Hacking Chinese

A better way of learning Mandarin

Articles tagged with ‘Components’

  1. 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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  2. The building blocks of Chinese, part 1: Chinese characters and words in a nutshell

    Learning to read and write Chinese is a daunting task, but the challenge becomes more manageable if you focus on learning the building blocks, learning how components form characters and how characters form words. This article is the first part in a series helping adult students make sens of Chinese characters.

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  3. How to create mnemonics for general or abstract character components

    Anyone who has tried mnemonics for learning Chinese characters knows that some components are easier to link together than others. This article discusses in detail how to deal with abstract or general character components and how to handle components with the same or overlapping meaning, an essential skill if you’re serious about character learning.

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