How many characters does the average literate Chinese person know? Studies carried out in China have shown that full literacy requires a knowledge of between three and four thousand characters.

It renders Chinese characters in the letters of the Roman alphabet, enabling anyone who can read that alphabet to learn to speak Chinese without reading characters. Indeed, you've already read ...

Japanese writing incorporates both Chinese characters and symbols that have a sound value like an alphabet (called a syllabary). Because of their syllabary, the Japanese are able to learn much more ...

I just want to learn speaking Chinese, so I don't need to learn Chinese characters. Well, you can do that. As I know, however, there is a great chance that you will regret when you want to reach a ...

You simply have to memorise the pronunciation of every character. This might not be too hard for native Chinese speakers, but for anyone else who has tried to learn the language, it is a major ...