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Chinese characters, mostly, refer to Hanzi, 汉字，the characters of Han language, since it is the most commonly used spoken and written language in China, and it is the most widely learned language by non-Chinese speakers. There are some facts we want to share: There are many styles of written Chinese Characters.; Chinese calligraphy is an art based on different styles; there are traditional and simplified Chinese characters. Traditional Chinese characters have more strokes. Chinese characters, while represent the most artistic part of Chinese language, it also prevents some non-Chinese speakers from learning written Chinese, because, as most learners would say, "it is too difficult". So how difficult is writing Chinese Characters? Before we start, there are some statistics I'd like to show: Total Chinese characters: around 80,000. Most frequently used 1,000 characters covering 90% usage. Most frequently used 2,500 characters covering 98% usage. Most frequently used 3,500 characters covering 99.5% usage. The statistics does not show too many characters are required for 90% coverage. So what makes Chinese characters LOOKS difficult? First, Chinese is not alphabetic so the writing is not related to its phonetics. This feature of Chinese makes learners feel it is learning another language to learn Chinese characters. Second, Chinese characters look so different from Western written language. Every character has strokes looking so "randomly" attached to the character. To non-Chinese speakers, it seems that the strokes are not related to each other at all and it is so hard to learn one character after another, let alone to remember them. The fact is, it is not easy to learn Chinese characters, but it is not impossible. I have learners writing perfect Chinese and learning writing can be a very pleasant experience. First of all, there are ways in written Chinese. When you look a Chinese character, check the structure first. Basic structures of Chinese include left-right, up-down and inside-outside. The next step is check strokes. Basic strokes include 点(dot), 横(horizontal stroke), 竖(vertical stroke), 撇(upright to downleft stroke), 捺(upleft to downright stroke). Once learners understands the Chinese characters LOOK reasonable, they would not feel so intimidated or hesitant to pick up a pen and practice. Just pay attentions to two things: First, each stroke is NOT randomly put into a Chinese character. There is an order of strokes in each types of structures. Second, Chinese characters look "squarely" balanced. After writing a character, look at it, if it looks like it is falling down or shaking, more practice or instruction will be needed. If you have to look at the character with a tilted head, more practice or instruction will be needed. If you feel very comfortable and balanced looking at the character, that is the one. If you have question on Chinese characters,feel free to contact us. |
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