Learn Chinese Characters Volume 1A

By Chinese text does not use alphabets; instead it is made up of characters (字). The character; built from strokes written in a virtual square box; is the most basic element of the language. One major difficulty in learning Chinese is the efforts it takes to memorize all the characters. There are about 2,000 to 3,000 commonly used characters one needs to remember before he or she is able to read newspapers or other general documents. It takes native children three to six years to learn these characters at school.

For each character, one will learn its shape, the pronunciation, the radical, the meanings, and words or idioms that use the character. The way to memorize the shape is to write the character over and over again following a specific sequence. The pronunciations of characters are represented using phonetic symbols. A student needs to learn the phonetic system (Pinyin or Zhuyin) before starting to learn characters. In reality, knowing the radical and the exact sequence of the strokes of each character is not necessary (but recommended) for learning the language.

With the help of computers, Chinese learning has become easier than before. LCC (Learn Chinese Characters) is a multimedia program which lets you learn the language by yourself. For each character entry, it shows the definitions, Pinyin and Zhuyin annotations, cross reference of simplified/traditional character (when applicable), the radical, the number of strokes, word/phrase examples and their definitions. You can also hear the character pronounced through the speaker and see an animation of the writing.

Features:

Definitions of the character

Radical

stroke counts

Pinyin and Zhuyin phonetic annotations

Audible pronunciation of the character

Animation showing writing sequence of strokes

Words, phrases, sentences with definitions

Cross reference of simplified/traditional character (if applicable)

Runs on IBM compatible PC with Windows 3.1/95/98/NT/Me/2000/XP/Vista