The major struggle facing all beginning Chinese languagestudents is to learn to recognize, read and write hundreds ofChinese characters. This book adopt a structural approach thathelps students overcome this initial difficulty and quickly masterthe basic Chinese characters fundamental to this language. Intendedfor beginning students, The First 100 Chinese Characters:Simplified Character Edition contains carefully selected andsequenced characters for rapid and effective learning. Each Chinesecharacter is shown separately on a single page, along with itsEnglish definitions, hanyu pinyin romanization, alternate form, astroke-order guide and ample writing space. Twoindexes—alphabetical by the English meanings and by pinyinromanization—are provided at the back of each book for quick andeasy reference, along with extra sheets of blank boxes for writingpractice.