is not easy but definitely doable. First of all, to learn Chinese characters you need to start doing it. Today. Pick up a book (like this one) and a pen and write the first character. The first few characters are decidedly easy to write. One is a single horizontal stroke, two is two strokes and, guess what, three is three. Four is where the cycle breaks but it is still not difficult. Chinese children in school learn the same way, one by one. As an adult, you are surely in a better position to memorize abstract Chinese symbols than a six-year old child who is just learning how to hold a pen properly. The first 2-300 Chinese characters are not so difficult to learn. And it is a great feeling of satisfaction when you recognize these characters on Chinese signs in Chinatown or in Chinese restaurants. I remember when I was studying in China and I was going by the post office every day. There was a sign with three large Chinese characters: YOU DIAN JU. I learned the last two fairly quickly but the third one did not come up for a couple of months. And when it did and I was passing the post office, it was an elated feeling to be able to read the whole sign. What made this so special is that these Chinese characters were random ones, not ones in a textbook. These were real Chinese characters written for Chinese people, independent of me learning Chinese. After the first 2-300 Chinese characters you realize that you are also forgetting them as you are learning new ones. A step forward followed by a step backward. You make an effort and learn another 2-300 hundred characters. And then the forgetting increases and you began feeling that the whole enterprise is hopeless. What is the solution? Push on, learn the next 2-300 hundred.

When you despair about learning Chinese characters, remember that if you persist, you will learn them. There are over a billion of Chinese speakers and all of them must learn to read and write when they are in elementary school. It is very easy to learn when you have the right motivation, but sometimes there is just not enough motivation. This is the time when you simply need to keep going. If you keep learning Chinese characters persistently for a couple of months, you will have already learned a relatively large number of them. You need to get to the level of knowing about 1,500 to begin really feeling that you can read most of the characters you see around you. They say that reading a newspaper requires the knowledge of about 3,000 characters. Maybe, I have never counted. But still, this is a very concrete and therefore achievable goal - learn 3,000 Chinese characters. Just a last note. Learning Chinese characters naturally also means learning the Chinese language. Perhaps it is possible to memorize the characters without ever bothering to construct a sentence but it would be like someone memorizing English vocabulary without learning to speak English. So with learning Chinese characters you will also be learning to speak Chinese. Johan Bjorksten's Learn to Write Chinese Characters is a tool to help you with learning independently at home. Don't bother with finding free sites about learning Chinese. For a project like this, you need good tools. The book Learn to Write Chinese Characters is a good tool for this. Get it. Use it. You will not regret it. Stephen Bekes -- 2005 If you would like to share your experience with learning Chinese characters, please send it to us and we will put it up here. You may submit an entire article and we will publish it on our site. Learning Chinese Pealing the Chinese onion Chinese dictionaries Origins of Chinese writing How to study Chinese characters Funniest Chinese subtitles