Learn How to Read and Write Chinese Characters

If you're interested in reading and writing Chinese characters, there's no better place to get started than with the numbers 1-10. They are quite simple to write, useful to know, and are exactly the same in both the traditional and simplified writing systems.

So grab a piece of paper and a pencil, give a click on the links below, and try to write the characters with proper stroke order as demonstrated:

One	Two	Three	Four	Five	Six	Seven	Eight	Nine	Ten
一	二	三	四	五	六	七	八	九	十

Now that you know these characters, you actually know how to read and write all the numbers through 100. That's because Chinese follows a very simple pattern for counting:

11	=	10 + 1	=	十一
12	=	10 + 2	=	十二
20	=	2 + 10	=	二十
21	=	2 + 10 + 1	=	二十一
28	=	2 + 10 + 8	=	二十八
82	=	8 + 10 + 2	=	八十二
99	=	9 + 10 + 9	=	九十九

Ready for a challenge? Let's try something a little more interesting:

English:	Love	Beauty	Courage	Dragon	Fire
Simplified:	爱	美	勇气	龙	火
Traditional:	愛	same	勇氣	龍	same

Because the Chinese simplified system is based on the traditional one, many characters are exactly the same, as we saw with the the numbers 1-10. Even for characters that aren't the same, you will often be able to see similarities. For example, have a look at the character for "love" in the simplified and traditional systems. Almost the same, right?

To get a bit more practical, here are the 25 most frequently used characters in the Chinese language:
Source: http://technology.chtsai.org/charfreq/

(a
possessive
particle)

is,
are,
yes

not,
no

I,
me,
my

one

have,
has

big

located,
at

person,
people

past
tense
particle

middle

until,
arrive

Simp

的

是

不

我

一

有

大

在

人

了

中

到

Trad

same

money,
supply

to
want,
need

can

this

(common
measure
word)

you

will,
meet

good

do
something
for
someone

up,
above,
get on

to
come

Simp

资

要

以

可

這

个

你

会

好

为

上

来

Trad

資

same

個

same

會

same

為

same

來

Want to keep going?