whats the first 1000 characters I should learn

[francisco_seq23]

hi hi nimen hao you all!!!

I was curious to know if anyone knows what the first 1000 characters i should know in chinese ?

anyone wanna have a contest to see who memorizes them all???

peace yall

[skylee]

Oh you could try 千字文.

According to some websites, it contains 994 different characters, with the character "重" appearing 6 times. You could check if this is true.

(Don't take it seriously. In the past, children were taught 千字文 so that they could learn the characters. I think there are more effective methods for learners of Chinese nowadays.)

[Ian_Lee]

You should learn the character 永.

Why? Because the 8-strokes in this character represent all the different kinds of strokes in any Chinese character.

[smithsgj]

I can't make it 8

I think I've forgotten how to write...

[smithsgj]

No I haven't. Checked the dictionary. 水 is 4 strokes. The extras amount to either one or two strokes, making a total of 5 or 6. Oh a native person (from HK) has just walked in and it's 5 he says.

Actually there's something funny going on here. Imagine the non-existent character

_

水

How would this be listed in the dictionary? Under the 水 radical, plus *zero* additional strokes?

[nnt]

The first character is 一 (1 as memorisation tip )

the 1000th is 千 (1000 for easier memorisation)

Exercice : find the 998 others...

[Quest]

永 has 5 strokes, but maybe that was not what Ian_Lee meant.

[smithsgj]

What did he mean then? That there are 8 lines pointing in different directions, and you can take short or long versions of these lines and reconfigure them to form any character? But wouldn't 米 be the same?

[wix]

The eight strokes refer to calligraphy, rather than the number of strokes that are used to classify characters in dictionaries and lists. Eight brush movements might be a better way to put it than eight strokes.

[shibo77]

Right, there are 8 basic strokes that forms all the 64 strokes in Chinese. There are a few more variations, which makes 12 basic strokes. Symmetrical numbers Though I can't type them by themselves. They are: the dot, the horizontal, the vertical, the left-falling, the right-falling, the rising, 4 variations of the hoook, and 2 variations of the turn. A dictionary should have these 8 or 12 basic strokes at the beginning of the "list of radicals".

I hope this helped!

- Shibo

[Ian_Lee]

Smithsjg:

Sorry to get you confused. It should be bettere called as 8 brush movements as wix wrote.

But as the "Saint of Calligraphy" Wang Xizhi emphasized, the character 永embraces all the basic strokes in the Chinese calligraphy. See his famous Lantingyu:

http://www.chinapage.com/calligraphy/wangxizhi/lantingxu.html

The character 永 appears at the very beginning of this masterpiece.

(Anybody knows if this masterpiece is in Taiwan or Mainland?)

[zh-laoshi]

I can send you an MS Word document listing the 500 most common Chinese characters (but without translations...)