Character Bridge: Basic Chinese Characters - Form, Sound, and Meaning Explanation (with Workbook) Volume 1

Author: Shi Zhengyu
Publisher:
Publish Date: 1998-10-01
Features: Character Bridge: An Introduction to the Form, Sound, and Meaning of Basic Chinese Characters is a foundational textbook for beginners, especially those who do not write Chinese characters as their native language. 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, right-falling, and lifting—and derived strokes, adhering to the Modern Common Chinese Character Stroke Order Specification jointly issued by the State Language 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, performing both planar and hierarchical segmentation of Chinese characters. Following the logic of character formation, the book organizes characters into lessons based on the semantic categories of their radicals and explains radicals from the perspective of their formation. The book emphasizes the relationship between character meaning and word meaning, including words composed of the character in question while explaining its meaning. This book is accompanied by an exercise workbook.