A first look at simplified characters

China’s 2013 Table of General Standard Chinese Characters lists 8,105 characters, and its first level of 3,500 is the set meant for school and everyday reading.

Pinyin is a helper. Chinese is written in characters, and pinyin appears beside them in children’s books, dictionaries, road signs and phone keyboards. Each character is one syllable and usually carries a meaning of its own, so a two-syllable word like 中国 Zhōngguó (China) is two characters, 中 middle and 国 country. Characters also keep apart words that sound the same. Mandarin has only about 400 syllables without tones, and many characters share each one: 是 (to be), 事 (matter), 市 (city) and 试 (to try) are all shì. In speech the context tells them apart; in writing the character does.

Simplified and traditional

Mainland China writes simplified characters. In 1956 the State Council published the Scheme for Simplifying Chinese Characters, which replaced many complex forms with shorter ones. In 1986 the list of simplified characters was re-issued as a consolidated table, and in 2013 the Table of General Standard Chinese Characters brought the earlier lists together into one. Singapore also uses simplified characters. Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau keep the traditional forms. Korean hanja are traditional in shape, and Japanese uses its own forms, some simplified in different ways, so a Korean or Japanese reader will recognise 人, 山 and 中 at once but may need a moment for 马 or 门.

Simplification followed a few patterns. Some characters took the shape of an old handwritten cursive form, as 书 does for 書. Some swapped a complicated part for a simpler one, as 国 does for 國. Common components were simplified everywhere they appear: the speech component 言 on the left side became 讠, so 說 became 说 and 語 became 语. Once you know a component, you can read it in dozens of characters.

Pictures, parts and sounds

A small set of characters began as drawings and still keep a little of the picture: 人 person, 口 mouth, 日 sun, 月 moon, 山 mountain, 水 water, 木 tree, 火 fire. Others combine meanings: one 木 is a tree, two make 林 lín (grove) and three make 森 sēn (forest). Most characters, though, pair a meaning part with a sound part. 妈 (mother) has 女 (woman) on the left for meaning and 马 mǎ on the right for sound, which is why it is read mā. 吗 has 口 (mouth) for a spoken particle and the same 马 for the sound. The sound part rarely gives the exact tone, but it is often close, and spotting it makes new characters easier to guess.

Stroke order

Characters are written stroke by stroke in a set order, and the order matters more than it seems: it keeps handwriting balanced and it is how handwriting input on phones recognises what you draw. The main habits are top before bottom, left before right, horizontal before vertical as in 十, the left-falling stroke before the right-falling one as in 人, outside before inside as in 月, and closing a box last as in 日 and 国.