Lesson one
the basic knowledge of
Chinese characters(one)
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 Where do Chinese
characters come from?
 3000
 Chinese characters have had a history of more
than 3,000 years. Ancient Chinese characters were
pictographic, outlining the rough shape of things
with simple lines.
 For instance, ancient people used to symbolize
“ and used to symbolize “



 We divide Chinese characters into two
categories according to its structure:
Independent characters and combined
characters.
 We divide Chinese characters into four
categories according to its creation methods:
pictographic characters; indicative characters;
associative characters; picto-phonetic
characters.


 What is independent characters? It is
composed of strokes, it cann’t be
divided, it contains pictographic
characters and indicative characters.

1
5%
 pictographic characters to show the
characters’ meaning according to outline the
rough shape of things with simple lines, only
5% of all Chinese characters belong to the
pictographic kind.
 For instance:



2
 indicative characters to show the characters’ meaning
according to abstract symbols.




 For instance:
 Add a short line on a long line , it is “ ,
 Add a short line under a long line , it is “ ,
 Add a short horizontal under the tree , it is “ ,
 Add a dot on the knife , it is “ .


 What is combined characters? It is composed of two
or a few parts, it contains associative characters and
picto-phonetic characters.
 1
 associative characters it is composed of two or a
few independent characters, to show a new meaning.
 For instance:
 + = +
=
 + = +
=

2
 pictophonetic characters It is composed of two
parts, one part shows the character’s meaning,
the other part shows the character’s
pronunciation. We call the meaning part as
meaning radical, we call the pronunciation part
as phonetic radical.
 For instance:
 + = +
=
 + = +
=

 8 kinds basic
strokes of Chinese characters’ :

20 8
8
 Chinese character is composed of
strokes, there are more than 20 kinds
strokes, there are 8 kinds basic strokes
among them.

 héng ---- horizontal


 It has two forms, long horizontal and
short horizontal.
 When we write it, pay attention to the
way of writing, it is from left to right, and
it must be written levelly.
 For instance:

 shù---- vertical


 It has two forms, long vertical and short
vertical.
 When we write it, pay attention to the
way of writing, it is from top to bottom,
and it must be written straightly.
 For instance:

 piě---- left-falling


 It has two forms, level left-falling and
vertical left-falling.
 the way of writing is from top to lower
left, it is softly. They are different
between “ and “ .
 For instance:

 nà---- right-falling


 It has two forms, level right-falling and
vertical right-falling.
 the way of writing is from top to lower
right, it is softly.
 For instance:

 zhé----turning
héng zhé and shù zhé


 It has two forms, horizontal-turning and
vertical-turning, When we write it, pay
attention to it is one stroke.
 For instance:

 shù gōu---- vertical hook

 It likes a fish hook, When we write it,
pay attention to the hook is sharp and
short.
 For instance:

 diǎn---- dot


 It has two forms, left-dot and right-dot,
When we write it, pay attention to dot to
lower right and pause or dot to lower left
and pause.
 For instance:

 tí---- rising

 It is dot from bottom-left to top-right.
 For instance:
 8
 The character includes 8 kinds basic
strokes, it is “

 the rules of the
strokes order:

 Every character has its rules of the
strokes order, following the correct stroke
order one can raise the speed of writing
and ensure correctness.

1 Ten
2 Person
3 Small
4 Three
5 Eight
6 Moon
7 Four

The rules of the Example Meaning The strokes order
strokes order
1 Horizontal before Ten
vertical
2 Left-falling before Person
right-falling
3 Middle before two Small
sides
4 Form top to bottom Three
5 Form left to right Eight
6 Form outside to inside Moon
7 First come in, close Four
the door at the last

 the basic structure of Chinese
characters

 There are two main structures in Chinese characters, one is
independent characters, it is complete, independent because it is
composed of the strokes; the other is combined characters.
 The combined characters include three kinds of structures.
1 left-right structure
2 top-bottom structure
3 inside-outside structure



 All of the following characters are
pictographic characters, can you guess their
meaning?
1 7
 2 8
 3 9
 4 10
 5 11
 6 12


 give the name of the following characters:










 Count the strokes of the following
characters
1 2
3 4
5 6
7 8


 give the structure of the following
characters


 :
 :
 :


 find the same part of the following
characters
 1.
2
3
4
5
6
7
8

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