The core aim of this book is to help Chinese language learners master the rules for writing Chinese characters and write Chinese characters correctly. The book includes more than 3,600 characters, covering characters required in various Chinese teaching syllabuses. The book is divided into: 1) List of strokes, which provides the names, constituents, and examples of basic strokes and compound strokes, the writing rules of strokes, and things that need to be paid attention to when writing strokes; 2) List of non-character-forming characters (mainly the phonetic or semantic components of compound characters), which explains the stroke order of each component and its variants as well as its position and shape (narrower, slimmer, flatter, etc.) in characters; 3) List of simple character-forming components (single-component characters), explaining the stroke order of each component and its position and shape (narrower, slimmer, flatter, etc.) in characters; 4) List of the structures and component order of compound characters, providing the pinyin, number of strokes, formation method, component order, common position and shape in characters, etc. of each character.

Lu Jianji, professor in Beijing Language and Culture University, has been engaged in teaching Chinese as a foreign language since 1960. Lu is now a special-term professor of Chinese as a foreign language in many universities, including the Renmin University of China, a CFL textbook consultant for The Commercial Press, and an expert reviewer of CFL academic journals. His research focuses on applied linguistics, especially language teaching theories such as interlanguage, Chinese-English comparison and CFL teaching history. His works include textbooks and dictionaries such as Modern Chinese Beginner’s Course, The Commercial Press Chinese Learning Dictionary, Learn to Read Chinese Characters: A Study Guide, etc.