The Way of Chinese Characters: The Origins of 450 Essential Words

Enrich character study with cultural insight and linguistic context

The Way of Chinese Characters: The Origins of 670 Essential Words offers a holistic approach to character learning. Firmly grounded in etymological research, it introduces each character with its historical evolution and cultural context. Concise introductions and playful illustrations help students visualize the character s origin and meaning. Rather than memorize through rote repetition, students develop intelligent connections between characters and their meanings.

This expanded second edition has been reimagined to benefit any Chinese curriculum. Now featuring 670 characters organized in alphabetical order by pinyin, The Way of Chinese Characters introduces example words and phrases with nearly every entry, presenting more characters in greater context. Helpful indexes aid students navigation and study. The appendix also includes a special Integrated Chinese index, helping series users to coordinate character study with textbook pacing.

Each entry presents the simplified and traditional versions of a character, its pinyin, and its English definition. Character descriptions are in both English and Chinese, making The Way of Chinese Characters a flexible, helpful support to teachers and students at any level of language study.

The Way of Chinese Characters is by far the best context-learning teaching supplement on the market. Its simplicity is brilliant; its accuracy is scholarly without overwhelming the novice. The pedagogical principles espoused in the Preface are right on. --Scott A. Carpenter, PhD, Graduate School of Computer and Information Sciences, Nova Southeastern University, FL