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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.

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Hefei Huang is a foreign language instructor and teaches Chinese at the University of Applied Sciences Mittelhessen, Seligenthal High School, various adult education centers, and the language school she founded. She is a member of the International Society for Chinese Language Teaching and a voluntary foreign correspondent of the Chinese Oversea Digest. Dieter R. Ziethen, co-author of many Chinese language learning books, is a project manager at MAN Truck & Bus. Through his experience in learning Japanese and Chinese, he is familiar with the challenges that can arise when trying to learn an East Asian language. He is continually successful in introducing Chinese in simple steps.

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