Characters

Explore the characters that make up Chinese words

Understanding Chinese characters

Chinese characters (汉字 hànzì) are the basic units of Chinese writing. Unlike alphabet letters, each character represents a syllable and carries meaning. A Chinese word is typically composed of one to three characters combined together.

The stroke count of a character ranges from 1 to over 30. Simple characters (1-5 strokes) are often the most frequent and form the foundation for learning more complex characters. For example, 一 (yī, one) has only one stroke, while 龜 (guī, turtle) has over 16.

What are characters used for?

Understand how words are formed
Spot recurring patterns
See links between similar characters
Memorize vocabulary more efficiently

This page only displays characters present in our dictionary (~3000). Good news: you don't need to learn thousands of characters to speak fluently! Mastering 1500 to 2000 characters is enough to read 95% of common texts.

Characters

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HSK 3.0 distinguishes characters you need to read (认读字) from those you need to write (书写字). Filter by level to see the required characters at each stage.

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Characters

Understanding Chinese characters

Character Explorer

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Characters

Understanding Chinese characters

Character Explorer

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HSK Level

Sort