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.

This 9-stroke cliff-sheltering-stone character isn

páng

This rare character looks like a shaggy dog under

zhì

This ‘river bent’ character isn’t a description

This elegant 8-stroke fossil — 厓 — is the lyric

zhǐ

This 'whetstone' character hasn't been used in dai

è

This 4-stroke character began as a pictograph of a

qīng

This 'minister' character evolved from a bronze-ag

This 'promptly' character began as a kneeling pers

This rare character hides a recoiling dog inside

This 'anxiety' character isn’t about your nerves

luǎn

This 'egg' character hides a kneeling official (卩

mǎo

This 'mortise' character 卯 is secretly the zodiac

zhī

This 5-stroke character looks deceptively simple

jié

This 2-stroke radical isn’t a word — it’s a 3,0

xiè

卨 has zero strokes — it's not a real Chinese cha

guà

This 8-stroke character encodes China’s oldest sy

yǒu

This 7-stroke character isn’t just a wine contain

biàn

Just 4 strokes — the smallest character meaning '

guàn

This four-stroke ‘double-X’ character isn’t a n

This two-stroke character is a 3,200-year-old foss

This 'soldier' character secretly runs China’s gr

wàn

This 'character' has zero strokes, no radical, and

wàn

It has zero strokes, no radical, and isn't really

This elegant 'forty' is a 3,000-year-old tally mar

huì

This 5-stroke character looks like a tiny plant sp

卆 isn’t a real Chinese character — it’s a digi

This four-stroke glyph is ancient arithmetic in in

niàn

This three-stroke 'twenty' is a vertical fusion of