How to learn and memorise Chinese characters effectively

In order to read a Chinese newspaper you need to know at least 3000 Chinese characters. This may sound overwhelming, but with the right methods learning and memorizing Chinese characters becomes much easier. In this article, I’ll show you how to learn Chinese characters in a way that simplifies memorizing them.

But first, we need to understand how Chinese characters work.

How do Chinese characters work?

At first glance, Chinese characters may look like unique, complex arrangements of lines and curves. If that were true, learning them all would truly be a daunting task. Fortunately, this isn’t the case. The vast majority of Chinese characters are composed of common components, which give clues about the character's pronunciation and meaning. By learning these components you can build a foundation that allows you to more easily memorise and even guess the meaning of Chinese characters.

This “bottom-up” approach gives you a much better understanding of Chinese characters, preventing you from getting overwhelmed as you try to memorise thousands of characters. Before we discuss this bottom up approach we first need to take a step back and explore what Chinese character components are.

Components - the building blocks of Chinese characters

All Chinese characters are made up of components. Some characters consist of just one component, while most are composed of two or more. You’ve probably heard of radicals before; well, radicals are just components. The only unique thing about radicals is that they are the components used to look up characters in a dictionary. Nothing more. When learning Chinese characters, components are what matters, not radicals.

Let’s look at at some Chinese characters to make the concept of components clearer:

• 木 (mù) = "wood"
• 日 (rì) = "sun"
• 月 (yuè) = "moon"

These three characters are each made up of a single component. That is to say the character is just a single component and cannot cannot be broken down further.

In contrast, let's look at some characters with multiple components:

• 林 (lín) = "forest"
• 明 (míng) = "bright"
• 休 (xiū) = "to rest"

Starting with 林 (lín / forest). Hopefully you can immediately see that 林 (lín) is made up of two 木 (mù / wood) components side by side. The two 木 (mù) components combine to create a new character with a different meaning.

Now what about 明 (míng / bright). So we can see on the left side there is 日 (rì / sun) and on the right side 月 (yuè / moon). The sun and moon components combine to form a new character with the meaning "bright".

Now 休 (xiū / to rest). On the right side we see the component 木 (mù). On the left we see the component 亻(rén) which has the meaning "person." Now with this example it is important to make something clear. Not all components function as standalone characters. 亻isn’t used by itself as a character to mean person, instead the related component 人（ren2 / person) is.

This example highlights the fact that not all components are themselves standalone characters. Some components are characters when used alone, other have to be used in combination with other components to form characters.

Now let's look at a final set of examples:

• 梦 (mèng) = "dream"
• 萌 (méng) = "to sprout (and internet slang for cute)"

The character 梦 (mèng) contains the character 林 (lín / forest) at the top as a component, and the component 夕 (xī) meaning night at the bottom. I've included this character as en example to show not only are characters made of components, but that many characters such as 林 (lín) are themselves used as components too.

You can also see this in the character 萌 (méng). At the top we have the component 艹 (cǎo) which means grass and below we have the character 明 (míng / bright) which we saw earlier. 明 (míng / bright) by itself is a character made of two components (日 & 月）but in this character it is used as a component.

Let's summarise the relationship between characters and components that we have seen in these examples:

1. All characters are made up of one or more components
2. Not all components are standalone characters themselves
3. Some characters are also used as components in other characters

Great, now as you might have guessed from the above examples, characters aren’t composed of randomly combined components. In fact characters usually break down into a logical set of components that help us understand the character and make it easier to memorise. Let’s discuss this next.

How do components combine to create characters?

When components combine to form a character, they generally perform one of two roles: they either give you a phonetic hint about the character’s pronunciation or a semantic hint about its meaning. Let’s dive into examples of both.

Phonetic components

Phonetic components give a clue about how a character is pronounced. For example, take the character 洋 (yáng) - ocean. 洋 consists of two components:

• 羊 (yáng) - sheep
• 氵 (shuǐ) - water

Here, 羊 (yáng/ sheep) is the phonetic component that hints at how the character is pronounced. While sheep have nothing to do with oceans, 羊 (yáng) is there to provide the pronunciation. 羊 (yáng) is also used as a component to provide a phonetic hint in other characters like 樣 (yàng - manner), 養 (yǎng - to support), and 氧 (yǎng - oxygen).

Let's look at another example, the character 晴 (qíng - clear). Its components are:

• 青 (qīng - green/blue)
• 日 (rì - sun)

Here, 青 (qīng) gives us a phonetic clue for 晴 (qíng), and it plays the same role in other characters such as 請 (qǐng - to ask), 情 (qíng - emotion), and 清 (qīng - clear).

Semantic components

Semantic components provide a clue about the meaning of a character. Consider the character 林 (lín / forest) again. The two 木 (mù / wood) components placed together visually and conceptually suggest a forest. In this case, the component 木 (mù) is clearly playing a semantic role.

The 林 (lín / forest) example is a nice one as the semantic hint is so obvious. 木 (mù) looks like a tree and means wood, so putting two of them next to each other pretty clearly hints the meaning forest. Unfortunately, not all semantic components are this literal. Take the character 勇 (yǒng - brave). 勇 (yǒng) conists of two components:

• 甬 (yǒng) = a path screened by walls
• 力 (lì) = strength

力 (lì) is the semantic component here. 力 (lì) initially depicted a plow, but over time it came to symbolise strength. So, while it doesn’t look like its meaning, 力 (lì) hints at strength and effort in 勇 (yǒng) and many other characters.

Phonetic & Semantic combinations

Here is some good news for you, not only do components usually perform either a phonetic or semantic role in characters, but around 80% of Chinese characters are a combination of a phonetic and semantic component. Let’s revisit some of the characters we’ve already discussed.

• 洋 (yáng - ocean): the component 羊 (yáng) provides the sound, while 氵 (shuǐ - water) provides the meaning.
• 晴 (qíng - clear): the component 青 (qīng) provides the phonetic clue, while 日 (rì - sun) provides the semantic clue (clear days are sunny).
• 勇 (yǒng - brave). 甬 (yǒng) is the phonetic component and 力 (lì - strength) is the semantic component

The odd one out in our examples so far is 林 (lín) because it doesn’t contain a phonetic component. In fact, 林 (lín) contains two semantic 木 (mù) components and since there is no phonetic clue, you just have to memorise the sound of the character.

Whilst the vast majority of characters consist of phonetic and semantic components, not all do. We know that some characters consist of just a single component, and we now know there are meaning + meaning components like 林 (lín). There are also characters which contain only a meaning or a phonetic component, not both.

One final thing to be aware of is that characters can contain empty components. These are components that have no clear semantic or phonetic role. This unfortunately is something we just need to deal with, but the fact that the vast majority of characters consist of a semantic and phonetic component makes learning and memorising characters far easier.

So what's the best way to learn and memorise Chinese characters?

Now we’ve taken the time to understand how Chinese characters work we can consider the best way to learn and memorise them. Given what we’ve discussed I think you’ll agree that it is possible to “know” characters to different levels of depth. Like a beginner studying Chinese, you can memorise characters as a collection of random lines and curves or by associating them with a mnemonic or image. Alternatively, you can more deeply understand characters as a composition of a series of components that give you hints to their meaning and pronunciation. Understanding Chinese characters in this second deeper way is the only sustainable method to learn the thousands of Chinese characters needed to read Chinese. Any strategy for learning Chinese characters as an intermediate and advanced learner must take this into account.

Method 1 - Break down new characters into components

So here is the crucial learning method you need. Whenever you encounter a new character you should attempt to break it down into its components. By breaking down a character into it’s components you gain a deeper understanding of it which is crucial to forming a strong memory. The brain struggles to remember things we don’t understand and that don’t have a clear meaning to us. Breaking down characters into components gives us this meaning and understanding.

Breaking down new characters into their components isn’t always simple and doing this by yourself can lead to mistakes. For this reason it is better to rely on a character dictionary. A good character dictionary will tell you not only the meaning of a character, but also the components that make up the character and the role of those components whether they be semantic, phonetic, or empty. Moreover, a good dictionary can tell you the history of the character and how it came to be formed. You don’t need to memorise all these details but they will help you form a deeper understanding and therefore memory of the character.

I highly recommend the Outlier Linguistics Chinese character dictionary, available as a paid plug-in on the free Pleco app. Whilst the dictionary isn’t free I think it is worth the cost and one of the best investments you can make as a Chinese language learner. (I have no affiliation or deal with them). It offers detailed explanations of both the semantic and phonetic roles of components, as well as the history behind characters, which can further deepen your understanding. There are other free open source character dictionaries on Pleco and the web if you want to use those. Just make sure you find a high quality one.

Method 2 - Learn Components as well as Characters

In addition to memorizing new characters, consider learning the most common components. Research has shown that focusing on frequently used components is a highly efficient way to build your vocabulary. Of course there is a trade off here. Time spent learning frequently occurring components is time not spent learning frequently occurring characters. But this doesn’t need to be an all or nothing decision. Learn components alongside the new characters you learn. If you are learning frequently occurring characters and, each time you encounter a new one, you also memorise it’s components, you will quickly learn the most important components.

I can’t stress this enough. When learning characters take the time to memorise their components too. Memorising components supports you in your long term goal of learning the thousands of characters needed to pass HSK6 or read a newspaper. Over time you’ll come to recognise familiar components in new characters, making the process faster and more effective. Moreover, you won’t struggle to differentiate similar looking characters which can become a problem as the number of characters you know grows.

To sum up

Chinese characters may seem intimidating, but breaking them down into components reveals a structure that makes them easier to learn and memorise. With this understanding of the component structure of characters you can learn and memorise them more effectively by:

1. Using a high quality character dictionary and always breaking down characters into their components
2. Memorising components, not just characters

This is the only sustainable method to learn the large number of Chinese characters need to read in Chinese. Keep plugging away at it and you will be surprised how it becomes easier and easier and how quickly the number of characters you know grows.

In the mean time, I highly recommend joining the wait list for the VocabHacker Chinese character learning app. We’re developing a tool that combines spaced repetition with high-quality character definitions and component breakdowns to make learning Chinese characters easier. People on the wait list will get free early access and further discounts on release.

Until then, happy learning!

Best,

Vocabhacker