This is a new, highly visual, fun way—using pictures and jigsaw pieces—to learn written Chinese by learning the meaning of 250 characters that combine to form hundreds more. To say that characters are pictograms based on the shape of objects might make you think they must be memorized one by one. But as English has an alphabet, Chinese has about 300 basic and radical characters. Remember that you can combine these characters or use them to break down thousands of others so you can easily read, write and understand them. This book was written to help you understand the origin and usage of 250 Chinese characters. Now you can recall instead of memorize. By learning how these Chinese characters came to be, you can then also learn how adding a certain component changes the meaning.