Introduction 1 About This Book 1 Foolish Assumptions 2 Icons Used in This Book 2 Where to Go from Here 2 Chapter 1: Wrapping Your Mind around the Chinese Writing System 3 Appreciating the Complexities of Written Chinese 3 How the Written Word Unifies China 4 What? No Alphabet? 5 Which Way Did They Go? The Direction of Characters 5 Chinese Language Reform 6 Traditional versus Simplified Characters 7 Why Learn to Write Chinese? 8 Strategies for Learning to Write Chinese Characters 8 Set goals 9 Write, review, rinse, repeat 9 Cultivate your inner character whisperer 10 Practice creative visualization 10 Chapter 2: Understanding the Structure of Chinese Characters 11 Simple versus Composite Characters 11 The Six Scripts 12 Pictographs 13 Simple ideographs 14 Compound ideographs 14 Phonetic compounds 14 Reciprocal characters 15 Phonetic loan characters 15 What a Radical Idea! The Incredible Radical 15 Why all the fuss about radicals? 16 How to use a Chinese dictionary without an alphabet 16 Deciphering Strokes 17 Types of strokes 18 Stroke order 19 Chapter 3: Preparing to Write Beautifully 21 From Then to Now: A Brief History of Chinese Writing 22 Carving on bone 22 From etchings to brush and ink 22 Adding bronze carvings to the mix 23 Widespread use of brush and ink 23 Moveable type and word processing 23 The Evolution of Chinese Script 24 Oracle bone script 24 Bronze inscriptions 25 Seal script 25 Clerical script 26 Running script 26 Grass script 26 Regular script 27 The Four Treasures of Chinese Calligraphy 27 Writing brush 28 Ink 29 Rice paper 29 Ink stone 29 Tools and Techniques for the Modern-Day Calligrapher (or Writer) 30 Chapter 4: 100 Chinese Characters 33 Appendix A: The 214 Chinese Radicals 83 Appendix B: Compound Words to Practice 91 Appendix C: Sentences to Practice 101 Appendix D: Blank Grids for Extra Practice 113

Practice your way to writing 100 CHINESE CHARACTERS with stroke-by-stroke instructions and plenty of space to practice! Learn to write 100 common Chinese characters Billions of people worldwide speak Chinese—and now you can learn to write 100 characters in the world's most-spoken language! Whether you're taking a course, looking to get ahead at work, or just want to up the ante when you're communicating with Chinese-speaking family and friends, Chinese Character Writing For Dummies gets you up to speed fast. Speaking Chinese will take you far—and learning to write some of the most common characters will only take you farther! Inside… Grasp how characters are structuredDecipher the strokesKnow how a Chinese dictionary worksExplore the Six ScriptsMake sense of phonetic compoundsBrush up on calligraphy toolsDiscover the origins of Chinese scriptFind bonus words and phrases in the appendixes