1 · Sounds and characters
What a character is
hanzi, the Chinese script
One character is one syllable with a meaning, built from a small set of recurring parts.
A Chinese character, 汉字, writes one syllable, and almost always one unit of meaning: 人 is person, 口 mouth, 山 mountain. The script does not spell sounds. A reader who meets an unknown character cannot sound it out the way one sounds out an English word, which is why this site prints the pinyin under every word.
Most characters are put together from parts. A common pattern joins a part that points to the meaning with a part that hints at the sound: 妈, mother, is 女, woman, beside 马, which gives the sound ma. The same sound part turns up in 吗 and 骂. The hint is often only approximate: 请, 清 and 晴 all contain 青, and they share the syllable but not the tone.
Dictionaries sort characters by one of their parts, called the radical, which is usually the part that carries the meaning. The mouth part 口 sits on the left of 吃, 喝 and 叫: eating, drinking, calling — things done with the mouth. Strokes are written in a fixed order: top before bottom, left before right, and a horizontal stroke before a vertical one that crosses it.
The mainland writes simplified characters, introduced in the twentieth century to make writing quicker: 马 for 馬, 门 for 門. Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau keep the traditional forms. English speakers often expect every character to be a little picture (only a few are), or one character to be one word (most words have two), or the sound part to give the exact pronunciation (it rarely does).
The form
| one character, one syllable | 人、口、山、水 |
| one sound part, ma | 妈、吗、骂 |
| one meaning part, the mouth | 吃、喝、叫、唱 |
| a sound part as a hint only | 请、清、晴、情 |
| simplified and traditional | 马、馬、门、門 |
The rules one by one
The form this topic is about
Every character is read as one syllable.
“图书馆”是三个字。Túshūguǎn, library, is three characters.
Many characters join a part for the meaning and a part for the sound.
妈妈在骂小狗。Mum is telling the puppy off.
Characters that share a meaning part often belong to the same field of meaning.
我想吃点儿东西，喝点儿水。I want something to eat and some water to drink.
The sound part is only a hint: characters that share it often sound alike, but rarely the same.
请你明天来，明天是晴天。Please come tomorrow — it will be sunny.
The mainland writes simplified characters; Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau keep the traditional ones.
这是简体字。These are simplified characters.
A closer look
How a character is written
Every character has a fixed number of strokes, written in a fixed order. The order is not a matter of taste: it makes handwriting fast and readable, and it is how dictionaries and handwriting input on a phone recognise a character. The basic rules are few — top before bottom, left before right, outside before inside, and a box is closed last, as in 国.
Beginners do best with a small set of very common parts: person, mouth, hand, water, woman, heart, word, tree, sun. Each of them turns up in dozens of characters, and once they are familiar, a new character stops being a tangle of lines and becomes two or three parts you already know.
Exceptions and special cases (1)
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a word was borrowed for its sound, such as 咖啡 or 沙发
its characters carry no meaning of their own; together they only write the sound of the word.
我早上喝咖啡。I drink coffee in the morning.
A loanword needs syllables, not meanings, so its characters are chosen for how they sound. Many such words have a meaning part that marks the whole word, like the mouth in 咖啡.
How to spot it
- 字
- 汉字
- 简体字
- 繁体字
Example sentences
我每天学十个汉字。I learn ten characters every day.
这个字怎么读？How do you read this character?
这个字有几画？How many strokes does this character have?
查字典的时候，要先找部首。To look a character up in a dictionary, you first find its radical.
你会写你的中文名字吗？Can you write your Chinese name?
她会写繁体字。She can write traditional characters.
7 more example sentences
这个字我不认识。I don't know this character.
“人”这个字只有两画。The character for “person” has only two strokes.
她的字写得很漂亮。Her handwriting is beautiful.
请用简体字写。Please write in simplified characters.
“河”和“海”都跟水有关系。“River” and “sea” both have to do with water.
我先学拼音，再学汉字。I learn pinyin first and then characters.
“好”字左边是女，右边是子。The character for “good” has woman on the left and child on the right.
Worth knowing (1)
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Same sound, different character
Many characters share one syllable, even with the same tone: 是, to be; 事, matter; 市, city; 试, to try. In speech the words around them make the meaning clear; on the page the character does it at a glance.
我有事，不能去考试。Something has come up, so I can't go to the exam.
The trap English speakers fall into
Watch out
A dictionary gives 朋 the meaning “friend”, so it looks like a word. It is not: it lives inside 朋友 and is not used on its own. One character is one syllable with a meaning, but not always a word you can use alone.
A character is one syllable and one piece of meaning; learn it inside the words it is used in.
Your turn
8 exercises on this topic. Your answers are checked in the browser; none of them leaves your device.