Chinese characters are not based on any alphabet, but on a glyph system whose components depict the object or notions involved with the meaning of the characters. A character may consist of one component, which is placed in the center, or two components, which is separate by an imaginary line between the middle horizontally.

For example, a single component word includes:

• 木 = Wood
• 日 = Day
• 月 = Moon
• 子 = Boy
• 女 = Girl
• 土 = Earth
• 天 = Sky

A simple combination of some of these words will transform the meaning of the words. For example:

木 + 木 = 林
木 + 木 + 木 = 森
林 + 森 = 林森 = Forest
You see? Combination of many "wood" makes it into a forest, filled with trees that, of course, contain wood.

日 + 月 = 明
明 + 天 = 明天 = Tomorrow
By combining "day" and "moon," we have created "明," which has no meaning by itself. This is symbolizing by the passing of a "day" and "night." When combined the "sky," we have "passing day sky," or "tomorrow."

女 + 子 = 好 = Good
This is combining the words "girl" and "boy" to create "good." Most people would consider young girls and boys to be consider good people, hence this meaning.

Now for something more complex. Can you take a guess what this word means?
樹 = ?

Give up? It is quite difficult to guess. It is word "tree." Notice the "wood" and the "earth" clearly visible inside the word. Trees, of course, need earth to grow. As they grow, the tree becomes "wood."

To write Chinese characters, you must write in a certain order, called stroke order, or 筆順. Many drawing recognition programs for Chinese characters (touch-sensitive drawing boards) locate the character written by stroke order. As technology progresses and software has gotten better and better, people have forgotten the importance of proper technique of writing. It can be compared to as writing backwards in English. Imagine writing "Chinese" starting with the "e," then the "s," and so on. The end product of might look the same, but people won't be able to understand you until after you write it.

There are approximately 30 different types of stokes (one movement without lifting the writing utensil off the paper), with 8 basic strokes. Here are the 6 most basic stokes:

• Dot(Left)
• Horizontal(Center)
• Vertical(Right)
• Rise
• Press down
• Throw down

The Chinese word 永 is important because it contains all 8 of the fundamental strokes needed to write Chinese characters. Notice the proper stroke order. The other character is also often used to show proper stroke order.

In recent years, there has been a raging debate over on Traditional Chinese writing as opposed to Simplified Chinese writing. Many Chinese communities, such as Hong Kong, Taiwan and any other area with a major Chinese population, have their own personal opinions to this matter.

Traditional characters are the characters being used since the 5th century. It is used across China, including Hong Kong and Macau, and also any oversea communities. Containing characters from 220 BCE, this system is the second most commonly used character set.

Simplified Chinese, on the other hand, has been created around 1956. Simplified is based on the original Traditional Chinese. By decreasing number strokes and shortening complicated words, Simplified Chinese is easier to learn. The government of China has promoted Simplified to improve increase literacy in China. Simplified is mainly used in China, Singapore, and Malaysia. Some characters are left unchanged, and therefore the same in both Traditional and Simplified.

Here are many examples of the differences between Traditional and Simplified (all of the Traditional is above the Simplified):