Browse Characters — Learn Chinese Through Stories

Every character has an origin. Discover the pictographs, myths, and history behind each Chinese character — with pinyin, stroke order, HSK level, and audio pronunciation.

qiāo

This 16-stroke 'sled' character hides a frozen riv

This ‘large boat’ character hides a phonetic rus

xún

A botanical precision bomb: built from ‘tree’ +

yuè

Born as a poetic invention — not ancient pictogra

zūn

This 16-stroke wooden goblet doesn’t hold wine —

huà

Though it looks like 'wood + splendor,' 桦 is stri

zuī

A rare, hyper-specific character for ‘knag’ — b

qiáo

This 'firewood' character hides a bird-tail phonet

zhí

This 'stake' character hides a Bronze Age blueprin

èr

A 2,000-year-old botanical term hiding in plain si

This 16-stroke character hides no hidden meaning—

shā

This rare tree-character hides a 2,000-year-old me

mén

This 'gate-elm' character hasn’t changed in 1,800

zhāng

This 'wood + chapter' character smells like ancien

shū

Ancient Chinese didn't draw a hinge — they carved

jiū

This literary 'hanging' character hides a warrior

chěng

This 'pillar' character isn’t about grand columns

chū

This 15-stroke 'bitter tree' character hides Zhuan

This 'solemn wood' character hides a bronze-age pi

léi

This 'mountain chair' character hides terraced fie

This obscure character — absent from HSK, diction

fán

This ‘fence’ character is actually a double-wood

chī

A 14-stroke botanical rarity: 樆 names just one tr

cōng

Though it looks like it means 'following a tree',

zhuāng

Though it looks like 'wood + strong', 桩 isn't abo

槿

jǐn

This unassuming 15-stroke character hides Korea’s

cáo

This 'trough' character hides a Bronze Age bluepri

guī

A rare, majestic tree-character hiding in plain si