The most fundamental Chinese characters arranged according to theme in one book: Designed especially for beginners, this workbook introduces 178 characters, their radicals, and the order and direction of the required strokes for practice in writing Chinese. Each thematic group of characters is preceded by a table that contains the English meaning, the pinyin pronunciation, the corresponding traditional Chinese character, the radical, and the structure and composition of the characters for a comprehensive overview of all pertinent information.

The selection of characters is based on the list of new HSK 1 vocabulary. To broaden the utility of this workbook in preparation of the new HSK 1 exam, other meanings and uses of the characters appear at the end of each thematic group along with additional pages to practice writing Chinese.

All characters and vocabulary appear in the appendix in alphabetical order and according to meaning and word type for quick reference.