Character Bridge: Basic Characters - Form, Sound, and Meaning Explanation: Part 1

Author: Shi Zhengyu
Publisher:
Publish Date: 1998-10-01
Features: "The Bridge to Chinese Characters: An Explanation of Form, Sound, and Meaning of Basic Characters" is a foundational textbook for beginners, especially those whose native language is not written in Chinese characters. It aims to help learners recognize, read, and write approximately 1,000 of the most commonly used Chinese characters, as well as about 1,500 common words composed of these characters, laying a solid foundation for further study of Chinese characters and the Chinese language. This book is also suitable for self-study. Based on the practical experience of teaching Chinese characters to non-native speakers and summarizing the current research findings in foundational theories of Chinese characters, the book divides strokes into basic strokes—horizontal, vertical, left-falling, dot, hook, and lift—and derived strokes, adhering to the "Modern Common Chinese Character Stroke Order Specification" jointly issued by the State Language and Character Work Committee and the National Press and Publication Administration of the People's Republic of China. It teaches stroke order according to national language and character norms, referencing the State Language and Character Work Committee's language and character specifications, and performs plane and hierarchical segmentation of Chinese characters. Following the logic of character formation, the book organizes characters that belong to the same semantic category into one lesson and explains radicals based on their formation logic. The book emphasizes the relationship between character meaning and word meaning, including words composed of the character being explained while explaining its meaning. The book is also accompanied by a workbook.