Learning Phonograms in Chinese

In the history of four thousand years, Chinese characters have some changes but they always keep the complete system. Compared with some other languages, most foreigners think it is more difficult to study Chinese, especially the characters. Even though Chinese characters are difficult to recognize, write and learn, it is possible for the foreign learners to study Chinese better. Chinese language learners can take advantage of phonogram to learn because it has strong regularity in the words formation. Therefore, foreign students can guess the meanings by judging from the appearances.

The point that all the foreign learners who learn to speak Chinese should know is the phonogram is composed of two parts, the elements indicating the meanings and the components showing the pronunciation. For instance, 讽 is a phonogram, the meaning element 讠symbolizing the character is related to speaking while the pronunciation of  讽 is similar to the sound element 风. When foreigners study Chinese, learners should know the meaning element is very important to understand the meaning of the character. If teachers teach more regularity about Chinese characters to students, they will find it is easy and interesting to learn, improving the language skills.