Introduction to characters

Characters are items in HanziHero that correspond to a single Chinese character.

Viewing characters

The list of characters in the application can be viewed at any time by clicking on the Hanzi link in the application navbar, or by directly navigating to the hanzi page.

Learned characters

If you have already learned a character in your lessons, it will show up as a dark red color, as pictured below.

Unlearned characters

However, if you have not yet covered a character in your lessons, it will have an overlay graphic, as pictured below.

Character page

You can navigate to a character by clicking on its red tile. Doing so will take you to the character page, which covers all aspects of that character. For example, the picture below depicts the word page for 用 utilize.

Component composition

The Component composition section shows all components contained within that character. These components are used within the character mnemonic to help you remember the meaning and pronunciation character.

Sound composition

The Sound composition section shows all sounds contained within that character. Each of these sounds will be referenced within the character mnemonic to help you remember the pronunciation of the character.

Meaning

The Meaning section shows the primary meaning of the character. It will also show any alternate meanings if the character has any.

If you have a meaning similar to the meanings of the character that you want to be able to use as an answer in your reviews, you can add it as a character user synonym here.

Mnemonic

The Mnemonic is located within the Meaning section. It contains a mnemonic that combines the sounds, components, and character meaning into one story.

You can read more about how our mnemonics work in our article about it.

Similar meaning Hanzi

The Similar meaning Hanzi section shows any characters that have a similar meaning to the current character. You can click on any of the character tiles to navigate to the relevant character page.

Visually similar Hanzi

The Visually similar Hanzi section shows any characters that are visually similar to the current character. You can click on any of the character tiles to navigate to the relevant character page.

We are still in the process of adding this data. If you find any characters that are visually similar but do not show up here, please let us know so we can add it.

Found in words

The Found in words section shows all words that contain that character. You can click on any of the word tiles to navigate to the relevant word page.

Character and component differences

Sometimes the meaning of a character and the name of the component form of the character will be different. This is because all of our components are made to be memorable nouns, but characters often have a abstract meaning that is not suitable for use in mnemonics.