Topic-Oriented Method: The Most Efficient Way to Learn Hundreds of Chinese Characters

We have introduced many different approaches to Chinese character learning. There are also thousands of articles, books, and video lessons illustrating the basics of characters, such as How to Write Chinese Characters Course. Regardless of whether you want to learn seriously or to have a basic understanding, you need a perfect beginning to understand the WHAT, WHY, and HOW behind the Chinese writing system. It’s necessary to have a comprehensive guide that may show you that writing in Chinese can be quite easy and reasonable. The fundamental strokes and rules can easily show you the logic behind character construction.

The strokes and simple pictogram characters are most frequently mentioned in courses, such as “人” “大” “天” “日” “月” “水” “火”, etc. Very familiar and easy to understand, right? Many people find that courses generally don’t explain characters in-depth or go beyond teaching basic characters.

The problem is trying to figure out what’s next. Besides the strokes and theoretical creation methods, how can we really learn and memorize the other Chinese characters? Only a few simple and easy-to-memorize characters are covered, how about the rest of the more complicated ones? No one prepares learners to learn and memorize the thousands of other characters.

How It Works

To help the learners who would like to learn more, the Topic-oriented Character learning method comes into play. If you have basic knowledge of characters, you can find that Chinese characters were created in categories. In ancient China, it was a systematic way to create characters. If we could memorize the characters with the same thoughts and logic, not only can we understand the WHYs behind the culture, but also master all the characters more efficiently.

The course consists of 10 main common, daily topics, including Numbers (数字), People（人）, Position（地点）， Nature（自然）， Weather（天气）， Description with Adjectives（形容词）， Location（地点）， Body（身体）， Furniture & Home appliance（家具&家电）and Food（食物）. Each of the topics contains related and commonly used characters.

Structure

Topic-Oriented Key Characters

Under each topic, several key characters are most commonly used. With the key characters, the most frequently used words and sentences are also presented. For individual characters, there is not only a simple translation but also the origins of the character and how/why it formed to its current form.

Components to Words

After the first section, there are two or three components derived from the key characters. These extended characters are made by the components. The corresponding words and sentences are also made and presented.

Practice & Review

To help the learners better understand, memorize, and use the characters, a practice & review section follows each lesson. Using content you have learned in previous and current lessons, you can practice creating new sentences and holding conversations. Even though the course is about character learning, the corresponding grammar and uses are provided.

Writing

While learning Chinese characters, writing is necessary and unavoidable. Some may say they just need to read or type, and that writing is not that important. As a matter of fact, writing can help you memorize and recognize the characters much easier. We acknowledge the importance of writing, so we decided to include that in our video lessons. The characters are clustered section by section. The instructor will show you the whole writing process by hand, stroke by stroke. With the proper speed, you can easily follow and imitate the writing.

Verdict

Learning to write characters is also a great way to learn Chinese language. From characters to words, from words to topics, and from topics to conversation, it’s all connected. If you understand the logic behind Chinese characters, the following process could not be easier. This topic-oriented Chinese character method provides you with the route to learning.

This course contains about 240 Chinese characters and corresponding words, which range from HSK level 1 to level 3. It’s an ideal course for beginner to intermediate-level learners.

Just learning by watching is not enough for sure. As a writing character course, there are also downloadable, stroke-by-stroke, writing sheets of each topic. All the key and extended characters are listed there for the learners to write and review. In addition, there is also a test in each lesson which helps the learners check if they have mastered and memorized the characters properly.

As a character learning course, it fills the gap between beginner to intermediate level, especially after the fundamental stage, with quite a systematic and logical thought. Learners can easily access the course and begin their journey to Chinese character mastery.

Additional Resources:

Rooted on the Topic-oriented Character Learning Method, other resources are available to help you learn Chinese characters efficiently.

For instance, articles like Chinese Characters About Farming and Nature and Chinese Characters for Animals offer insights into specific categories of characters. Learning characters related to body parts, the Mid-Autumn Festival, and numbers can provide a deeper cultural context and aid memorization.