Read Chinese & Kanji

I don't actually read or speak Chinese. My interest here is to find a universal written language which everyone can understand. I wanted something symbolic or pictographic or logographic which works regardless of spoken language; something which is not spelling out what we are saying phonetically. Chinese characters, sign-language and ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics would work. We already have a lot of symbols which we regularly use which fulfills this. Example: writing down "2 + 3 = 5" instead of "two plus three equals five".

Japanese Kanji is basically a selection of popular Chinese characters. 

Written Chinese uses logograms to convey information. In China, the people spoke different dialects, like Mandarin, Cantonese, Hokkien and Shanghainese; which are actually almost different languages. But receiving a written message saying "Attack East at Dawn" in written chinese, it doesn't matter what language you speak.

Written Chinese is usually made up of a pair of "radicals" or which there are 214 radicals only. These radicals (single chinese characters) have meanings on their own. When used in pairs, they give us a quite massive number of combinations, which then represent a the entire vocabulary. Most pairs of radicals are written side-by-side but a few are one-atop-another. And some words use more than a few radicals.

Written Chinese is taught by just doing the easy books and then moving on. Basically learning to recognise words through encounter. There are many very good courses on learning chinese.

YouTube : [ 1 ] [ 2 ] [ 3 ] [ 4 ] / WebSites : [ 5 ] [ 6 ] [ 7 ] [ 8 ]

Referencing of chinese characters is usually by the "number of strokes" to write out. This is needed for chinese dictionaries.

WebSites : [ 1 ] [ 2 ] [ 3 ] [ 4 ]

I will attempt a more pictorial approach and my focus is learning to read Chinese; not to write in chinese; not to speak a chinese dialect.

一

One (the number). A horizontal line (in the centre). 一

丨

Line(-mark). A vertical line (in the centre).丨

丶

Dot(-mark), Stroke. 丶

丿 , 乀 , 乁

Slash(-mark), Oblique. Looks like "J". 丿

乙 , 乚 , 乛

Secondary, Sickle(-mark). Looks like "L".乚

亅

Hook. 亅

人 , 亻

Human Being, Person, Man. 人

入

to Enter (verb). 入

厶

Private, Secret, Personal. 厶

The ancient version of "Sun" is the character on the left. 

Nowadays, it is 日 .

The ancient version of "Tree" or "Wood" is on the left.

Nowadays, it is 木 .

I found this Book of Illustrations of Chinese Mythical Creatures from 1725 with interesting Characters on the inner cover. 

The top Character looks like a monster. Using Google Lens, the modern versions are 畏 "fear", 獸 "beast" and 圖 "picture". Presumably then, 畏 獸 is "monster".

Draw your Characters using QHanZi website.