This book series provides structural analyses and semantic explanations in English for 2,000 to 3,000 commonly used simplified Chinese characters (including a very small number of words such as "哎哟" and "咖啡"), analyzes the constituent parts and structure of each character, and interprets the meanings of its constituent parts and the whole character. For each entry, the book provides the Chinese character, its pinyin (i.e. Chinese phonetic symbols), its constituent parts (including their meanings), as well as a structural analysis and semantic explanation in English.

Example of a Chinese character:癌ái=疒(disease)+喦yán(crag; cliff). The component喦conveys the sense of "crag, which is a high steep rough mass of rocks on a mountain, dangerous and difficult to go up or climb over". Cancer is a disease in which cells increase rapidly in an uncontrolled way and finally a mass of abnormal cells grow in or on a body part, this disease is dangerous to health and difficult to overcome. The character癌takes on the sense of "cancer".

Example of a Chinese word:咖喱[gā li]=口kǒu (mouth)+?? jiā (sound component)+口kǒu (mouth)+厘lí (sound component). The component?? means "add". The component厘represents ‘a unit of length, weight, etc’ and hence it conveys the sense of “small amount”. Since a small amount of curry is only needed to add to a food to change the flavour of the food in the mouth, the combination of components and hence the word takes on the sense of “curry”.

This series consists of six volumes, this e-book is the first volume, which is helpful in learning modern simplified Chinese, Pinyin and English. One purpose is to convey Chinese culture, philosophical thoughts, etc through these Chinese characters. You’re worth it!