Evolution of Chinese Characters(&100 common characters list)

& The 100 Most Common Chinese Characters

What you'll learn
Learn common used Chinese language words and sentences
Carry on a conversation in Mandarin Chinese
Speak Chinese language around your home and at work
Gain confidence in learning and speaking Chinese
Know Chinese Characters
Requirements
Evolution of Chinese Characters
Description
What are Chinese characters?

Chinese characters are logograms. This means that, instead of being written using the letters of an alphabet, logograms consist of characters or “pictures” that represent a word. Egyptian hieroglyphics are a good example of this.

Nowadays, the majority of the world’s languages have an alphabet system that’s used to write words. Chinese and other each Asian languages which make use of Chinese characters, such as Japanese and Korean, are the main languages that use logograms today.

Are all Chinese characters pictograms?

There is a widespread misconception that all Chinese characters are pictograms (also called "pictographs"), meaning that all characters look like the word or meaning that they are used to represent.

It’s common to see characters such as 木 (mù; wood or “tree”) and 山 (shān; mountain) used as examples to show the “easy” nature of Chinese character composition. This understanding of the language is sometimes used as a way to “sell” Chinese to new learners.

Introducing Chinese characters to beginners simply as pictograms is misleading, however. Although pictograms are fun and beginner-friendly, they only make up about 4% of all Chinese characters. In actuality, the formation of characters is incredibly complex. Pictograms represent just one relatively minor type of character out of a total of six different types.

Who this course is for
Evolution of Chinese Characters