Characters: parts, strokes and words
Chinese Foundations · Lesson 4 of 11 · About 15 minutes
Preview version — Chinese review in progress.
Your mission: By the end of this lesson, you can tell characters from words, spot the parts inside a character, follow the basic stroke-order rules and look a character up.
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Warm-up: do you remember?
Two quick questions from earlier lessons. Recalling before you learn makes the new material stick.
Tones
Quick recall: which tone does 水 (shuǐ) have?
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Answer: C, Third.
水 is shuǐ: the third tone, low and dipping.
New words
Character parts in this lesson: 女 nǚ woman (as a part); 子 zǐ child (as a part)
Characters and words
A character is one written unit and almost always one syllable. A word can be one character, like 人 (rén, person), or more: 中文 is 中 + 文 and 谢谢 is two 谢. Many everyday words have two characters, so learn words as whole units.
There is no spelling: you cannot sound out a new character. That is why this course shows pinyin at first and lets you turn it down as you progress.
Characters are built from parts
Most characters combine parts you will meet again and again. 好 (good) is 女 (woman) + 子 (child). 你 (you) starts with 亻, the side form of 人 (person). Spotting the parts turns strange shapes into familiar pieces, and the dictionary shows them for each character.
Some characters began as pictures: 人 looks like a person walking, 口 is an open mouth and 大 is a person with arms stretched wide.
Stroke order
- Top before bottom.
- Left before right: 你 starts with 亻.
- A horizontal stroke usually comes before a vertical one that crosses it.
- Outside before inside, then close the box: 口 is the left side, then the top and right side in one stroke, then the bottom line last.
- Middle before the sides when they are balanced: 小 starts with its middle hook.
Stroke order makes characters faster to write and easier to read in handwriting. Practise it on the stroke order tool or with the optional writing practice below.
Characters
- 好 = 女 + 子
Open a character to see how it is written, stroke by stroke, with its meanings and words.
Speak: listen, record, compare
Listen to each model, record yourself, then play both and compare: the rhythm, the tones, the vowels. No automatic score: your ear is the judge.
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Recording is not available in this browser. Listen, then repeat aloud and compare by ear.
人
rén
person
大
dà
big
小
xiǎo
small
口
kǒu
mouth
Practice
Characters
Which character means person?
Show the answer
Answer: B, 人.
人 (rén) is a person: two strokes, like someone walking. 大 is big and 小 is small.
Understanding
How many characters does the word 中文 have?
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Answer: A, two.
中文 has two characters, 中 and 文, and two syllables: Zhōngwén.
Characters
Which two parts make up 好?
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Answer: C, 女 + 子.
好 is 女 + 子: woman and child together mean good.
Characters
When you write 口, which line comes last?
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Answer: B, the bottom line that closes the box.
Outside first, close last: 口 ends with the bottom line.
Your turn
Type the pinyin of 大 (big).
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Answer: dà
大 is dà, fourth tone: a short, falling da.
Meaning
What does 口 mean?
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Answer: B, mouth.
口 (kǒu) is a mouth. It is also a part in characters about speaking and eating, like 吃 and 喝.
Your mission: look one up
Use the tools you will rely on every day.
- Open the dictionary and look up 好: find its meaning and its parts.
- Watch the stroke order of 口 on the stroke order tool.
- Optional: trace 人, 大 and 小 a few times with the writing practice above.
Review and finish
Can you do this? If a line feels shaky, go back to that part before you move on.
- I can tell a character from a word.
- I can find 女 and 子 inside 好.
- I know the basic stroke-order rules: top to bottom, left to right, outside before inside.
- I can look up a character in the dictionary.
Review works best spaced out: answer these exercises again tomorrow, then after a few days. Your progress is saved in this browser.
Completing records that you finished the lesson. Mastery is separate: it grows as reviews bring the exercises back and you answer them correctly.