The major struggle facing all beginning Chinese language students is to learn to recognize, read and write hundreds of Chinese characters. This book adopt a structural approach that helps students overcome this initial difficulty and quickly master the basic Chinese characters fundamental to this language. Intended for beginning students,The First 100 Chinese Characters: Simplified Character Editioncontains carefully selected and sequenced characters for rapid and effective learning. Each Chinese character is shown separately on a single page, along with its English definitions, hanyu pinyin romanization, alternate form, a stroke-order guide and ample writing space. Two indexes--alphabetical by the English meanings and by pinyin romanizationuare provided at the back of each book for quick and easy reference, along with extra sheets of blank boxes for writing practice.