For characters that are ideographic, the character is an abstract representation of its meaning. For characters that are pictographic, the character is a picture-like illustration of its meaning. Instead of representing a sound, characters are pictographic and ideographic. Characters are logograms, or symbols, that have meaning - think back to ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics. What is a Chinese character?Ĭharacters are not the same as letters. Instead of an alphabet, words in Chinese are comprised of characters, or symbols. You know what a word is by sounding out the letters. Each letter has a sound, and the letters are arranged together to make words. In English, words are comprised of letters that are phonetic. So how do Chinese people read without one? It’s actually very simple.
The short answer: Chinese doesn’t have an alphabet. They’ll be reading and writing in no time. We’ve developed this short introduction to the Chinese alphabet to get you and your child started on their language journey.
However, reading and writing in Chinese is very different than in English or the romance languages you may be familiar with. Are you interested in your child learning Chinese? Just like any other language, an important part of their learning journey is developing the skills to read and write.