The Chinese Alphabet Where is it?

So where is the Chinese alphabet and why is it so hard to find on the web? Well, the main reason is that there is no such thing as an alphabet in China. The English word "alphabet" comes from the first two letters of the Greek alphabet (alpha and beta) because it was the Greeks who adopted this writing system from the Middle East and transmitted it, along with their culture, to the rest of Europe.

Alphabets are phonetic systems where the individual sounds of the language are represented with letters. Letters are symbols which only have phonetic values and do not mean anything by themselves. The letters in a word have to be read together and vocalized, either aloud or mentally, in order to be understood as a concept.

Chinese writing, on the other hand, developed as a system where the symbols represent concepts. Although sound does play a role in the construction of a character, it almost invariably stands for a semantic value. The very first characters developed from the graphic representation of certain objects (i.e. the picture of an elephant meant an elephant) but early on the system got much more complex and the majority of the symbols today do not have such a direct link between shape and meaning. But what is common in all of them is that they all represent a concept and not a sound. There are a few characters that stand for a sound, but always to a very unique sound (i.e. the sound of a horse running) and cannot be used for any other sound.

One of the main benefits of alphabetic systems is that there are few components to memorize. The number of letters varies in different alphabets but it usually does not go above 50. In case of the Chinese scripts, the number of symbols is much larger. It is thought that a person should know at least 3,000 characters to be able to understand newspapers. Even smaller dictionaries contain at least 6,000 characters, whereas the largest ones (Kangxi zidian, Morohashi Daikanwa jiten) can have as many as 40-50,000. Of course, it is an impossible task to memorize so many characters even for the most educated person. The fact is, however, that only about 6,000 characters are essential in everyday use and Chinese students acquire these in the course of several years.

An argument has been made that, because of the large number of symbols, Chinese writing is inefficient and takes too long to learn. Yet recent studies have shown that Chinese children do not learn to read slower than children who learn languages with alphabets. This is mainly due to the reason that when children are not familiar with a concept they simply do not use it and they learn the characters for them later, when they learn about a concept. For example, if a second-grader does not know how to write the word "telecommunication", it does not impede his or her reading abilities in any way. Nor does it put him or her behind the Western child who might be able to read the word but still would not understand its meaning. So there is no reason to be pessimistic about the efficiency of Chinese script, as the last 4,000 years have shown us, it is a very efficient communication system.

Chinese symbols and the Chinese alphabet

There are so many people on the Internet looking for the Chinese alphabet, one starts to wonder what is going on. This frantic search is especially puzzling because there is no such thing as the Chinese alphabet.

Every alphabet consists of a rather small number (20-50) of letters which represent sound values used in spoken language. Using the letters of the alphabet, one can write down the words of spoken language. In Chinese writing, however, there are no letters and there is no alphabet. The writing system consists of a large number of symbols used to directly represent words regardless of their value. Although there is some relation between the structure of each symbol and its pronunciation, but the symbols cannot be broken down into smaller components to construct a new word. Each word is set and is basically written the exact same way as it was written 2,000 years ago.

Compared to the number of letters in any western alphabet, the total number of these symbols in the Chinese writing system is staggering. Even to be able to read a novel, it is absolutely necessary to learn at least 3,000 symbols. People with college degrees are judged to have mastered about 6-7,000 of them, but some large dictionaries can contain as many as 60,000 characters.

Frequently Asked Chinese Symbols

There are over 80,000 Chinese characters (symbols), but most of them are seldom used today. So how many Chinese characters do you need to know? For basic reading and writing of modern Chinese, you only need a few thousands. Here are the coverage rates of the most frequently used Chinese characters:

Most frequently used 1,000 characters: ~90% (Coverage rate)

Most frequently used 2,500 characters: 98.0% (Coverage rate)

Most frequently used 3,500 characters: 99.5% (Coverage rate)

The following is a collection of Chinese characters in gif format. You may click on the Chinese character using the Right Key of your Mouse, then click 'Save Image As...' to download the character. If the character you are looking for is not here, please let me know. Please send the most important words for you only. We don't translate sentences.

For an English word, the Chinese translation (or the Chinese 'word') often consists of two or more Chinese characters. You should use them together and read them from left to right. If you want to arrange them vertically, the one on the leftmost should go to the top. In a few cases, two Chinese 'words' are listed for an English word, which are separated by a ','. The index below is in English.