The underlying premise behind our writing curriculum is that we understand all Chinese characters are “pictures”. When you look at a Chinese character, you’re not looking at a random assortment of lines, swoops and slashes; you’re looking at a stylized pictograph or ideograph—a “picture”. Most Chinese characters are actually made up of several simpler pictures. For those of you who have already sp
ent a significant amount of time studying Chinese, you know that we’re referring to “bu4shou3”, the smaller “radicals” or “components” that make up Chinese characters. The approach we take in our writing curriculum is that we believe students should FIRST learn these simpler, building block components before they begin learning whole Chinese characters. As you learn these basic components, you will “discover” all the Chinese characters that contain them, and when you have learned all the components that make up a Chinese character, you will “unlock” that character. You learn A, B, C before you learn the word “medicine”, so why don’t you learn 幺 艹 白 木 before you learn the Chinese character 藥? All 100,000 Chinese characters are merely different combinations of 400 simple pictographs and ideographs. The secret to quickly mastering the written language is to first learn these 400 basic components. For a better understanding of Chinese characters and our teaching methodology please check out our intro videos below:
Part 1- Introduction to Chinese Characters
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s0h18Rdhb44
Part 2A- Traditional Chinese Teaching Methodology
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udlCJGQZkwM
Part 2B- ABCs of Chinese Teaching Methodology
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-qRr_lXps0
Part 3- The Importance of Learning Chinese
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EIDC7gAyYFQ
