Learn Chinese OK!: Learn Chinese written characters through Radicals - Etymology, Origins and the Evolution of the Basic Components for understanding, reading & writing Chinese Characters.

What components are Chinese characters made of? What are radicals in Chinese writing? How do I begin to understand and read Chinese written characters? How does the Chinese writing system work? How was Chinese writing created and how did it evolve? Learn all about RADICALS and the ETYMOLOGY of Chinese written characters.

ALL ABOUT Written Chinese @ Omniglot.com. Useful information from Omniglot.com:

- How the Chinese writing system works [ http://www.omniglot.com/chinese/horse.htm ]

- Structure of Chinese Writing, including layout, strokes, writing direction [ http://www.omniglot.com/chinese/structure.htm ]

- Written Chinese evolution of script types [ http://www.omniglot.com/chinese/written.htm ]

- Evolution of Chinese characters [ http://www.omniglot.com/chinese/evolution.htm ]

- Types of characters: pictographs, ideographs, their compounds, semantic-phonetic compounds [ http://www.omniglot.com/chinese/types.htm ]

- Chinese numerals [ http://www.omniglot.com/chinese/numbers.htm ]

- Simplified characters [ http://www.omniglot.com/chinese/simplified.htm ]

- Phonetic transcription of Chinese [ http://www.omniglot.com/chinese/chinese2.htm ]

Chinese Characters by MyEChinese:

- Understand Chinese Characters with the "Let's Enjoy Chinese" video lesson series, series of 15 video lessons, in English, on the fundamentals behind Chinese characters, on topics such as: Oracle Bone Inscriptions and Hieroglyphic Pictographs || Hieroglyphic Concept Indication Symbols || Order of Strokes || Compound Characters || Characters Similar in Shape but Different in Meaning || Numerals || Compounds of Components with Associated Meanings || Idea-Sound Pictophonetic Compound Characters || Multi-character Words || Simplified & Traditional Characters || Structure of Compound Characters || Structural Form of Radicals [ http://i.myechinese.com/apps/lib/index.php?s=/Group/index/gid/29 ]

- Chinese Characters, an introduction, with character writing animations using the Flash browser plugin. The introduction covers: Pictographs, Symbols, Pictophonetic characters || Structure of characters || Types of Strokes || Order of strokes [ http://www.myechinese.org/EN/Chinese/huashuo4.aspx ]

- On Chinese Characters, etymology for a selected word list, with pictures, old script, compound words, example sentences and audio. [ http://www.myechinese.org/EN/Chinese/Word_List.aspx ]

- Chinese Character etymology, etymological explanation for 100 characters, with picture, English explanation, evolution from ancient to modern script, examples of compound words and sentences [ http://i.myechinese.com/apps/lib/index.php?s=/Topic/index/gid/11 ]

Mini-guide to Chinese Characters @ BBC Languages, quick answers to basic questions: What are Chinese characters? || How old? || Pictures? || Pictographs || Ideographs || Meaning/meaning || Sound/meaning || How many? || Single characters? || Difficult to learn? || Simplified or traditional? [ http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/chinese/real_chinese/mini_guides/characters/ ]

Chinese Writing @ clearchinese.com:
- Introduction to the Chinese writing [ http://www.clearchinese.com/chinese-writing/introduction.htm ]
- A brief history of Chinese characters [ http://www.clearchinese.com/chinese-writing/history.htm ]

Chinese Characters & Radicals @ Oxford University's CTCFL. All about radicals and also: "How is a Chinese character formed?" and "How do I learn and remember Chinese characters?" [ http://www.ctcfl.ox.ac.uk/Radical_index.htm ]

Basics of Chinese Writing from LIOW Kah Joon:
- Chinese Writing Intro [ http://www.living-chinese-symbols.com/chinese-writing.html ]
- Chinese Radicals [ http://www.living-chinese-symbols.com/chinese-radicals.html ]
- Stroke Order Basics [ http://www.living-chinese-symbols.com/stroke-order.html ]
- Is There a Chinese Alphabet? [ http://www.living-chinese-symbols.com/chinese-alphabet.html ]

Chinese Script & Language by Dr. Ulrich Theobald @ Chinaknowledge.de:

- very thorough overview of the Chinese language, including overview of Written Chinese Script [ http://www.chinaknowledge.de/Literature/Script/hanzi.html ], Origin of characters, Types of characters, Composition of Components, Stroke Types & Rules, Writing Styles, Character Simplification, Punctuation, Dictionary & character indexing systems (more than 5 systems), Pinyin and 8 other phonetic systems for the transcription and categorization of Chinese characters [ http://www.chinaknowledge.de/Literature/Script-/script.html ]

- Chinese Radicals, with overview, explanations and notes. [ http://www.chinaknowledge.de/Literature/Script/radicals.html ]

FanJian Chinese Character Tutorial Program @ U.C. Berkeley. Confused between Traditional vs. Simplified forms of Chinese writing? This online tutorial program with practice exercises "offers a systematic and organized way by which students who know only one form of Chinese character can learn the other form", in 3 different levels. [ http://www.language.berkeley.edu/fanjian/tier1.html ]

Components and Radicals @ mandarintube.com. Lessons for every radical and component, with examples and audio.

Learning 100 Chinese Radicals @ chineseclass.org (actually 110!). 11 lessons on the radicals, with exercises, audio and animation. [ http://www.chineseclass.org/radicals/ ]

Chinese Character Learning System by Dr Kai CHU (archived version). Over 100 of the basic radical characters with etymological explanations, under a classification system such as Animals, Vegetation, Physical Body, Four Necessities, The Universe, Divination, Five Stages of Change, Humanity:
- index of basic radical characters and their categories
- the menu of 8 categories

Table of Radicals @ Jinan University, with the Chinese names for each radical, with audio and pinyin for those names, and examples [ http://202.116.28.12/zwweb/web/others/pianpang1.htm ]

Mandarin @ memrise.com. Learn the memrise Mandarin course of 3000 Chinese characters and words the uniquely scientific memrise way, with mnemonics, interactive quizzes, etymology, pinyin, English, audio, hand writing video [ http://www.memrise.com/demo/mandarin/ ]

Etymology of 500 Chinese Characters @ China's OCEO (Overseas Chinese Language & Culture Education Online, sponsored by the Overseas Chinese Affairs Office of the State Council), shows how each of these characters evolved from ancient to modern script, from copied pages of the book 汉字演变500例 [ http://www.hwjyw.com/resource/resource-yjyl/resource-hzsy/index2.shtml ]

Learn Chinese Characters @ learnchinesewebsite.com. Learn 240 Chinese characters by explanatory etymological comic pictures. [ http://www.learnchinesewebsite.com/category/learn-chinese-characters/ ]

"Hanji" playlist @ Youtube.com, short videos for over 130 Chinese characters showing their evolution as the character morphs from its ancient form to its modern form [ http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL7D64FE3400D3356A ]

Pictographs explained @ chinesehour.com, around 70 characters explained as pictographs, with graphic illustrations, Chinese explanation, English explanation, variations in ancient scripts, and Flash audio [ http://www.chinesehour.com/library/chinese-pictograph/ ]

Interactive Activities for 20 Characters by CI-MSU @ The Open University of China, learn all about each character through interactive activities for Flash browser plugin, learn the etymology, meaning, historical and cultural background, stroke order animation with practice by writing with your mouse, game play by creating word combination examples [ http://en.crtvu.edu.cn/language-projects/learning-chinese/character-of-the-day/ ]

CHINESE CHARACTER ETYMOLOGICAL DATABASES:

Smarthanzi.net, find a character's English (or Fench) definition by the 858 Phonetic Elements or by Radicals, hyperlinked with etymological lessons from Leon Wieger's classic reference book on Chinese Characters. [ http://www.smarthanzi.net/ ]

Chineseetymology.org [ http://www.chineseetymology.org/ ] [ http://www.internationalscientific.org/ ]
See countless ancient variations of each Chinese character (requires input of individual Chinese character) at Richard Sears' website.

Chinese-Characters.org, database of Chinese characters (browseable by pinyin index or radical index) which shows for each character: Phonetic & Semantic character components, Ancient & Archaic forms, Etymology notes, Memorization mnemonic notes, any existing Variants, Simplified & Traditional forms, Other characters which contain the present character categorized by phonetic or semantic function, Usage Frequency, and much more [ http://chinese-characters.org/ ]

Chinese character decomposition @ wikimedia.org. Chinese character decomposition (over 20,0000!) according to their elemental parts. [ http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Chinese_characters_decomposition ]

Zhongwen.com, a mountainous achievement in the modern Internet era by Rick Harbaugh, based on the work of a 2000 year old etymological dictionary. A unique online dictionary that, through thorough hyperlinked cross-referencing of character components and radicals, shows graphically the close etymological interconnections between the thousands of Chinese characters, in a genealogical tree system [ http://zhongwen.com/ ]