Easy Chinese Characters to Learn First

The easiest Chinese characters to learn first are the ones with the fewest strokes and a clear structure: 一, 二, 三, 十, 人, 口, 山, 大, 小, 女, 子, 日, 月, 木, 水, 火 and 好. They take one to six strokes, they are common, and most are pictographs or simple combinations you can see at a glance. The table below lists 24 of them in Traditional form with strokes, readings and an example word.

“Easy” here means three things together: few strokes, frequent in real text, and a structure that makes sense. A character that is easy to write but rare is not a good first choice. And a character with an obvious picture is useful because it shows up inside the harder ones.

Easy characters, in Traditional

Stroke counts come from the Taiwan Ministry of Education dictionary (教育部《重編國語辭典修訂本》), and the example words and readings follow it too.

Character	Pinyin · Zhuyin	Meaning	Strokes	Example word
一	yī · ㄧ	one	1	第一 (dìyī)
二	èr · ㄦˋ	two	2	二手 (èrshǒu)
三	sān · ㄙㄢ	three	3	三角 (sānjiǎo)
十	shí · ㄕˊ	ten	2	十分 (shífēn)
人	rén · ㄖㄣˊ	person	2	大人 (dàrén)
入	rù · ㄖㄨˋ	to enter	2	入口 (rùkǒu)
口	kǒu · ㄎㄡˇ	mouth; opening	3	出口 (chūkǒu)
山	shān · ㄕㄢ	mountain	3	山水 (shānshuǐ)
大	dà · ㄉㄚˋ	big	3	大學 (dàxué)
小	xiǎo · ㄒㄧㄠˇ	small	3	小心 (xiǎoxīn)
女	nǚ · ㄋㄩˇ	woman	3	女人 (nǚrén)
子	zi · ˙ㄗ	child; noun suffix	3	孩子 (háizi)
土	tǔ · ㄊㄨˇ	earth	3	土地 (tǔdì)
上	shàng · ㄕㄤˋ	up, above	3	上班 (shàngbān)
下	xià · ㄒㄧㄚˋ	down, below	3	下午 (xiàwǔ)
日	rì · ㄖˋ	sun, day	4	生日 (shēngrì)
月	yuè · ㄩㄝˋ	moon, month	4	月亮 (yuèliàng)
木	mù · ㄇㄨˋ	tree, wood	4	木頭 (mùtou)
水	shuǐ · ㄕㄨㄟˇ	water	4	水果 (shuǐguǒ)
火	huǒ · ㄏㄨㄛˇ	fire	4	火車 (huǒchē)
心	xīn · ㄒㄧㄣ	heart	4	心情 (xīnqíng)
手	shǒu · ㄕㄡˇ	hand	4	洗手 (xǐshǒu)
目	mù · ㄇㄨˋ	eye	5	目的 (mùdì)
好	hǎo · ㄏㄠˇ	good	6	好人 (hǎorén)

子 is shown with the neutral-tone suffix reading (zi), and the full reading zǐ is used in words like 子女.

Why these are good first characters

They are frequent. In the frequency count used in the most common Chinese characters (Jun Da’s Modern Chinese list), 一 is 2nd, 人 is 7th, 上 is 16th and 大 is 17th. Several others in the table, 子 (37th), 下 (42nd), 好 (82nd), 小 (83rd) and 心 (90th), are in the first hundred too.

They show the structure of characters. 人 and 大 differ by a single stroke, and 木 is the base for 林 (lín, grove: two trees) and 森 (sēn, forest: three trees). 口 appears inside dozens of other characters. Once you know them, the harder characters read as combinations of parts.

They have transparent logic. 好 is 女 plus 子, and 明 (míng, bright) is 日 plus 月. 休 (xiū, to rest) is a person beside a tree. These compounds are the ones you can build yourself. Chinese pictographs covers where the picture characters come from.

They are short to write. If you are practising handwriting, these are the characters to build the habit on. The stroke order rules apply to even these simple characters: 十 is horizontal before vertical, 人 is left-falling before right-falling.

Easy to write is not always easy to use

Several of these characters carry more than one reading, and a flashcard with a single character hides that. The MOE dictionary lists 大 as dà, with dài and tài as further readings. 好 is hǎo (good) and also hào (to like). 子 is a noun suffix (zi) and also zǐ. A good first step is to learn each as part of a word, as the example column does. A word card gives you the reading in context.

一 and 不 change tone depending on the next syllable, so you will hear 一 in 一起 pronounced yìqǐ, not yīqǐ. This is why the table example for 一 is 第一, where it keeps its first tone.

A few “cool” characters learners ask about

Learners also ask for visually striking characters, and some of these are worth a look, even though none belongs in the first week.

• 龍 (lóng · ㄌㄨㄥˊ, dragon, 16 strokes). The Simplified form 龙 has 5 strokes. The character appears in 龍舟 (lóngzhōu, dragon boat) and names the dragon in the Chinese zodiac.
• 愛 (ài · ㄞˋ, love, 13 strokes). The Traditional form contains 心 (heart) in the middle. The Simplified 爱 leaves it out. It is a well-known difference between the two scripts.
• 福 (fú · ㄈㄨˊ, good fortune, 14 strokes). At Lunar New Year, you will see 福 posted on doors, sometimes upside down. 倒 (dào, upside down) sounds like 到 (dào, to arrive), so an inverted 福 is a pun on “good fortune arrives”. It is an example of the homophone wordplay covered in lucky numbers and homophones in Taiwan.
• 鬱 (yù · ㄩˋ, 29 strokes). This is the “hard mode” character. The MOE dictionary lists its core meaning as “to gather, to stagnate”, and it is used in 憂鬱 (yōuyù, melancholy, depression) and 鬱悶 (yùmèn, feeling gloomy and stifled). It is a joke among learners because of the stroke count, but it is a real word you can recognise long before you can write it.

You do not need to write 鬱 to read it. A sensible order for heavy characters is to recognise first, type next, and handwrite only if you have a reason. See how to memorize Chinese characters for ways to keep heavy characters in memory.

How to start

1. Take the first six or eight from the table and learn each in one or two words.
2. Write each one a few times against a model, saying the word aloud, and check the shape and stroke order. Checking matters more than the number of repetitions.
3. Add structure characters next: 女, 子, 日, 月, 木, then 好, 明, 林.
4. Look up anything else in the site dictionary to see its Traditional form, Pinyin, Zhuyin and example words.

Zhong teaches Traditional characters first, with handwriting and stroke checking, and its lessons 1 to 5 are free.

Related reading

• Chinese pictographs
• Most common Chinese characters in Traditional
• How to memorize Chinese characters
• Dictionary search