One important aspect in learning Chinese, and any language, is to know and understand how to write in that language. Compared with English, Chinese looks a lot different. Chinese characters or kanji (as called in Japanese) tend to look more like pictures than actual letters. They are comprised of 2 parts, the radical and the main part (there is actually not a word for the main part, but it’s what we will call it). Radicals classify characters according to different groups, for example, the character 手(Shǒu) “hand” appears in 2 different radical forms: 扌(Shou) and 犭(Quǎn) are both radicals for “hand” however, (Quǎn) is used to refer to animals, not humans. Thus the character (猫 )Māo “cat” has the “hand” radical while 打 (Dǎ) “hit” human radical.

When drawing characters, radicals will most commonly appear on the left side, top, or bottom of the character – depending on the character, although it might also appear in the center of the character as in 门 (Mén) “door”.

To learn how to write characters we recommend the following websites:

https://writemandarin.com/worksheets/ – this is a great website for the following reasons!

1. Free
2. Blank Chinese Character sheets – we recommend large or medium for beginners!
3. How to draw characters instructions – this is a MUST and it shows students how to write each character stroke by stroke!
4. Words organized by subject – learn new words according to topic (i.e., animals, colors, directions, etc…)
5. HSK practices – HSK is the language test people take for job/school/fluency purposes. It is higher than any school test, and is designed to see how much a person knows. This website offers some practice materials for each HSK level!

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/ – this is also a great website.

1. Sign up – free
2. Some free materials – great for practice
3. Grade level – some items need to be purchased
4. Offers materials for a variety of subjects – while we don’t teach all, it is a nice resource out there for any additional materials.

https://www.uvm.edu/~chinese/PDF/hanzibk1.pdf – this source offers additional character practice and is great for the following reasons:

1. Free
2. 47 characters to learn – their versions is better for experienced learners.
3. Lesson styled formats
4. Simplified and traditional characters are displayed on the sheets.