#Chinese character writer online how to

And learning the characters will give you a whole new perspective on the logic and beauty of Mandarin Chinese. It's a fun and effective way to learn Chinese characters. To help you remember the character, which means 'to reside/stay (somewhere)', we use this image of a house where you might ' 住(zhù)': Our fun approach uses mnemonic images in the video lessons to help you remember new characters.įor example, in our upcoming Chinese Character Course II - with the next set of 300 characters - we teach this character 住(zhù). TIP: If you haven't learned these characters before, check out our Chinese Character Course to learn the most common 300 characters. For example, you can find the character 主(zhǔ) inside 住(zhù), the third tone in 主(zhǔ) has converted into a fourth tone in 住(zhù). These are characters that share the same phonetic pronunciation as their building block component, only with a different tone. This building block logic is one of the reasons that learning Chinese characters gets exponentially easier the more you know. We first learn 及(jí), and use it as a building block as we learn 级(jí) and 极(jí). Īnother example from our level two character course is 及(jí), 级(jí), and 极(jí). Just like our example with 式(shì) and 试(shì). If you can recognize the phonetic building block character within, the new character is pronounced the exact same way. These are the best-case scenario you could hope for when you encounter a Chinese character you don’t know.

#Chinese character writer online how to

TIP: Check out this post teaching you how to know the meaning of Chinese words you've never seen before by understanding root characters.

You see, there are three large categories within phonetic building block characters. If you know this character, 式 (shì), and you can recognize that it is a building block of 试(shì), you can make an educated guess and assume that 试 (shì) is also pronounced like 式(shì). Let’s say you have to read the character 试 (shì), but you have never seen it before. Take these characters from our upcoming Chinese Character Course II, for example. T his post is all about how pronounce aloud characters you've never seen before! To learn with us, start here, with lesson 2 in our Beginner Conversational Course: 'What is Pinyin?' : *NOTE: We're not talking about pinyin here - which is the system for learning to pronounce all of the sounds of Mandarin, and should be the first step for anyone learning Chinese. Some characters will carry their pronunciation with them when they are used as a building block for a more complex character. This is based on the idea of phonetic building block characters in written Chinese. This means “if you can read the side, then read the side, if you can’t read the side, then read the middle.” Basically, if you can read any PIECE of the word, then read THAT! Since English is an alphabet-based language, we can do that! But in Chinese, it’s not so simple.īut when I was learning to read in elementary school, my teacher did give us a similar piece advice when it comes to reading words you don’t know, and that is: When you are learning to read in English, if you don’t know a word, your teacher will tell you: “Sound it out!” For English speakers who are learning Chinese, one of the biggest frustrations is not being able to pronounce characters that you don’t know.