How to Start Writing Chinese Characters (Step by Step).

Did you know learning Chinese characters is actually a bit like learning English words? If I ask you to remember these letters, it's quite hard. But if you know its order and the chunks that are used in it, it becomes much easier to remember and write, right? You should also apply the same mindset in learning Chinese characters because they are not just random combinations of strokes. These strokes are written in a consistent order and many characters are made out of chunks called components that you will see again and again in other characters. One study showed that among the 3,500 most frequently used Chinese characters, which covers most of those used in everyday life, there are only 132 components. Although this number might vary depending on the research criteria, the concept is that when you are learning Chinese characters, you are not learning every single character from scratch. There are actually repeated elements in them. So the more characters you learn, the easier it becomes to learn new ones. And also these elements are arranged in just a few common structures. So once you understand this, Chinese characters will appear less intimidating, although it still takes some time to learn. But I'm going to make it as easy as possible for you. I will walk you through all the basics you need to start writing Chinese characters. We will start from learning basic strokes, then commonly used components, and at the end, how these components are arranged and combined. By the way, I've prepared a Chinese character workbook to help you start your journey more easily. This workbook will help you practice all the basic Chinese strokes and learn a hundred common components. So you can start learning Chinese characters faster and with more confidence. You can find the workbook through the link in the description and start your Chinese character writing journey today. All right, let's first start with learning some basic principles. When writing Chinese characters, remember to write from left to right, and from top to bottom, also from outside to inside. Let me give you some examples. This character 筒, we write the outside first, and then inside, 筒, and 音. Remember, if there's an enclosing box, we close it last, like this, 音. Quick side note, these are the phonetic symbols used in Taiwan. Now, let's look at the basic strokes in Chinese. There are six basic strokes. The first one, 点, 点 is written usually from the upper left towards the lower right. Next, 横, 横 is written from the left to right, 横, this direction. Then, we have 竖, 竖 is written from top to bottom, from top to bottom. Now, let's see a character that use both 横 and 竖. 十, 十, we write the 横 first, and then 竖, 十, this character means ten. And then, let's look at a character that use all these three strokes. 下, 下, we write the 横 first, and then 竖, 点, this is 下, 下 has the meaning of down. Okay, let's move on to the fourth one, 撇, 撇, 撇. 撇 starts from the upper right and moves towards the lower left. Let's see a character that use all these four strokes. 六, 六, we write the 点 first, and then 横, 撇, 点, so this is 六, which means six. We write the 点 first, 横, 撇, 点. Next, we have 那, 那, 那, 那 is written from the upper left to the lower right. Let's look at a character that use both 撇 and 那. 人, 人, 人, 人, 人, 人, 人, 人, 人, 人, 人, 人, 人, 人, 人, 人, 人, 人, 人, 人, 人, 人, 人, 人, 人, 人, 人, 人, 人, 人, 人, 人, 人, 人, 人, 人, 人, 人, 人, 人, 人, 人, 人, 人, 人, 人, 人, 人, 人, 人, 人, 人, 人, 人, 人, 人, 人, 人, 人, 人, 人, 人, 人, 人, 人, 人, 人, 人, 人, 人, 人, 人, 人, 人 by the basic strokes by adding terms, hooks, or other changes. This might seem like a lot, but don't worry, I've included them all in my Chinese character workbook, so you can go through them one by one. So what you have just learned are strokes, the most basic units of Chinese characters. Sometimes these strokes combine into chunks that appear again and again in different characters. And some components can even stand alone as characters themselves. Now I'm going to introduce 10 common components to give you a general idea of how they work. The first one, you can see in the character here, there are two components means to sit and as in to introduce Here, you can see a This component also commonly shows up on the left side of a character. It looks like this. Characters like all have this component. Let's look at the second one. If we combine this component with the last one, then we get as in It also appears in the character Next, If we combine with the last component, we can get a new character. 古 expresses the idea of ancient, like is people in ancient times. Sometimes components can even give you clues about the character's meaning or sound. Like So it often suggests that the character is related to the mouth. For example, means to eat means to drink and means to sing And if you have noticed here, in both and you can see another common component. This one is another common component. Here are some other characters that have like has a meaning of late and as in also has this This is also a very common one. Another one When it's used as a component, it's often written as this and shows up on the left side of the character. Like to heat and Did you see these components we just learned? This and then we get It means to bottom, to the dot. But sometimes you can also say it at the bottom, like You can see here. Here's another one. If we add the component we just learned with it becomes as in if Another character that has is as in hardworking In the character 努, you can see another two common components. and that's see some character that contains You can see it in as in You can see here and also This is in traditional characters, in simplified characters, is like this. You can see these components here. May has the meaning of to not have and here is If you add a on top of it, you get which carries the idea of other or another. But if you put on the right side of like this, you get which means to add. See, even with just these few components, we can already learn several new characters. Let's see the next one. If you add a 人 next to 目 then you get as in Another character has a 口 on top of 目 can describe someone who seems a bit goofy or slow to react. Here is the last one. Here is a character with it. And did you see the 目 component here? This 心 component also often shows up on the left side of a character and it will be written like this. Like in the character easy or fast These are 10 common components. If you'd like to learn more, I've included 100 common components in the workbook to help you learn characters more effectively. All right, now let's take a look at how these components are combined. If you don't know, Chinese characters are also called square characters. It means that no matter how many strokes or components a character has, it always fits into a square space. So now let's look at all the Chinese character structures, how components can be combined. The first one is the single component structure. Some Chinese characters consist of just one component like Less than 10% of Chinese characters are in this category. However, when you're just starting to learn Chinese, you will come across characters like these much more often. Apart from the single component structure, all the remaining ones have at least two components. Together, these structures make up more than 90% of all Chinese characters. Let's now look at the second one. This is the most commonly used structure, the left-right structure. Characters like all use this. You can see they have a left side and a right side. So they're in this structure. Next, the top-bottom structure. Characters like all use this. One component is on the top and one on the bottom. And this structure is the top-left enclosure. Here are some examples. Another example, which means illness. In this structure, one component wraps around the rest of the character from the top and the left side. Next is the bottom-left enclosure. Like in traditional characters. This is simplified characters. And In this structure, the enclosing component is usually this and this. It wraps around the rest of the character from the bottom-left. And this is the top-right enclosure. Characters like They are composed this way. There are also characters that can be divided into three parts. Left, middle, right. And top, middle, bottom. Let's see some examples. This is traditional characters. And this is simplified character. It has three parts. And class They also have three parts. And here are some examples of the top-middle-bottom structure. This character can be a surname. So Both of them have three parts. And then there is the top enclosure. Where one component wraps around the rest of the character from the top. Like to ask This component wraps around this component. This is in traditional characters. Simplified character is like this. See, one component wraps around another component. Another example Which has the meaning of same. We also have the bottom enclosure. And left enclosure. But they are not that common. Here are some of their examples. Bottom enclosure. In simplified Chinese. It's also in this structure. To draw. And left enclosure. This is in traditional characters. In simplified Chinese, it's like this. It has the meaning of area. Another example. In simplified Chinese. So this is also left enclosure. Lastly, we have the full enclosure. In this structure, one component completely surrounds the rest of the character. For example. As in This is a traditional character. Here is the simplified one. So you can see there is a component wraps around the rest of the character. Another example. It means to go back. A quick note. There's an extra structure. The overlay structure. In some characters, some components might overlay. For example. It means east. This character is the combination of these two components. But this type of character is quite rare. So you don't need to worry too much about it. Within all these structures. These four are used most often. All right. These are all the important concepts I wanted to share with you. After having a better understanding of Chinese characters. You will find that learning them is not as intimidating as you may have thought. However, just like learning anything. You still need to put in time and effort. But I hope this video was helpful in simplifying it for you. If you want to start practicing writing basic strokes. And learn 100 common components to speed up your learning journey. Also, if you want to practice writing Chinese characters with stroke order guidance. While learning their pronunciation and meaning. I highly recommend Skritter. It's an amazing app for learning Chinese characters. And it even breaks down each character into its components. If you want to try it. I've also linked it in the description. Thank you for watching to the end. And if you want to get more Chinese learning resources from me. Don't forget to check the information in the description. Bye-bye.