Introduction to Chinese Characters and Tones

Introduction to Chinese Characters and Tones

Have you ever wondered how we transitioned from drawing the world to writing about it? Thousands of years ago, Chinese characters started as literal pictures of nature, called pictographs. Let's look at one of the oldest symbols: a mountain.

Next, let's see how the flow of water was captured. Ancient writers drew wavy lines to represent a flowing stream. Over time, these soft curves were standardized into sharp, efficient brushstrokes, giving us the modern character for water.

Now that we know some simple pictographs, let's see how Chinese characters get really creative. Instead of inventing a completely new symbol for every single word in the universe, the language combines existing characters to build new, compound meanings.