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Characters that are still pictures — free printable worksheets
Twenty-four characters that have not stopped looking like the thing they mean, three thousand years on.
24 characters · 3 sheets · A4 and US Letter
Why these 24
Most Chinese characters are not pictures. But the oldest layer is, and those are the ones worth meeting first, because they are also the components everything else is built from. 水 is a stream with current lines. 山 is three peaks. 雨 is drops falling from a cloud. Learn these twenty-four and you stop seeing later characters as arbitrary tangles: you start seeing water on the left of 河, fire under 热, a roof over 家.
All 24 characters
| 日 | rì | sun; day | 4 strokes |
| 月 | yuè | moon; month | 4 strokes |
| 山 | shān | mountain | 3 strokes |
| 水 | shuǐ | water | 4 strokes |
| 火 | huǒ | fire | 4 strokes |
| 木 | mù | tree; wood | 4 strokes |
| 土 | tǔ | earth; soil | 3 strokes |
| 人 | rén | person | 2 strokes |
| 口 | kǒu | mouth | 3 strokes |
| 目 | mù | eye | 5 strokes |
| 耳 | ěr | ear | 6 strokes |
| 手 | shǒu | hand | 4 strokes |
| 心 | xīn | heart; mind | 4 strokes |
| 田 | tián | field | 5 strokes |
| 米 | mǐ | rice (uncooked); metre | 6 strokes |
| 禾 | hé | standing grain | 5 strokes |
| 竹 | zhú | bamboo | 6 strokes |
| 门 | mén | door; gate | 3 strokes |
| 车 | chē | vehicle | 4 strokes |
| 马 | mǎ | horse | 3 strokes |
| 鸟 | niǎo | bird | 5 strokes |
| 鱼 | yú | fish | 8 strokes |
| 虫 | chóng | insect | 6 strokes |
| 雨 | yǔ | rain | 8 strokes |
Questions people ask
Only a few hundred, out of tens of thousands. The overwhelming majority are phono-semantic compounds: one part hints at the meaning, the other at the sound. But those few hundred are the parts the rest are assembled from.