Resources to Learn Chinese Characters

Arch Chinese offers an extensive collection of tools for learning and teaching Chinese characters. View animated stroke order, practice with handwriting recognition, and create customized character and vocabulary worksheets. It also provides radicals, character structure, frequency information, common words, and teacher-written example sentences for both simplified and traditional Chinese.

Designed for absolute beginners, Chineasy teaches learners to speak and read basic Chinese through colorful illustrations, practical lessons, and cultural insights. Progress through short, engaging activities while building the confidence to introduce yourself in Chinese and learning more than 1,500 useful words. Available for Android and iOS.

Dong Chinese teaches characters in meaningful context through vocabulary, complete sentences, handwriting practice, and level-appropriate media. It explains the components and origins of common characters, provides stroke-order guidance, prioritizes useful characters using frequency data, and tracks learning progress. Its combination of character structure and contextual reading offers a more complete experience than isolated flashcard drills.

HanziCrafti s a well-known Chinese dictionary.  The link here, however, is to a particular page of their site: Phonetic Sets in Chinese Characters. Most Chinese characters contain some clues as to the pronunciation of the character. HanziCraft automatically tries to determine these for each character. However, using this tool, HanziCraft created a list of phonetic sets. A phonetic set is a list of characters where a component produces the same pronounciation clue towards each character.

HanziHero helps learners remember simplified and traditional Chinese characters by connecting their components, meanings and pronunciations with imaginative mnemonic stories. Its structured lessons and spaced-repetition reviews make it particularly useful for learners who struggle to retain characters with conventional flashcards.

Mandarin Blueprint’s Hanzi Movie Method turns each character into a memorable mental scene, using people, places and objects to represent its pronunciation, tone, components and meaning. This detailed system is particularly useful for visual learners who struggle to retain characters through repetition alone.

Created by linguists and Chinese-language specialists, the Outlier Dictionary explains how Chinese characters truly work. Its manually researched entries reveal how each component contributes sound, meaning, or form while tracing original meanings and character evolution. Covering more than 2,700 simplified and traditional characters, it is available as a one-time-purchase add-on within Pleco, with no subscription required.

This ten-module course from Peking University introduces Chinese characters through their basic strokes before teaching 240 commonly used characters and 1,200 related words. Animated stroke-order demonstrations, pinyin, meanings, illustrations and end-of-lesson exercises help learners understand each character’s pronunciation, structure and use.

This follow-up course from Peking University teaches another 240 commonly used Chinese characters and 1,200 related words. Animated stroke-order demonstrations, pinyin, meanings, illustrations and end-of-lesson exercises reinforce each character’s pronunciation, structure and use.

Pleco is an essential Chinese dictionary for looking up and studying characters encountered in everyday life. Search by character, English, pinyin, or handwriting, and access pronunciations, stroke-order diagrams, example words, flashcards, document reading, and camera-based character recognition. The basic app is free, with optional paid features and professional dictionaries, including the Outlier Dictionary.

This is a spaced repetition flashcard system, and I love it. Finding the right balance between learning new words and revising old ones is key to maximizing your learning speed. Once you have learned a new word it is automatically scheduled for revision/testing to make sure you don't forget it. Audio and examples are included. Choose from Simplified or Traditional characters, or Chinese Vocabulary.

Skritter helps learners write and remember Chinese characters through active handwriting practice and spaced repetition. Write directly on a phone, tablet, or computer and receive immediate feedback on individual strokes and stroke order. It separately tests writing, meaning, pronunciation, and tone, supports simplified and traditional characters, and includes textbook-based and user-created study lists.