The Evolution of Chinese Character Expression Forms and the “Outline Method” for Chinese Teaching

  By Lewei Shang

August 10, 2025

Part 1, The evolution of Chinese character expression forms

Many years ago, during a lecture on the pictographic origins of Chinese characters, an elderly white gentleman asked me: “Do Chinese characters have letters?”
I had never imagined anyone would ask such a question, to the point that I started doubting whether I’d understood him correctly. I asked again, and confirmed that he really was asking, “Do Chinese characters have letters?”
My first reaction was, “How could anyone ask such an unrealistic question?” Then I honestly told him: “Chinese characters don’t have letters.”

But that question forced me to think: Why don’t Chinese characters have letters? Do Chinese characters have something similar to letters?

What is a letter? A letter is the smallest unit in an alphabetic writing system, used to form words. Chinese is not an alphabetic writing system, so naturally it has no letters. But does it have a smallest independent unit — a structure that, like letters, cannot be divided further?
After some thought, I concluded that Chinese does have such units: independent characters that cannot be split. For example: 日 (sun), 月 (moon), 火 (fire), 土 (earth), 人 (person), 水 (water), 牛 (ox), 马 (horse), 山 (mountain), 女(woman), 口 (mouth), 门 (door), 目 (eye), 田 (field), 心 (heart), 木 (tree), and so on.

The difference between these “independent characters” and letters is that independent characters have meaning, while letters do not. But functionally, in terms of forming larger linguistic units, they are similar.
Another difference: alphabets usually have only 20–30 letters, while Chinese has about 400 independent characters — more than ten times as many. These 400+ are combined to form tens of thousands (or even over a hundred thousand) compound characters.
For example: 明 (bright), 看 (look), 灶 (stove), 妈 (mother), 吐 (spit), 炎 (flame), 休 (rest), 森 (forest), 林 (woods), 泪(tear), 思 (think), 相 (mutual). These are formed from two or more independent characters.

The emergence of compound characters allowed Chinese writing to expand from representing only tangible objects to expressing abstract concepts. For example: 明, 看, 休, 好, 思 are verbs or adjectives with no concrete shape. This greatly enhanced the expressive power of Chinese.

But even then, Chinese characters were still not enough — there were numbers, pronouns, and new concepts constantly emerging. What to do? Our ancestors invented loan characters (假借) and mutual explanation (转注).

• Loan characters: If there’s no existing character to express a meaning, borrow one temporarily. For example, 它originally meant “snake.” But since “it” (pronoun) had no character, 它 was borrowed for the pronoun. Over time, the pronoun meaning became far more common than the original “snake” meaning. People forgot 它 meant “snake,” so a new character 蛇 (with the “insect” radical) was created to restore the original meaning. Because the original character wasn’t returned, this is called loan borrowing.
• Mutual explanation: One character acquires multiple related meanings. For example, 乐 (lè, yuè), 重 (zhòng, chóng), 省 (shěng, xǐng), 行 (háng, xíng), 恶 (è, wù), 觉 (jiào, jué), etc. For instance, 乐 meaning “happy” (lè) didn’t have its own character, so the 乐 meaning “music” (yuè) was also used for “happy.” Unlike loan borrowing, no new character is created — it’s more convenient but leads to common misinterpretations, because one character can have several meanings, and learners may not master them all at once.

Some may ask: “How do you know which came first, yuè or lè?” I can say with certainty: yuè came first — you can see it from shell bone inscription.

For example, this is a set of bronze chime bells: bells on top, frame below. Chime bells are, of course, for playing music, so 乐 originally meant a musical instrument.
In many cases, we can’t be sure which meaning came first. But regardless, the result is the same: one character with multiple meanings. In fact, 99% of such polysemy comes from mutual explanation.

Even so, there still weren’t enough characters. Creating new ones is difficult and slow. What to do? Our ancestors invented word compounds — two or more characters combined to express a meaning. For example, “电脑” (computer) is formed from 电 (electricity) and 脑 (brain), instead of creating a brand-new character for “computer.”

This method works for endless terms: 计算机 (computer), 打印机 (printer), 割草机 (lawn mower), 拖拉机 (tractor), 推土机 (bulldozer), 洗碗机 (dishwasher), 订书机 (stapler). Whatever the machine, I can make a compound to name it. Same with vehicles: 马车 (horse carriage), 牛车 (ox cart), 汽车 (car), 火车 (train), 面包车 (van), 轿车 (sedan), 卡车(truck), 云霄飞车 (roller coaster), 班车 (shuttle bus), 板车 (flatbed cart), 自行车 (bicycle), 三轮车 (tricycle).

This also works with diseases: 胃病 (stomach illness), 肺病 (lung illness), 心脏病 (heart disease), 糖尿病 (diabetes). Making new compounds is far easier than inventing a new character for each disease.

The invention of compounds freed Chinese from the constant pressure to create new characters. Compound words also express meaning more precisely and subtly, and reduce confusion from homophones. For example, the single character 地sounds similar to 弟, 第, 帝, 蒂, 迪, 递, etc., which can cause misunderstandings. But in the compound 土地 (“land”), the meaning is clear, and full-homophone compounds are rarer than single-character homophones.

Our ancestors also invented reduplication: 清清楚楚 (very clear), 干干净净 (very clean), 漂漂亮亮 (very beautiful), 马马虎虎 (careless), 上上下下 (up and down). This largely solved homophone confusion.

Part 2, Outline Method for teaching Chinese

Inspired by the above thinking, I recently developed a new approach to teaching Chinese: learning should start with independent characters. There are about 400 — not too many, and you don’t need them all. They are highly pictographic, so introducing their shapes and evolution makes them easy to learn without rote memorization.

For example, the independent characters 日, 月, 水, 火, 土, 山, 女, 口, 牛, 马, 门, 目, 木, 人. 日 is a circle with a dot in the center. 山 is three peaks. 口 is a square.

Once you’ve learned them, move on to compound characters — they’re just combinations of the independent ones, easy to understand and remember, like building with blocks: 日 + 月 = 明 (bright), 门 + 口 = 问 (ask), 女 + 马 = 妈 (mother), 火 + 土 = 灶 (stove), 水 + 目 = 泪 (tear).

Finally, learn compounds: also like building blocks. 泪水 (tears), 土灶 (earthen stove), 好马 (good horse), 妈妈 (mother), 儿子 (son), 好人 (good person), 门口 (doorway), 明月 (bright moon).

I call this the “Outline Method” for Teaching Chinese Characters:

• Independent characters are the outline (纲)
• Compound characters are the main headings (目)
• Compound words are the subheadings (次目)

Grasp the outline (independent characters), and you lift up the main headings (compound characters). Lift those, and the subheadings (words) follow.

Example with 日: 

shell bone script

• 日 is the outline (independent character)
• Compound characters from 日: 早, 明, 星, 春, 时
• Words from these:
• 早 → 早晨, 早饭, 早操, 早退, 早自习
• 明 → 明天, 光明, 明显, 明月, 发明, 聪明
• 星 → 星光, 星火, 星辰, 零星, 卫星, 明星
• 春 → 春天, 春节, 春季, 春风, 春雨, 春联
• 时 → 时间, 时代, 时差, 时钟, 临时, 倒计时

So the evolution of Chinese character expression can be summarized as:

Independent characters → Compound characters → Compound words

This makes learning easier, faster, and more memorable. Combined with basic Chinese grammar, it forms a rich and complete language.

 

Why Are Small Seal Script Characters Slender and Rounded, While Clerical Script Characters Are Flat and Broad?

Anyone with a bit of calligraphy knowledge knows that small seal script (小篆) is slender and elongated, while clerical script (隶书) is short and flat. But why is that?

Chinese characters are often called “square characters,” yet aside from Song typeface (宋体字), almost none of the traditional scripts are truly square. Small seal script is tall and narrow, while clerical script is distinctly flat and wide. This contrast is one of the most striking in the evolution of Chinese writing.

 Qin Dynasty – Stele of Mount Yi - 秦朝《峄山刻石》

Qing Dynasty – Wu Rangzhi’s (吴让之)Seal Script Works 

From the Qin dynasty to the Qing dynasty, seal script consistently appeared in a slender, elongated form—elegant and graceful in posture.

Clerical script, on the other hand, is characterized by its short verticals and long horizontals—solid, steady, and expansive in appearance.

 

Han Dynasty – Stele of Yi Ying - 汉代乙瑛碑 

 

Han Dynasty – Stele of Ritual Vessels - 汉代礼器碑

Chinese writing evolved through the following stages:

Shell bone script → Bronze inscriptions → Big seal script → Small seal script → Clerical script → Standard script (kaishu)

Clerical script directly followed seal script, yet the two seem utterly different—like a son who bears no resemblance to his father. Historians call this transformation the “clerical transformation” (隶变) — a sudden, revolutionary change. 

Why Did the Clerical Transformation Occur?

Few studies have addressed this question. Since 2012, I have researched the pictographic origins and evolution of Chinese characters, and I have gradually formed my own view. Here it is—not necessarily correct, but worth considering.

Before the invention of large-scale papermaking in the Han dynasty, writing materials were bamboo slips—narrow strips, typically about 8 millimeters wide. This extreme narrowness restricted horizontal strokes, forcing writers to elongate characters vertically. Some characters were even written upright. For example, in shell bone inscriptions:

From left to right: horse (马), elephant (象), dog (犬), dream (梦)

This vertical compression was dictated by the bamboo medium.

For nearly two thousand years, from the Shang dynasty to the Eastern Han, people wrote under this constraint. Characters could not expand horizontally, and lines of text had to flow vertically. (I’ve discussed why ancient people wrote vertically in another article, “Why Did the Ancients Write From Top to Bottom?”)

The Invention of Paper: A 2D Revolution

When large-scale papermaking emerged in the Eastern Han, everything changed.
I emphasize large-scale because, as modern scholars agree, Cai Lun didn’t invent papermaking from scratch—he improved existing small-scale folk methods. Acting on an imperial assignment, he surveyed local papermakers, collected techniques, and developed a process suitable for mass production. Paper became affordable, and bamboo slips quickly became obsolete.

Bamboo slips are one-dimensional—you can only write in one direction.
Paper, however, is two-dimensional—a flat surface where you can write in all directions, especially horizontally.

After two thousand years of constraint, people finally had space to let their brushstrokes stretch freely sideways. In this “psychological rebound,” writers deliberately extended their strokes horizontally. To achieve longer horizontals, they straightened the small seal script’s inward curves—transforming gentle arcs into bold horizontal lines or sweeping diagonals (nà). 

For example:



The curved upper and lower arcs of the small seal-script “木” (wood) were straightened in clerical script—the upper arc became a flat line, the lower arc flared outward into a left-falling and right-falling stroke.

 Thus, clerical script was born by straightening curves, primarily because straight lines were faster to write. 

In fact, this tendency began as early as the Warring States period, when people were still writing on bamboo slips. Evidence from Qin bamboo texts excavated in Jingzhou (1993) already shows characters dominated by straight strokes—essentially proto-clerical script, though without the distinctive “silkworm head and swallow tail” flares yet.

By the Han dynasty, after paper became common, clerical script matured into its recognizable form, complete with those elegant flaring strokes.

The Birth of “Silkworm Head and Swallow Tail”

No ancient documents explain how these features originated. One theory suggests that someone—perhaps unintentionally—wrote this way, others found it beautiful, and the style caught on, becoming a hallmark of clerical script.

For example,



In the character “聿,” all curves of small seal script were straightened.
 



In “進,” the short lower line of the “止” radical was pulled diagonally outward into a long sweeping stroke.

The Desire for Long Horizontals

In the early 1970s, during construction of the Xiang–Qian (from Hunan to Guizhou) and Zhi–Liu (from Henan to Guangxi) railways, engineers from the Cheng–Kun Railway (from Chengdu to Kunming) came to my hometown, Zhijiang, a town at the edge of the Yungui Plateau. The roads there were wide and flat, so the drivers—accustomed to treacherous mountain roads—drove wildly fast. When people asked why, they said, “We were stifled too long on the narrow roads of the Cheng–Kun line—now we can finally drive freely!”

It was the same with writing.

After centuries of cramped bamboo slips, people finally had “wide roads” (paper) and expressed their joy by writing with long horizontals and sweeping strokes.

If a character lacked such long strokes, Han calligraphers would boldly redesign or even rotate it to create one.

For example，



The seal-script “heart” had no long horizontals. In clerical script, scribes reinterpreted its curves and stretched one diagonal into a long “silkworm-head and swallow-tail” stroke.

Another example, 



The small seal-script and clerical-script forms look almost unrelated.

To understand, compare with earlier scripts:

• The shell bone script form (left) depicts a kneeling person with hands crossed over the chest.

• In big seal script (right), the body becomes a vertical curve, and the hands are represented by crossing horizontals in front.

Small seal script

• In small seal script, symmetry is emphasized—the left arm was extended downward to balance the right, making the figure look stylized. 

Now, let see the clerical script, if we rotate the clerical-script “女”, left below, 90 degrees clockwise, we get the right one below, we can see the relationship:



The right vertical of clerical script corresponds to the right arc of small seal script, and the crossing strokes on the left match the crossed arms. By turning the form sideways, the Han scribes converted vertical lines into long horizontals, which is perfect for a Silkworm Head and Swallow Tail stroke —embodying their bold creativity. 

This radical reworking was widely accepted—from court scribes to commoners—and became the standard. 

The Spirit of the Han Dynasty 

The Han people were open-minded and innovative. They achieved brilliance in many fields, including calligraphy—clerical script reached its peak during the Han dynasty.
That is why the descendants of the Central Plains proudly called themselves Han people - 汉族, their writing Han characters - 汉字, and their language Han speech - 汉语. The Han (and later the Tang) was truly among China’s greatest dynasties, giving later generations pride in being “Han.”

Decline of Innovation

We have just seen how clerical script revolutionized small seal script—a historical leap.
But modern Chinese people no longer possess that courage or boldness. We’ve grown conservative, afraid to deviate even slightly. As a result, after the emergence of regular script (kaishu), Chinese calligraphy ceased to evolve.

For language, that stability isn’t bad.
But for the art of calligraphy, it led to stagnation—a creative dead end.

A Personal Anecdote

Around 2012, when I was teaching Chinese at the Huaxia Chinese School in New Jersey, I once took part in a Peking opera performance organized by the Confucius Institute at Rutgers University.

I called the institute to ask whether they needed Chinese teachers. The program coordinator, an older lady, told me she preferred “standard Chinese” and opposed any deviation from standard forms. When I asked what she meant by “standard,” she said: “Song typeface.”

Later I emailed her samples of my work—studies on pictographic origins and pictographic calligraphy—but she never replied. Then I understood: in her eyes, I was a heretic for not using “standard” Song type.

To her, “standard Chinese” meant not only Song typeface, but simplified Song typeface. Ancient scripts like shell bone, bronze, or seal script were, to her, not “real Chinese.”

But who decides what “standard Chinese” is?
Is it the ancient ancestors who created the characters—or modern people who only recognize simplified forms?

As the proverb says, “A little knowledge is a dangerous thing.” That lady, with her half-bucket of knowledge, was nonetheless full of self-confidence.

If the ancients could return today and see simplified Song characters, would they still recognize them as “Chinese characters”?

Conclusion 

The slender grace of small seal script and the flat boldness of clerical script both arose naturally from changes in writing materials—from narrow bamboo slips to wide paper sheets—and also from psychological liberation.

The clerical transformation was a rebellion against the constraints of the bamboo medium.
Over time, that rebellious spirit calmed, and with the advent of regular script, writing returned to balance—neither too tall nor too wide. Characters became truly square, regular, and standardized.

That made the language more consistent—but it also meant that calligraphy lost much of its distinctive vitality and artistic tension.

In short

The shapes of Chinese characters evolved not merely from artistic choice, but from the physical and psychological freedom of their writers—narrow slips bred slender forms, while broad paper invited sweeping horizontals.

 

Written in Feb. 1^st, 2025

How did we turn a very interesting learning into something very dull?

Is Chinese difficult? Ask ten people and ten will answer: extremely difficult. But this is a huge misunderstanding. We've made a simple thing complicated, an easy thing difficult, and an interesting thing dull.

 

Why do I say this?

 

Let's look at a few examples.

 

How many of these four characters (song typeface) do you recognize, possibly none.

 

But what about the following

 

 

How many of these four do you recognize? Possibly two or more.

 

They are characters Mountain, Water, Sun, and Moon.

 

The four below are exactly same characters of the four above, they are in shell bone script, created and used in 3500+ years ago, the earliest Chinese characters which are pictography. Ancient Chinese just drew object to represent it.

 

The four above are song typeface, formed in Song Dynasty (960 – 1279), current standard Chinese script.

 

Is there a connection?

Yes.

The latter evolved from the former.

There are other scripts between them, the whole picture is like the following

 

 

 

From left to right: shell bone script, big script, small script, clerical script. After clerical script in Han Dynasty (202 BC – 220 AD), song typeface was formed around 1000 – 1200 (not show in the table above).

 

If you learn this way, you'll understand how each character originated, and you'll grasp the meaning of each stroke. This makes learning interesting and easier to remember.

 

Unfortunately we don’t teach the earlier forms, we start with the song typeface: 山，水，日，月. As a result, students don't know where these characters came from, why they are written in those way, and can only memorize them by rote. A potentially fascinating study becomes a tedious chore and very hard to remember thousands of Chinese characters. Thus, it feels difficult.

 

Why teach Chinese this way? Firstly, because after First Emperor burned the books and buried the scholars, the knowledge of shell bone script was lost until its rediscovery in 1899. So, for 2000 years, Chinese people didn't know about this pictographic form of writing. Secondly, it’s a shortcut. Isn’t it faster to learn the song typeface script directly? Why bother learning shell bone script, big seal script, small seal script, and clerical script? But this shortcut cuts off the evolutionary history of Chinese characters, turning them into cryptic symbols that seem to have fallen from the sky. When you don’t understand their meaning, you’re left with rote memorization. Thirdly, 100% Chinese language teachers did hear the pictography of Chinese characters, but 99%+ only know a few pictography of a few (less than ten) characters. They have to be trained before they can teach the pictography of Chinese characters. But neither the government nor the teachers have recognized the need for training, they feel very comfortable in the current system and don't feel any pressure to change. 

Therefore, not only do hundreds of millions of Chinese students have to continue to memorize by rote, but tens of thousands or millions of foreign students have to do the same.

 

Look at how a process that could be easy and interesting has become arduous and tedious. Now that we've identified the problem, it's up to you whether you want to abandon the arduous path of rote memorization and adopt a new method that involves understanding the pictographic and evolutionary nature of characters. The answer might seem simple, but it's not, due to inertia and because this learning method does not fit into the current Chinese language education system. I hope that one day people will realize we have to change, and we should embrace this easier, more interesting method that reflects the true nature of Chinese characters through their pictographic evolution.

 

If you are interested, I give four more characters for you to guess, to see how many you could guess right ?

Chinese, the most interesting and simple language in the world

By Lewei Shang

 

The biggest feature of Chinese is pictographs. 

 

What are pictographs? Pictographs are drawings, the simplest drawings. I have been introducing pictographic Chinese characters on my blog for many years, and readers who follow my blog should have seen many pictographic Chinese characters that I have introduced, and their evolution. Learning Chinese characters through pictographs is very interesting and easy to understand.

 

For example:

 

 

From left to right:

Shell bone script, big seal script, small seal script, clerical script.

 

The top is 目 (mù), which means eyes; the bottom is 人 (rén), which means person. Many people think that shell bone script is too difficult, and many even translate shell bone script as Oracle script (a mysterious font). This translation is incorrect; Oracle bone script should be translated as Shell bone script. Shell bone script is not mysterious. Do you think the shell bone script for "目" - an eye, and the shell bone script for "人" - the side of a human body above, are mysterious? They are much more similar to eyes and human bodies than the characters in Song typeface. They are much easier to understand than English words "Eye" and "Human being" or "People". But why don't we say Song typeface is difficult to understand, or English is difficult to understand? The reason is that you have not seriously studied shell bone script, so you think it is difficult. In addition, Oracle script - a mysterious font, Ancient Egyptian script, and Ancient Mayan script are more difficult to understand than Shell bone script. If Shell bone script is called Oracle, then what should they be called? Therefore, Shell Bone script is the most appropriate English translation.

 

Pictographic Chinese characters are mainly nouns with shapes, such as: 口 (kǒu) - mouth, 人 (rén) - person, 目(mù) - eyes, 木 (mù) - tree, 门 (mén) - door, 山 (shān) - mountain, 水 (shuǐ) - water, 田 (tián) - field, 火 (huǒ) - fire, 日 (rì) - sun, 月 (yuè) - moon, 云 (yún) - cloud, 鸟 (niǎo) - bird, 鹿 (lù) - deer, 雨 (yǔ) - rain, 鱼 (yú) - fish, etc. For adjectives and verbs without shapes, such as: 见 (jiàn) - see, 看 (kàn) - look, 明 (míng) - bright, 鸣 (míng) - sing, 沐 (mù) - bathe, 相 (xiāng) - each other, 泪 (lèi) - tears, 渔 (yú) - fish, 问 (wèn) - ask, etc., they are composed of individual pictographic characters according to their meanings, so they are called compound ideographic characters.

 

For example:

From left to right:

Shell bone script, Big seal script, Small seal script, Clerical script, Simplified Song typeface.

 

The top is "目" (mù), the bottom is "人" (rén), forming the character "见" (jiàn). This is very obvious and easy to see. Learning Chinese characters like this is undoubtedly a pleasant and easy process.

 

Each individual character is like an electronic component, and then different logical circuit boards are built according to their functions. These circuit boards can then be used to build more complex circuit boards. There are only about four hundred individual characters (the smallest, undividable, meaningful units) but they form tens of thousands of compound characters, including compound ideographic characters and phono-semantic characters. As long as you understand these four hundred or so individual characters, it is easy to understand other compound characters. You don't need to remember every character. From these individual and compound characters, phrases can be formed.

 

Simple, easy to understand, very easy to learn, and very enjoyable, without the need to memorize Chinese characters by rote.

 

But if pictographs are not discussed, all Chinese characters become meaningless symbols, and can only be memorized by rote, making learning extremely difficult.

 

 

In addition to making Chinese characters interesting and easy to understand, Chinese grammar is also extremely simple. I have previously written an article discussing "Why is Chinese Grammar Extremely Simple?", and today I will represent Chinese grammar with diagrams, which may be easier to understand.

 

 

Chinese verbs only have one tense, there is no past tense, no perfect tense, and no future tense. There are also no problems with singular or plural verbs that need to be changed, and there are no irregular verbs. There is also no subjunctive mood in verbs; as long as "如果" (rúguǒ) (if) is added, it becomes a subjunctive mood. There is no requirement for verbs in question sentences to be placed before; as long as a "?" is added at the end, it is enough.

 

So, one verb is just one word, for example: 做 (zuò) - to do, in English there are: do, does, did, doing, done, have done, will do, would have done, etc. In Chinese, it's simply 我做 (wǒ zuò) - I do, 你做 (nǐ zuò) - you do, 他做 (tā zuò) - he do, 我们做 (wǒmen zuò) - we do, 我现在做 (wǒ xiànzài zuò) - I do now, 你昨天做 (nǐ zuótiān zuò) - you do yesterday, 他明天做 (tā míngtiān zuò) - he do tomorrow, etc. Anyway, it's all "做" (zuò) – to do. Similarly, for 是 (shì) - to be, in English there are: am, is, are, was, were, have been, will be, would be, etc. In Chinese, it's 我是 (wǒ shì) - I be, 你是 (nǐ shì) - you be, 他是 (tā shì) - he be, 我们是 (wǒmen shì) - we be, 我现在是 (wǒ xiànzài shì) - I be now, 你过去是 (nǐ guòqù shì) - you be in the past, 他将来是 (tā jiānglái shì) - he be in the future, etc. Anyway, it's all "是" (shì) - to be.

 

Chinese grammar should be taught early, like the main beam of a house. Once the main beam is erected, adding other supports, doors, and windows becomes easier.

 

For example:             AB learn XY

 

AB can be nouns, pronouns, XY can be nouns, pronouns, adverbs. As long as it makes logical sense, it can form a sentence

 

I study Chinese, you study singing, they study painting, Zhang San study boxing, Li Si study martial arts, Wang Wu study very well, They study Math yesterday, She study Art tomorrow, etc.

 

It's a bit like combining individual characters into compound characters mentioned earlier, and then combining them into phrases. Here, adding verbs forms sentences, and with sentences, you can write articles.

 

But if Chinese grammar is taught according to English grammar, it complicates simple issues.

 

The third characteristic of Chinese: many homophones.

 

Having many homophones is a major disadvantage of Chinese, with one sound having multiple characters. 目(mù), 沐 (mù), 木 (mù), 幕 (mù), 穆 (mù), 墓 (mù), 慕 (mù), 牧 (mù), 暮 (mù), 募 (mù), 睦 (mù), 钼 (mù), all pronounced "mù". If tones are not considered, then there are even more characters. Which characters correspond to "Mu li ji zhong"? Is it 牡蛎及钟? 木犁几种 ? 穆立击中? 暮里挤肿 ? 目力集中? etc., you simply don't know which characters they are, because they are all pronounced exactly same. 

 

So, the path of Romanization of Chinese characters is not feasible. At the same time, the method emphasized in learning English of "listening and speaking leading, reading and writing following" cannot be applied to learning Chinese, because homophones quickly make you unable to continue. This is why many foreigners can quickly learn "hello" and "goodbye", but after a few years, they are still stuck with just these two sentences, or maybe a couple more.

 

Apart from homophones, the lack of relationship between the pronunciation and writing of Chinese characters makes learning Chinese even more difficult. The pronunciation and spelling of English are closely related; if you can say it, you have about seventy to eighty percent certainty of being able to write it. So, knowing how to say English words can help you remember them. But there is no relationship between the pronunciation and writing of Chinese characters; you can say a sentence, but you might not be able to write a single character.

 

The relationship between the writing and expression of Chinese characters and real objects is pictographic, so learning pictographs can help remember Chinese characters. English does not have this relationship, which is its shortcoming. Teaching English as "listening and speaking leading, reading and writing following" is a strategy to highlight strengths and avoid weaknesses: highlighting the closeness between English pronunciation and spelling, while avoiding the lack of pictographic characteristics of English words. Similarly, the strategy for learning Chinese is to highlight strengths and avoid weaknesses: highlighting the pictographic nature of Chinese characters, making writing characters like drawing; as long as this strength is highlighted, the weakness of rote memorization is naturally avoided, and at the same time, the problem of too many homophones is also avoided because when you speak, the corresponding Chinese characters come to mind, and you will never get confused.

 

In summary:

 

The greatest strength of Chinese characters: pictographic, characters are drawings.

 

The second greatest strength of Chinese characters: very simple grammar.

 

These two points make Chinese the simplest and most interesting language.

 

The greatest weakness of Chinese characters: too many homophones, and the pronunciation and writing of Chinese characters are unrelated.

 

The second greatest weakness of Chinese characters: individual characters are difficult to remember. But this only exists when we don't teach pictographs; if we do, this weakness naturally disappears.

 

Conclusion:

 

As long as we highlight strengths and avoid weaknesses: teach pictographs, teach grammar, and then follow up with Pinyin, Chinese is the most interesting and simplest language.

 

March 1, 2024