The ULTIMATE Guide to Learning Chinese Characters

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⚡️ Time code:
00:00 Introduction
00:48 Introduction to Chinese Characters
01:57 Structures and Patterns in Chinese Characters
05:41 3 Tips to Learn Chinese Characters FASTER
10:18 Thank you for watching to the end!
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▪️ Chinese modal particles → gum.co/OtXAp
(Traditional and Simplified characters included)
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(Traditional and Simplified characters included)
▪️15 Must-Know Chinese Slang → gum.co/OPXqS
(Traditional and Simplified characters included)
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→ 15 COMMON Interjections in Mandarin: is.gd/a19K6Q
Japanese subtitles provided by Andrew Haynes. Many thanks for his outstanding work and assistance
部分素材使用來自 MotionElements.com
Some of the materials in this video include content from MotionElements.com
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[@Verbalaesthet]

One tip I can give beginners is that you should not remember the Chinese characters "how they look" like "this looks like a horse" or something. Some tutors tell you that but it is very bad to do so. Instead learn them from their elements and what they really mean. This element means "hand" and this element means "fit" and together it means "pick up". This way it will become easier to learn them.

[@itzsimply_stephy]

Thanks for ur tip I also found it very hard to do such😊

[@andreikoto4810]

Your method was working for me at first, but then I noticed "a car" in "clothes" and "a man" in "cheap" characters and it all started to slow down my progress and rememebering them got harder. There's only 5% characters that make sense the rest is just abstract notions made of elements without meaning or they are put there for the sound, in my amateur view. Correct me if I'm wrong.

[@damiester1]

@@andreikoto4810 Depends on if you're learning the traditional or simplified Chinese. The simplified Chinese kinda removed a lot of the original context of the words in pursuit of simplification.

[@andreikoto4810]

@@damiester1 that's fair. I was reffering to the simplified version.

[@flaviosouza4449]

Am I the only one who thinks chinese characteres are just as challenging as beautiful?

[@XuanZhang-ly3uc]

me too

[@charleswalters5284]

You mean her?

[@clarkamv3952]

Chinese characters is good but they have over a thousand characters

[@barzhikevil6873]

Yes

[@kyotoag3318]

Yes, you are.

[@Harry-io8pd]

Thank you for the logical and scholarly deconstruction of Chinese characters and focusing on components rather than radicals. I would love to see a list of the 132 or 135 components that are used for the words used in daily conversation.

[@evisf628]

With this video I realized that subconsciously i have used some of this tips, now i will use them strategically. Thanks Grace :)

[@GraceMandarinChinese]

Feel free to share your thoughts on learning Chinese characters in the comments! (Your study tips, the challenges you've faced... all are welcome! 💛) - ✏ Skritter - An app for helping you learn Chinese characters (Using the code "GRACEMANDARINCHINESE" to get 10% off)：skritter.com/?ref=graceguo

[@simonyang-pe3ux]

Traditional Chinese characters are definitely a huge challenge for foreigners.😂 no mention different accents of Chinese here.

[@bendranski6882]

The Chinese in Taiwan is different from Mainland Chinese. There are different tones.

[@SupremeMaster-he4rc]

The important thing to note though is that only Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan uses traditional characters. China, Malaysia and Singapore uses simplified. Macao and Hong Kong are part of China so those territories have simplified and English support. So simplified characters are the best way and easiest to start. Simplified characters can be written by hand which really helps learning them. 学vs學 and 发vs發 and the list goes on and on。Simplified characters was were one of China's greatest gifts to Chinese learners after pinyin. Thanks China! 🇨🇳🇨🇳🇨🇳🇨🇳🇨🇳🇨🇳❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤ P.S. another reason to learn Simplified is that Taiwan wants to be bilingual (English and Mandarin) by 2030 to compete with Singapore and Malaysia who also speak English and other languages too. Traditional writers can read simplified. The Simplified users DWARF the traditional users by a billion people at least in Asia alone. I learn traditional as a hobby and to read some niche Chinese tv content etc. I make a habit to hand write characters by hand often so I won't ever forget how. That will be a real challenge with traditional.

[@thisismycoolnickname]

It's not true. I'm learning traditional characters and I feel no difference in difficulty with the simplified ones. Most characters are the same in both systems anyway.

[@georgeherzog5929]

​@@SupremeMaster-he4rc Simplified Chinese characters may oversimplify. A lot of Chinese lexical history is lost. Access to pre-1956 Chinese publications require a knowledge of Traditional Characters. Additionally Taiwan continues to publish academically in Traditional Chinese. So Simplified Chinese is self-limiting to the PRC perspective.

[@gabrielalima5400]

As someone who chose to study them instead of the simplified characters, they are not much more difficult to write tbh, it just takes some getting used to. Individually, sure, you occasionally find some that have way more strokes, but overall I think it's worth it since I found traditional characters more predictable to read and more aesthetically pleasing. Most of the characters I think are a pain to write haven't even been simplified in China, like 餐, or even 累 that I often struggle to make fit into a square. I particularly think the Chinese government did a poor job in simplifying its system, I agree with the person who said the Japanese did it better. If the whole literate population of Taiwan and Hong Kong can write the traditional characters by hand, so can us foreigners if that's what we want.

[@theculturedkidlanguages]

I love discovering the meanings behind the chinese characters. There is so much meaning!!

[@der_Kirschbaum]

The other benefit which I really love about learning with this method is you can actually 'guess' the sound of the word even you never saw that word before! After learning for a while, I started noticing that some components have certain effect on other components' sound! For example, the component 王 wang2 (king) or 金 jin1 (metal) when put on the left side of other components, it retain the sound of the component on the right, but only change the meaning. Ex.) 林 Lin1 = Forest, 琳 Lin1 (same sound but add 王 to the left) = Gem 太 tai4 = too, 鈦 tai4 (same sound but add 金 to the left) = Titanium Some component does have effect on the sound (Example from the video) 智 zhi4 = Intelligence. It's actually compose of 知 zhi1 + 日 ri4, you can see that it took the sound from the word 'zhi1' and change it to the 4th tone from the word 'ri4'. This is just a simple example. You can see a lot of patterns like this if you learn more vocabulary. Sometimes it changes the initial sound, sometimes it changes the tone and sometimes it changes the final or vowel. By understanding these pattern, it becomes really handy when you have electronic dictionary like in your phone or computer because you can just type the sound that you 'guessed' or 'estimated' and let the device do the suggestion. Hope you find my tip helpful!

[@GraceMandarinChinese]

Love your method! Thank you for sharing it!

[@theyazzledazzle]

this was incredibly insightful, and I was a Japanese major in undergrad. We never learned anything like this, just had to memorize wholesale! Now that I am learning Chinese in this way, everything makes more sense!

[@ydduar5932]

This is one pf the best explanations ever.

[@admintheonepercent3654]

Thanks for sharing Grace!

[@audegottoeaudegottoe363]

Have a wonderful New Year's ! //thanks

[@IngriqiDin]

Xìe xìe, your tips is pretty much helpful for me.

[@ruthjenivergultom]

Thank you for sharing this, Grace

[@alyslim5234]

RIP the 回憶默寫法 is literally confusing to me purely because i am SUCH a visual learner! literally the other day i was telling my mum ‘why did i forget how to read 決 and 快 when i’ve been reading it all my life’ 😂😂😂😂

[@xingdong122kao5]

Great tips and great video.

[@Betelgeuse_in_clothing]

I am a Chinese native. Awesome tutorial!

[@dinhduypham2503]

Hello Grace! 我叫阿维。I am from Vietnam who has self studied Chinese language for nearly 2 years. At the beginning phase of learning, I both studied prononciation and hanzi. Related to hanzi, I used a tracing book. The vocabulary is topically classified. I traced the characters based on the strokes which is numbered and drawn with arrows in that book, then deconstruct the characters. I wondered: "What radicals does it contain? ; what meaning does the characters imply? Etc. I have spent more than 6 months to master writing Chinese characters. At present, when I read Chinese books, I usually summarize and express my opinion. Of course, I use handwriting method to compose the summary. The process of mastering handwriting Chinese characters is hard, but it deserves.

[@alongkonesaignasith5399]

Grace , many thanks for your tips. Learn new way to memorize and the apps skritter. I will test put in action my new way of learning and writting🎉

[@nugidu2450]

I am learning Chinese calligraphy. Chinese characters are so beautiful when you learn to write them well. It also helps me to learn the characters themselves

[@user-zy3iv9sf9w]

I am beginner to learn english.Can I make friend with you?I can help you to learn chinese.😊

[@JenniMeer]

Just signed up for the course. I plan on getting a notebook soon so I can actually learn. ✍️📕

[@groverchiri4031]

你好、非常感謝。

[@xiaoyongqiu2659]

very clear

[@georgeherzog5929]

Apparently some characters depend on being paired to have a meaning. For example -- butterfly >> 蝴蝶 (hu die). Neither the first or last paired characters has any meaning when it stands alone in text. A single bound form character is often a typograpical error though some are capable of standing alone as a surname, such as 孟 (Meng). Also another semantic issue is a character in a pair may sometimes vary its meaning when placement moves between the initial and the final position. So these two situations need to me known in order to properly manage paired characters.

[@psanmuk]

Thank you

[@dyong888]

great video. keep it up.

[@rauatyes9948]

You're the best!

[@GraceMandarinChinese]

Thanks! 💕

[@silentwilly2983]

I had decent success by combining reading with a popup dictionary and flashcards. I used a tool to get all the words in the text, then put those words in the flashcard program and learning them starting with the most frequent to less frequent. Parallel to that I read the text with a popup dictionary. The pop-up dictionary helps to keep the flow going. This way you learn useful words you actually encounter in the 'wild' and get to see them in context. And with the pop-up dictionary you can get a reasonable reading experience that is enjoyable even if there are a fair number of words you don't know (very well) so it is easier to keep up the work and can read more 'meaningful' books than children level. I started with 许三观卖血记 from Yu Hua as that was one of the easiest books I could find measured in number of different words used.

[@nhuquynhpham01]

such a helpful comment. Could you share the apps you mention? Many thanks.

[@silentwilly2983]

@@nhuquynhpham01 I used ChineseWordExtractor and Anki, but as it was several years ago, there may very well exist better tools now.

[@umargul5644]

It's great

[@desmondbradford6609]

1:37 I've been speaking Japanese for a while now and it just blew my mind that the pronunciation of 智 was the same when used with other characters😂

[@enricobrasil]

I'm a Chinese teacher and a Linguist and I made a research of my own (took me A LOT of time) and in the 3.5k most used characters from the Chinese Government List there are a total of 1211 components (of which 465 are only used once). The example you gave of 餐 shouldn't be divided into 3 components, but into 2: 食 (food) and 𣦼 (the sound part "can"). The other example 嘴 should be 口 (mouth) and 觜 (the sound "zui"), not 口, 此 and 角. It is really important you said students should focus on RECOGNIZING characters rather than on writing them. NOBODY WRITES ANYTHING BY HAND these days. The student will just have to type the pinyin and then RECOGNIZING the characters that appear. You should have also said that there are mainly 3 types of characters: drawings (like 日, 目, 人, 女, etc.), drawing associations (like 好, 森, 名, etc.) and drawings associated with sound (like 吗, 妈, 爸, etc.).

[@GraceMandarinChinese]

Thank you for dedicating your time to research on Chinese characters. I appreciate your insights, especially regarding the decomposition of components. Different scholars might indeed have varying standards for breaking down characters. My video's data was sourced from “Chinese Linguistics Bureau. (2005). Modern dictionary of frequently used Chinese characters. Beijing: The Commercial Press.” If you're curious, you might find this book an interesting reference. The difference between your calculations and the book's data likely stem from different definitions of components and standards for character decomposition. Further, I divided “餐” into three components because elements like “歺“, also used in ”𠎀“, are treated as separate components on a website called ”國學大師“ (www.guoxuedashi.net/zidian/bujian/). “又” is another commonly used component, which is why I considered them individually. Similarly, the character '嘴' can be further dissected. While “觜” represents the phonetic part of the word, it can be decomposed into two separate components: “此” and “角”. These components appear independently in various characters, and they are not always linked together. It seems there might be a mix-up between the concepts of components and radicals in your interpretation. While there's overlap, components aren't always meaningful on their own (they don't always present sounds or meanings of the characters). The examples you mentioned (semantic and phonetic radicals) aren't entirely synonymous with components, though different scholars may indeed have their own definitions. Thanks again for sharing your insights! Edit: The example I provided earlier, "𠎀", should be considered a variant form of '傑'. Currently, "傑" is the most commonly used form. For more information about "歺", you can visit this link: zi.tools/zi/歺

[@dominusanuli3595]

I write by hand! It helps me remember. But yeah it's a very interesting thing really, it helps me more than just remembering pīnyīn. Now I know what it sounds like and how it's written.

[@mannaporanna2678]

@@dominusanuli3595 I do it too 😶‍🌫☺

[@mannaporanna2678]

And Sweden, which was a world leader in usage of electronic devices in schools, has recently started removing them from schools. This is due to research and data which clearly show that there is much more damage than benefit to people's brain when they do everything on their computers. Do we really have to go into that direction? Learning how to write by hand will not kill you, you know...

[@alexb859]

Awesome video!!! Also I subbed :)

[@GraceMandarinChinese]

I'm glad you liked it! Welcome 💛

[@alexb859]

@@GraceMandarinChinese your welcome :) and thanks :)

[@ram4546]

Nice video

[@TailsTheHedgehog100]

Is there a resource to learn the 130 elements?

[@israelrivera835]

Good stuff! Xie Xie!

[@neoanderson7714]

Hey beauty, Can you make a video about 3500 character from 132 component or give us a link

[@josephmak0865]

I was hoping you talk about 永字八法and九宮格. In next video I hope to see you demonstrate 毛筆字skills. I am sure real impressive!

[@GraceMandarinChinese]

Haha I'm not that good at 毛筆字😂I only learned it when I was little and have almost lost all the skills now...

[@josephmak0865]

老師太謙虛了

[@pretentiousdelinquent]

Thanks so much for another helpful video! I'm currently studying abroad in Taiwan and your videos have been extremely helpful. Keep up the good work. 加油!

[@GraceMandarinChinese]

Welcome to Taiwan! 謝謝你！我會加油的💪 I hope you enjoy your life in Taiwan☺

[@biozazard]

Well Grace is there a big difference between 是的 and 对

[@Soltyreey]

So we Have to start with the 132 componentes first right?

[@isaacdiaz8423]

Do you know the book Remembering Hanzi (traditional or simplified)? That is a based in Remembering the Kanji (🇯🇵 characters). I think that this book isn't very well know to Chinese students

[@skajnejskj]

可不可以多发一点vlog❤❤

[@user-dl2ms8lj8d]

Hi grace, I started my own journey of learning mandarine chinese since 29th Sept 2023, and its been 2 months. I am so curious about learning this languange. In my way of learning, mostly 1 wrote 4 times, 1. The pinying 2. Pinying's read in bahasa (I'm Indonesian btw) 3. The meaning of words/ sentence in bahasa or english 4. The hanzi Of course, it took a lot of time, But up till now the result it quite awesome, for 2 month learning 1 already spend 2 note books walking to 3, and thank you for your video about how to pronounce chinese vowels and consonant, it was really helpful. but mostly after wrote hanzi acouple times, not longer after that, i forgot it, untill i repeated to write again more and more, Should i learn from this door? (learning hanzi) first for accelerate my chinese learning journey?

[@user-dl2ms8lj8d]

@@tereciaelshinta waahhh, terimakasih atas sarannya, melelahkan juga jika harus menulis 1 halaman. Tapi akan efektif untuk mengingatnya lebih lama

[@user-zy3iv9sf9w]

I am beginner to learn english.Can I make friend with you?I can help you to learn chinese.😊

[@user-dl2ms8lj8d]

@@user-zy3iv9sf9w yes what a good news, why not, we can be friends.

[@user-dl2ms8lj8d]

​@@user-zy3iv9sf9wHi, sounds great, than how about we start it soon?

[@charleswalters5284]

​@@user-zy3iv9sf9wok

[@snozbucket]

So I grew up learning a lot of characters through rote but they were the basic characters. I left Taiwan when I was 5 but I can still read (but not write), is that weird? When I see the characters I recall how to pronounce them but can't for the life of me recall how to write it lol but I think that has to do a lot with the compound characters and you remember what that word is. Thought I'd mention this too while it works for Traditional Chinese, have fun with Simplified Chinese! I also highly recommend people just watch Chinese talk shows lol. Especially the old ones my mum and dad use to watch, I learnt most of my mandrain through those.

[@mannaporanna2678]

Can you recommend any good old talk shows?

[@timwlake]

练习很多！

[@amytheorangutan]

Grace 老師，我認識大概2000字了，可是不太會寫。想要練習寫字，您可以推薦在哪裡可以買繁體字的字帖嗎？我在網上看好像很多是簡體字，或者專為書法聯繫的。

[@zoolity]

Thank You so much for the video, I have started learning Chinese 63 days ago, I finished my HSK 1 Today and i signed up for the Igcse 0547 Chinese Foreign Language examination for 2025 :). Thank You so much!

[@GraceMandarinChinese]

加油加油！💪

[@zoolity]

Thank You for support!

[@user-gm6fm7hu8n]

Thank you first comment

[@steffiangelina9851]

你好！我喜欢看你的视频特别是vlog或者听力的练习。希望你能更多拍这种视频。谢谢。

[@chauken2492]

我是來學英文的

[@eliascampos6721]

hola sabes español creo , ??? eres de taiwan ,podrias hacer en español

[@viktor.ozerov]

I think stroke order for 我 at 2:40 is incorrect - order of the two last strokes should reversed and the dot should be the last one. Anyways great video!

[@gabrielalima5400]

According to official Taiwanese sources, the stroke order in the video is correct. I believe it must be different in China.

[@tikanurbaeti7702]

can u type bopomopo on your video ? that can help more for our to learning

[@user-zy3iv9sf9w]

I am beginner to learn english.Can I make friend with you?I can help you to learn chinese.😊

[@andreasmichel8420]

I was learning Chinese. I asked a girl from Taiwan how she learned all the Chinese characters. She told me that every day in school they were given a few characters to learn, and the next day the teacher checked to see if the student learned them. If the student did not learn them, he got hit with a stick. So I decided not to bother too much with the Chinese characters for the most part and know the pin yin instead, cuz I don't want to have to find someone to hit me with a stick.

[@7Brenda.Aguilar]

Strange as it may sound, I feel like this method would work for me!

[@ashkenaze]

ok

[@zaheersodozai6779]

Have any teacher has what's app???

[@user-vv7uh3wn1e]

I am a Chinese individual and would like to make friends whose native language is English. If you're interested in Chinese, I believe we can become speaking practice partners.

[@user-cc6ui2hg1n]

Yes I need help can we be friends 🙏

[@user-vv7uh3wn1e]

@@user-cc6ui2hg1n Of course, how can we contact you?

[@charleswalters5284]

So, did it work?

[@GroovesHK]

Disney Pixar Inside Out 2

[@-mey5392]

I think Chinese characters are not hard to learn, all it takes is practice and a little bit of imagination ❤😂

[@boman2374]

I wish you spoke more more Chinese in your videos. I enjoy watching them but as a Chinese learner it’s a waste of time to listen to English.

[@Henry-teach-Chinese-in-jokes]

I have studied English humor for many years. I have created a lot of videos to teach Chinese in a graphic and humorous way. The examples given in the teaching include Chinese humor or English humor. I wonder why so few people watch my videos.

[@ericab3919]

#1 tip is get a Chinese gf and text them

[@user-bs1ym8qn6r]

Are you half japan?

[@GraceMandarinChinese]

No. I'm Taiwanese :)

[@zhanso1319]

Free Palestine 🇵🇸

[@Hello-gf2og]

Omg my girlfriend is back

[@ashkenaze]

Cool. But the way she pronounced it *charaWters* is a bit annoying; if it had said just for a few times, maybe it's not really a problem, but since she said *charaWters* too many times, she should have learnt it better to say it properly.