Chinese Character Components

Hack Chinese characters by learning how they’re made.
Chinese character components are the key to learning characters more easily

Why you should learn Chinese Character Components

All 80,000+ Chinese characters are composed of the same (approximately) 200 components.

Character components are very important for Chinese learners: they are the building blocks of Chinese and the key to easily memorizing Chinese characters. You can learn them all on the Components and Radical course on Ninchanese.

There are three types of character components

Components that provide information on a Chinese character’s meaning: these are called meaning components (also known as semantic components)
Chinese components that give you clues on a Chinese character’s pronunciation: these are called phonetic components
Chinese components that give you graphical information: these are called graphic components. They are useful to remember better new characters.

Meaning Components

Components and Radicals course

Learn the most important Chinese component categorized by type and sorted by difficulty and usefulness.

Go to the Component course

Phonetic components

Learn the essential Chinese character components to know and you’ll be equipped with a very powerful toolkit to learn Chinese characters!

Once you’re familiar with components, you’ll be able to break down, recognize, learn, and remember each Chinese character a lot better. You can learn them all on Ninchanese, our gamified learning Chinese app. Every 200 most important components are characterized by type on the Chinese component course and will help you wonderfully to learn new characters once learned. If you want to know more about the course, read the description of the component course here.