Learning Chinese characters on Duolingo just got a little easier! Our new Component Sessions are special lessons designed to teach you the building blocks hidden inside Chinese hanzi characters (and Japanese kanji characters, too!), so you can spot patterns, make connections between words you already know, and feel more at ease when you encounter new characters.
Here’s how!
What are Component Sessions?
Many Chinese hanzi and Japanese kanji characters are made up of several components, or parts of characters, that can give you a clue about their meanings… if you know where to look!
Rather than memorizing every character separately, learning these basic components can help you spot connections between different characters and their meanings.
For example:
- 氵is a component that represents water. You’ll find it in 汤 (soup), 洗 (to wash), 游 (to swim), and 河 (river).
- 火 is a component you can think of as meaning fire. It appears in 灯 (lamp), 烟 (smoke), 烤 (to roast), and 炒 (to pan-fry).
Once you know what to look for, an unfamiliar character might not feel so unfamiliar after all!
How can Component Sessions help learners?
By the time a learner has reached CEFR level A2 in Chinese, they’ve already been introduced to hundreds of different characters 🤯 Learning each one separately can quickly feel difficult and discouraging.
That’s why we created Component Sessions! Breaking characters down into meaningful parts gives your brain more connections to work with, which can reduce cognitive load (essentially, the amount of brainpower you need to process and remember new information).
Over time, unlocking the patterns behind components can help you become a more confident, independent learner—and realize you know more than you thought!
What happens in a Component Session?
Component Sessions are delightful, bite-sized lessons that combine images with characters you already know to teach you patterns you can use again and again!
Each session introduces four components. You’ll start with an illustration overlaid with a component, giving you a memorable way to connect its shape to its meaning.
Next, you’ll practice spotting the component in a variety of characters. Finally, you’ll put your new knowledge to work by finding the component in a brand-new character and using it to guess what that character might mean.
These sessions will give you the practice and confidence you need to break down unfamiliar hanzi or kanji characters and use their components as clues to recognize new characters all on your own!
Put the pieces together
Component Sessions are available now in our Chinese and Japanese courses on iOS, and are coming to Android soon. Next, we’re working to expand them to cover even more components!
Whether you’re already learning Chinese or Japanese, or you’re thinking about starting, we’re always looking for ways to make learning easier, more effective, and more fun. We’ll keep building new tools to help you along the way! 💚
