Chinese Character

Chinese character, an ancient written character, is the symbol of recording Chinese language. Stemming from pictures and marks, Chinese character has a history of about 5, 000 years. The Oracle we find today is already a mature language, of a history of 3400 years.
Chinese characters are numerous. Totally speaking, there are about sixty to seventy thousand different kinds of characters, among which two or three thousand are widely used. One can easily read and write Chinese after mastering two to three thousand Chinese

Word formation method
It is said that the following Six Categories in the formation of Chinese characters has been passed on from Han Dynasty.

1. Pictograph
Pictograph is to depict shape or characteristic of an object. Though originated from the earliest time, pictograph has the least quantity. Because its impossible to create a pictographic character for every object of the universe, since there are numerous. Whats more, some objects are too abstract to be depicted by pictures, e.g., Sun գ, Moon £, Woodľ, Water (ˮ)etc.

2. Symbols
It is one of the six categories of Chinese characters, showing that a Chinese character is composed of certain symbols. It cannot be used universally and its difficult to distinguish when points and crosswise as symbols are confused with other stroke, e.g. һ(one) (two) (three) (up) (down) (blade), etc.

3. Meaning-combined pictograph
A Chinese character consists of the other two or more characters, which are combined together by meaning. Meaning-combined pictograph still cannot meet the demand of expression because some meaning cannot be expressed without drawing three or four pictures. If it needs to draw several pictures to form a word, then it doesnt look like a word, rather, it looks like a picture. E.g. (soldier) , (north), (from), etc.

4. Pictophonetic method
Ancestors of Chinese were very smart. They found that words could record sound because words are to record talks that are related to sound. Thus they invented pictophonetic method. As one of the six categories of Chinese characters, it consists of two elements, one indicating meaning and the other sound. E.g. (river) (village)(ask)(hear)(basket)(universe) Besides the four methods mentioned above, there are two other methods in the Six Categories, namely, phonetic loan method and synonymous method, both of which cannot create new words. Therefore, a Chinese character mainly consists of four creation methods: Pictograph, Symbols, Combined meaning and Pictophonetic method.

Structure
A Chinese character consists of stroke and component. Some Chinese characters that cannot be separated are called single character, e.g. (sun), ˮ(water), (person), (mouth), etc. others that can be separated into some smaller parts are called compound character, e.g. in (Chinese language), which is composed of two parts: (water)and (again); is composed of (talk)and (I).

stroke
The basic strokes of Chinese characters with the following:





Writing order
Following the regulations of writing order, one can improve writing speed and accuracy if he masters the writing order of the strokes.
1. Write the horizontal shaft first ,then vertical stroke. Like ʮ.
2. Leftfalling stroke then rightfallingstroke. Like .
3. From up to down. Like.
4. From left to right. Like .
5. First outside then inside . Like .
6. First the center then the both sides. Like С.
7. From outside to inside then close. Like .