Reading and Writing Chinese

This is an excellent book for anyone wanting to learn Chinese characters. By introducing characters in order of complexity, the student gradually becomes acquainted with the components of more complex characters.

Unlike many other texts on the subject, Reading and Writing Chinese presents characters in increasing complexity, rather than usage frequency. This allows students to become familiar with the individual components of complex characters before they are combined.

The first section of the book presents 1,062 elementary characters along with a translation and sample phrases. The second section presents the remaining characters from the official list of 2,000 basic characters devised by the Chinese government.

The book contains two indexes for looking up characters: pronunciation and stroke count. There are also interesting discussions about the history of Chinese characters and the various systems of Romanization.

This book is not a complete learning guide to the Mandarin language. Vocabulary examples are fairly limited, giving only a few of the many possible meanings of each character.