Chinese Characters

A few characters

Many of the most common characters in Chinese have a rich history and are easy to remember. We've put together just 44 characters that give a flavour of what Chinese is all about. For more information about learning chinese please go to our introduction page.

Numbers	yī one èr two sān three sì four wǔ five liu six qī seven bā eight jiǔ nine
	shí 10 bǎi 100 qiān 1,000 wàn 10,000 líng 0
Dates	wǔ noon rì day xīngqī weekday yuè month nián year
Directions	běi north dōng east nán south xī west zhōng centre
Verbs	shì is yǒu has zǒu walk
Pronouns	wǒ I nǐ you tā he mén [plural]
Nouns	shū book rén person jīng capital guó country yǒu friend
Others	yīng hero měi beautiful gè [measure things] běn [measure books] shàng up xià down wàng towards

© Copyright Society for Anglo-Chinese Understanding (SACU) 2004