Chinese characters stories?

[goku4eternity]

I am having a hard time learning the the chinese tones, my friend says I am geting better at speaking the first and third tone, but I still would like as much help on learning these four tones, and I was wondering if there is any books on chinese characters with a story, for instance back then the chinese drove chariots, so, they made a character for chariot, but then later there were trains, and so, they need a character for train, so, they thought that trains put coal into fire, so, we will combine the fire character with the chariot character, to make the word train, are there any books like that?

[Meng Lelan]

As for tones, there's a thread going on here about AI Chinese and Qooco. Those are online sites that might help with learning tones. The sites possibly have free trial periods.

As for books on Chinese characters with a story, try "The Way of Chinese Characters: The Origins of 400 Essential Words" by Jianhsin Wu, ISBN 978-0-88727-527-2.

[Shelley]

Hello, I found the 3 volumes of Fun With Chinese Characters (available on Amazon) was very helpful on the origins of chinese characters. There are 3 volumes they don't cover all characters but a good selction of the basic ones. Hope this helps.