Part 1- Introduction to Chinese Characters

[CC] English subtitles
[CC] 開啟字幕

All 100,000 Chinese characters are merely different combinations of 400 simple pictographs and ideographs (think Egyptian hieroglyphs). In order to rapidly learn Chinese characters and successfully retain them, the secret is to first thoroughly master these 400 basic pictographic components!

Our radical approach ("部首", ha ha) to quickly mastering copious amounts of Chinese characters is this: Learn the basic pictographic components 幺 艹 白 木 before attempting to the learn the Chinese character 藥.

Consider for a moment that in chemistry you learn the basic elements of the periodic table before learning more complex compounds. Similarly, in phonetic languages like English you learn the basic phonetic symbols A B C before you learn a complex word like "medicine". Our online curriculum utilizes this same logical "building block" methodology to learn Chinese characters.

[mwlife]

can we just take a moment for the amount of pictographs he drew in one video?

[nanhuachuan]

i would suggest when you start learning chinese, do not try to figure out how these charaters are formed, just repeat it and keep them in heart like chinese babies.

[amelial]

氵is water
目 is eye
忄is feeling
讠is speaking/information
if these are beside or under any character it has those meanings
For example:
Swimming 游泳
Talk 讲
Speak 说
Emotion 心情

[drewalden]

"When you see the letter T, you know it represents the sound 'tuh'"

Th: "Allow me to introduce myself"

[Dk-dslq]

This guy : draws amazing pics
Me: struggling to draw a circle
This guy: drawing countries
Me: struggling to draw a house
😭😂😭😂

[tdfhjgfyhtxmut]

Why am I watching this? I'm learning Korean😂

[CrypticMouse]

I find Chinese so complicated but the explanations of the origins of the characters is very helpful. And I'm completely in awe of the drawing skills! How does anyone draw so perfectly without any mistakes? Must take a lot of practise.

[narf]

i learned chinese like 30 years ago, i can no longer write most words, but im still able to read them very easily, just a glance, i can read the entire sentence, then instantly i forget how they looks like.

[myumyulily]

I`m japanese i can read most these characters:)

[amyyb]

his writing is so pretty, like as someone with a chinese background i cannot ever write that pretty....

[ABCsOfChinese]

3. As a side note, I also have been living in Asia and teaching elementary and middle school children for the past 6 years, and can attest that my students, along with their involved parents, loved the animations and have been very supportive of sharing the videos with their friends.

[lengoc]

I'm studying Chinese and try to remember all this characters. It's so hard to remember Chinese characters. 
Your video is so helpful :) Like your video.

[gayusschwulius]

As someone who's been studying Mandarin for about a year now, this has been tremendously helpful. 谢谢你帮我！

[XPK]

They wrote the hànzì using the correct stroke order, I'm pleased.

[JL-gqtu]

As a native speaker, I absolutely love your breakdown of this intro to Chinese characters ❤️ thank you for producing these, my partner will find this very useful 👍🏻

[ABCsOfChinese]

:-) The character at 5:34 is a combination of 女 (woman), 口 (mouth) and 心 (heart). The combination of those three radicals is depicting the meaning "consideration" or "forgiveness". There's a nice little mnemonic in that... "heartfelt words from a woman's mouth" or something along those lines ;-)

[NoodyAlhothaly]

to be literate you only need to know 4000 characters :) as if this little hahhaha

[drsingingeagle]

I've always told my students that Chinese characters are based on four elements (1) abstract marks adopted from oracle bones and shells, (2) pictographs, (3) ideographs, and (4) sound.

[stevechu]

I am a Taiwanese and I speak Chinese Mandarin.
This is the first time that I know where those characters came from.
And your Chinese characters are so beautiful.

[yifanzheng]

As a Chinese, when people ask me how to learn Chinese, what I want to tell them is that hearing your parents and people people around u speaking Chinese everyday and having a hard time in primary school trying to memorize all the Pingyin and letters will help