Articles tagged with ‘Chinese characters’
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A minimum-effort approach to writing Chinese characters by hand
Chinese characters are beautiful and fascinating, but learning to write them by hand is time-consuming. If you want to learn to write Chinese characters by hand with the least possible time investment, what’s the best approach?
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Cultivate your Chinese flashcard garden… or burn it down and start afresh
Flashcards are powerful, but what if your deck feels more like an overgrown thicket than a carefully cultivated garden? Do you clear away the weeds and bring it back under control, or burn it all down and start afresh?
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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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Chinese vocabulary challenge, November 2025
It’s time for a vocabulary challenge! It starts on November 10th, so enrol, set your goal and learn as many characters and words as you can before the end of the month. This challenge is sponsored by Skritter, so there are also prizes on the line! This article contains more information about the challenge, some important things to keep in mind as well as some advice about learning Chinese characters and words.
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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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16 myths about learning Chinese that are holding you back
Believing the wrong things about learning Chinese can waste time and lead you astray. Let’s explore 16 myths that might be holding you back!
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Zi.Tools: A powerful free resource for exploring Chinese characters
Zi.Tools is a great free resource for exploring Chinese characters. See what it offers and how you can use it to boost your learning!
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Chinese character variants and font differences for language learners
Small details sometimes matter when writing Chinese characters, but sometimes they don’t. Figuring out which details to pay attention to is made even harder by character variants and font differences!
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Should you learn the pronunciation of radicals?
Learning the building blocks of Chinese characters is a great idea, but what should learn about each character component? And more specifically, should you learn the pronunciation of radicals?
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Student Q&A, June 2024: How much time on flashcards, Remembering the Hanzi, and resources for learning characters
How much time should you spend on flashcards? Is Remembering the Hanzi good for learning Chinese characters? And what resources should you use if you want to understand the writing system better?
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