All beginning students of Chinese struggle to memorize and learn to write the Chinese characters. The First 100 Chinese Characters adopt a structural approach which helps students to quickly master the basic characters that are fundamental to this language. Intended for beginning students, this book presents characters that have been carefully selected for rapid and effective learning. The English meanings, pronunciations in Hanyu Pinyin and alternate forms (if any) for each Chinese characters are presented along with a stroke order guide and spaces for writing practice. Printed with grey guidelines, the stroke order guides are designed to be traced over to teach students the standard sequence of strokes used to write the character. Related compounds and phrases are given to assist in vocabulary building. Three indexes at the back allow the characters to be looked-up by their English meanings, Hanyu Pinyin pronunciations, or radicals. Extra practice sheets are also provided. This book features: The 100 most frequently–used Chinese characters Foundation characters for the HSK A level language proficiency test Standard hanyu pinyin romanizations Step–by–step stroke order guides and ample space for writing practice Over 500 words and phrases containing the basic characters Concise English definition