The Best Way to learn Chinese Characters Quickly

After you understand why you need to learn Chinese characters, the next question you will ask is what is the best way to learn Chinese Characters quickly.

While it is hard to say which way is the best way to learn Chinese characters because everyone has different study habits and learning capabilities, there are some common tips.

1. Start with strokes:

There are five basic strokes. Héng 横 (Horizontal), Shù 竖 (Vertical), Piě 撇 (Throw), Diǎn 点(Dot), Nà 捺 (Press). It is very important to memorise these five basic strokes.

2. Follow the stroke order:

Nobody will check how you write the Chinese characters, but it is easier if you follow the stoke orders that Chinese people have been using for thousands of years. Please remember seven basic Chinese stroke order rules:

1. Horizontal first, vertical second
2. Throw first, Press second
3. Top first, bottle second
4. Left first, right second
5. Outside first, inside the second
6. Outside first, inside second, close last
7. Central first, then left and rights.

Below are examples:

3. From simple to complex-play Lego

When you memorise the basic strokes and the order of the Chinese characters, you can start to learn to write Chinese characters from simple ones first.

I always tell our students that Chinese characters are like Legos. If you learn how to use the basic block (strokes) it is very easy to build up more complex shapes (characters). The first 150 Chinese characters are hard to learn. But after you mastered the first 100 -150 Chinese characters, you will find it is not that hard to write Chinese characters.

4. Fina a good textbook to learn

There are many textbooks teaching you to write Chinese characters. Some are too simple and others are too complicated.

I recommend the Standard HSK Standard Course for the following reasons:

1. HSK – Hanyu Shuiping Kaoshi is the official Chinese language proficiency Test. All the Chinese characters are selected based on their frequent usage in daily life.
2. HSK Standard Course is based on HSK national standard and has six levels (currently). Every level is well-designed and clearly organised. For example, current HSK1 and HSK2 have 150 Chinese characters each, and HSK3 has 300 Chinese characters. From simple Chinese characters to more difficult Chinese characters.
3. HSK Standard Course teaches you Chinese characters step by step. The Character section in the textbook and the writing section in the workbook will explain the stock, the shape and the origin of Chinese characters and give you a worksheet to write.

In the HSK1 lesson 1 you will learn basic Chinese strokes as shown below:

Instead of asking you to memorise today’s Chinese characters, the textbook shows the history of the Chinese characters. For example, the moon from a picture of a new moon to today’s character. This is why Chinese people still can read articles written a couple of thousand years ago.

5. Take priority: Listen-Speak-Read-Wright

It is very important to follow this LSRW order when learning the Chinese language.

This is because if you put too much time into learning to write Chinese characters in the beginning, you may get frustrated and lose your study interest.

Learning a language is for communication and fun. This is why we focus on pronunciation and listening in HSK1 class; listening and speaking in HSK2 class and reading and writing in HSK3 class. Step by step you will learn how to read and write Chinese characters.

6. Reading is more important than writing now, but writing is fun

With the popularisation of computers and smartphones, more and more people type Chinese characters than write Chinese characters. If you can type Pinyin (easy to learn) and read Chinese characters, you can type Chinese characters very easily.

However, writing Chinese characters is fun and can be a type of art (Chinese calligraphy). Some of our students also found writing Chinese characters will help them memorise the words. For people who are really interested in Chinese characters, you can buy a Chinese calligraphy brush pen and Chinese art paper to practise Chinese brush calligraphy.

7. Practise – Chinese Characters Worksheets

Hope the above tips can help you write Chinese characters, but the most important advice is to practise, practise and practise.

To help you practise Chinese characters, I created the Chinese Character Worksheets for HSK and YCT (Young Chinese Test).

Each set includes three types of worksheets.

1. Trace Stroke Worksheet: Follow the order of strokes and trace them step by step.
2. Copy Chinese Characters: Copy Chinese characters to the worksheet, you need to remember the stroke order.
3. Conver Pinyin to Chinese Character: You need to memorise the Chinese character

Why buy the Chinese Character Worksheets?

1. All characters are from HSK or YCT and sorted by strokes, so you can practise from simple Chinese characters to difficult Chinese characters.
2. Follow the three steps using the three separate worksheets: 1. Trace, 2, Copy, 3. Write
3. A vocabulary list is sorted in Pinyin with English definitions. You can use this list as a Chinese-English dictionary.

The best way to learn Chinese characters quickly? Buy the HSK and YCT Chinese Character Worksheet using a credit card online and download it immediately.

Buy now and get a 10% Discount.