Hacking Chinese

A better way of learning Mandarin

Articles tagged with ‘Character composition’

  1. How to talk about Chinese characters in Chinese

    How do native speakers talk about Chinese characters? The writing system is not phonetic, so you can’t spell out words, but it is still possible to talk about Chinese characters.

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  2. Same building blocks, different characters: How component placement changes meaning in Chinese

    Chinese character components are usually placed in predictable ways. If you remember the components, you can often write the character. But not always. Some characters share components but differ only in how they’re arranged.

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  3. The building blocks of Chinese, part 4: Learning and remembering compound characters

    The key to learning Chinese compound characters is to learn the building blocks and how they fit together, including both the function of each component and the structure of the compound. Add some clever memory techniques and you’ll be able to dramatically increase the speed and efficiency of your learning!

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