Research
How Chinese Characters Are Built From Components
Most characters are assemblies of recurring parts, one hinting at meaning and one at sound. The layers, how to learn components, and what structure cannot do.
Lawrence Arya··10 min
Research
Learning Hanzi by Component Hierarchy, Not Frequency
Teaching characters in component-hierarchy order, parts before the wholes they build, beats an alphabetical or pure-frequency list, because every new character becomes a few things you already know.
Lawrence Arya··5 min
Playbooks
An App That Highlights the Phonetic Component First
Want an app that highlights a character's phonetic component before you draw it? Decoding the parts first makes dense characters learnable. Here is how it helps.
Lawrence Arya··5 min
Essays
Are Radicals Identical Across Hanzi, Kanji, and Hanja?
Are visual radicals the same across Chinese hanzi, Japanese kanji, and Korean hanja? They share roots, but simplification diverged. Here is the honest answer.
Lawrence Arya··5 min
Playbooks
Color-Blind-Friendly Radical Practice: Beyond Color Coding
Many apps mark radicals and stroke order by color, which fails color-blind learners. Shape, position, isolation, and labels convey the same information accessibly. Here is how it should work.
Lawrence Arya··5 min
Playbooks
How to Draw the Anatomical Organ Radicals in Hanzi
Most organ characters share the flesh radical ⺼. Learn to draw it and a few others correctly, and a whole family of anatomy characters becomes easy to write.
Lawrence Arya··5 min
Playbooks
How to Memorize the 214 Radicals Fast
The 214 Kangxi radicals are the building blocks of characters. Here is how to learn them fast by meaning groups and writing, not by flashcard grind.
Lawrence Arya··5 min
Playbooks
Spatial Memory Techniques for Memorizing Mandarin
Hanzi are spatial objects, so spatial memory is your strongest tool. Here are the loci, component, and from-memory drawing techniques that make characters stick.
Lawrence Arya··5 min
Playbooks
Tracing Characters by Phonetic and Semantic Parts
Most Chinese characters split into a meaning part and a sound part. Here is how learning by phonetic-semantic components makes writing far more systematic.
Lawrence Arya··5 min
Research
Semantic Radical Breakdown: Meaning as a Memory Hook
Knowing that a radical carries meaning, water, tree, heart, turns a random-looking character into a small logical story, which makes it far easier to remember and to write from memory.
Lawrence Arya··5 min
Research
Which Part Carries a Character's Structural Meaning?
A character's meaning is not in a single stroke but in its components and how they are arranged. Here is how structure carries meaning, and why writing reveals it.
Lawrence Arya··5 min
Essays
Why Picturing a Radical Isn't the Same as Drawing It
You can see a radical clearly in your mind and still draw it wrong. Here is why visualization is not production, and how to close the gap.
Lawrence Arya··5 min
Essays
Color-Blind-Friendly Hanzi Component Highlighting
Many apps color-code character components, which fails color-blind learners. Here is what accessible component highlighting should do, and an honest note on where Hanzi Write Practice stands.
Lawrence Arya··5 min
Research
Which Part of a Hanzi Character Holds Its Meaning?
No single stroke carries a character's emotional meaning. In Hanzi, meaning lives in components and radicals, especially the heart radical. Here is how to read it, and why writing reveals it.
Lawrence Arya··5 min
Research
Which Part of a Character Hints at Its Sound?
Most Chinese characters carry a clue to their pronunciation, not in a single stroke but in a phonetic component. Here is how to spot it, and why writing reveals it.
Lawrence Arya··5 min