with the traditional method

students are typically NOT taught that Chinese characters

are a combination of simpler pictographic components.

However, at the ABCs of Chinese

we have designed our entire writing curriculum around the fact

that a westerner's mind is hardwired to see "building blocks".

We have focused on the intrinsic building block nature of

Chinese characters and systematized a process so that a student can

first learn the easy-to-remember "pieces" of Chinese characters.

By doing this, a Chinese character will no longer be a dreaded thing

with 15 lines to remember.

Instead it will become a combination

of 3 simpler pictures you are already very familiar with!

No one could disagree that you should obviously first learn your ABCs

before you starting reading and writing whole English words.

The same principle applies here:

learn the basic building blocks of Chinese characters

before you start learning whole Chinese characters.

It is the combination of these simpler pictographic building blocks

that gives a Chinese character its meaning and pronunciation.

Our writing curriculum is the culmination of hundreds of hours

of research spent to break down

over 100,000 Chinese characters into their most basic components,

and then from there decode and cross-reference these components

to confirm their original meanings.

This process resulted in isolating 400 simple pictographic components

as the basic building blocks of all Chinese characters.

Only 400 basic building block components!

The implications of this are massive

because 400 pictographic components is FAR less than

what could first be perceived as 100,000 totally unconnected characters.

We guarantee that every Chinese character you will learn

contains these basic components.

They appear over and over again in different combinations

to form all 100,000 Chinese characters.

Some of these basic components are standard radicals,

and some are other pictographic components.

In addition, most of these pictographic components

are actually stand-alone Chinese characters by themselves,

so even if you were to learn whole Chinese characters

by rote memorization you would still have to learn them anyway!

If you can change your perspective

to see that a Chinese character

isn't a crazy behemoth of lines, swoops, and slashes,

but rather a combination of several simpler pictographic components

that you're already very familiar with,

then a character is no longer intimidating at all.

And by knowing these pieces

your rate of learning will go through the roof!

The ABCs of Chinese writing curriculum snowballs.

You start out by learning the foundational components

that form Chinese characters

rather than immediately beginning to learn whole Chinese characters.

However, no time will be lost in doing this.

In our writing curriculum you will learn

the most frequently used components first,

and the less frequently seen ones later.

As you progress through the curriculum

you will see that the components you have already learned are repeated

over and over in combination with new components you learn,

which constantly reinforces those you have already learned.

We do this in order to get you to your goal as quickly as possible -

being able to read and write thousands of Chinese characters.

As you learn these pictographic components

you will quickly reach a critical mass

where suddenly all the pieces fall into place

and you begin to learn whole characters exponentially fast.

Additionally, once you start learning whole Chinese characters,

you will see that similar to how basic components combine with

other basic components to make Chinese characters,

some Chinese characters also combine to make more complex characters.

Take for example "guol" (咼),

a simple Chinese character formed by the components

skull (冎) and mouth (口).

This Chinese character helps make lots of other characters

by merely attaching different components.

We call these very helpful little characters

"key characters",

and we'll teach you these characters early on to help you learn as many

Chinese characters in the fastest and most effective manner possible!

Let me take a few minutes to illustrate

the ABCs of Chinese approach to learning Chinese characters

so you can see exactly how digestible this curriculum is.

Remember how we said there are a total of 400 simple pictographs?

Here are the 30 most commonly used to form Chinese characters:

mouth or opening

water

hand

tree

person

plant

speaking or words

land

woman

sun

movement

heart

heart

gold or metal

silk

meat

insect

city or hill

fire

eye

jade

covering

money

bamboo

mountain

bird

wheat or grain

sick

stone

knife

These 30 basic components combine with each other to form

nearly 180 different Chinese characters.

That means just by knowing these 30 basic components,

you will be able to write 180 different characters!

Go ahead and pause the video here to take a closer look and see that

these Chinese characters aren't just a collection of random lines.

They are all composed of the same 30 basic parts.

Aside from these 180 characters,

these 30 simple components also appear in

over 2,500 other Chinese characters!

So, by knowing them,

you will be one step closer to being able to read

and write over 2,500 characters.

Learning 30 components is learning one a day for a month...

or 2 days worth of work if you're really motivated!

Allow me to carry out the math for you.

On average, it will take you 10 minutes

to finish all of the exercises to learn a component.

This is factoring in that the exercises will take you longer in the beginning

while you're getting used to working with a pictographic writing system,

but you'll complete the exercises much faster as you progress.

So that's 10 minutes a level,

multiplied by 400 levels,

equals 4,000 minutes,

which is approximately 70 hours.

70 hours of hands-on time is not much time at all.

If you're currently living in Asia and have a busy schedule,

in the beginning maybe you'll only spend ten minutes

to learn one component a day.

But we suspect that very quickly

the more you learn, the more you will want to learn,

especially once you start noticing the components on the street

that you have been learning!

Once you realize the benefit,

you very well might start doubling up or tripling up

and spending 20-30 minutes to learn two or three a day.

Going at this rate, you're looking at about 180 days - 6 months.

If you're an ambitious student who is serious about learning

lots of Chinese characters in a hurry,

all the power to you!

Are you willing to commit an hour to learn 6 components a day?

At this rate it will only take you 67 days -

just over 2 months.

Can you do an hour in the morning and another hour in the afternoon?

If you can commit to learning 12 basic components a day,

you will learn all 400 in 34 days

and then you will be ready to tear through Chinese characters!

There's one last thing to mention:

you don't need to worry about forgetting any of the components

you learn early on as you continue to learn more and more components.

Every component you learn

will be queued into your personalized "Review Quiz".

The engine of your Review Quiz

runs on memory-optimizing spaced repetition algorithms.

These algorithms are designed

to keep the basic components and characters fresh in your mind

and also to schedule your reviews efficiently

so that you don't waste unnecessary time

reviewing components that you already know well.

The Review Quizzes work like this:

you will be given a super fast Review Quiz

8 hours after you learn a component.

You will have to take this quiz

before you can continue to learn any new components.

After taking the quiz, you must grade yourself on it.

You will be given the following choices:

I forgot

I made a mistake

Correct but slow

Very easy

The way you grade yourself will determine

how much time will lapse until your next review of the current component.

For example, if you forgot,

you will immediately be quizzed on it again at the end of your quiz,

and in addition you will be quizzed on it again the following day.

If you selected "Very easy!",

your next quiz won't be scheduled for several days.

Over time, after you have been quizzed on a component several times,

the algorithm learns which components you tend to struggle with

and which ones you consistently have very strong retention of.

Those components that you struggle with

will appear in your review quizzes more frequently,

and components you consistently grade as "Very Easy"

will be seen very rarely.

We take care of scheduling all the periodic reviews for you

to ensure you see the components often enough

to burn them into your long-term memory,

but not more often than necessary!

We've worked hard to make the writing curriculum at the ABCs of Chinese

as motivating, entertaining, and game-like as possible.

Each component is its own level,

and in each level there are several fun exercises

that guarantee you will learn the component.

On average it will take you 10 minutes to finish a level -

and by "finish a level"

we mean "really learn a pictographic component".

You will learn how to say it,

how to write it correctly,

how to immediately spot it in a Chinese character

and also see how it combines with other basic components

to lend its meaning and pronunciation.

As you successfully complete each level,

you will "discover"

every Chinese character the basic component appears in.

Then, once you have learned all of the components that form

a particular Chinese character,

that character will be "unlocked" for you to learn.

Also, you're earning points and trophies along the way

AND you can track your friends' and fellow students' progress.

Are you ready to give the ABCs of Chinese writing curriculum a try?

Click the "Create a free trial account" button at www.abcsofchinese.com

to learn the 30 most frequently used basic components,

enabling you to write 180 Chinese characters

and discover over 2500 Chinese characters

that contain those 30 building blocks.

Or try the interactive demo

to see exactly how our writing curriculum works!

We hope you enjoyed this "pictographic" video presentation!

If you're just starting out or considering

if you want to study Chinese or not,

already living in Asia and functionally illiterate,

or studying Chinese in university

be sure to watch the next segment, "The Importance of Learning Chinese."