Is it difficult to learn Chinese characters？

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Chinese characters are not an alphabet as Western languages used.Each character represents a separate word，and Chinese characters indicate both the meaning and the sound for a whole word.The writing system is not a conve-nient device lying ready at hand for overseas learners to pick up and use.In English，there are 26 alphabetic symbols.English native speakers can make tens of thousands of words with comparative ease.In Chinese，each character must be laboriously memorized.Language learners often wonder how many characters they need to learn in order to have a reading knowledge of Chinese materials other than classic literature.Various estimates have been given，ranging from 3，000 to 5，000.

Statistics show that the majority of the 50，000～60，000 existing characters are not in common use.

How were ancient inscriptions on bones or tortoise shells discovered？

The ancient inscriptions on bones or tortoise shells were characters used for divination practice during the Shang and Zhou dynasties .Up to the present time，4，600 characters have been discovered on unearthed bones or tortoise she11s.Toward the end of the Qing Dynasty，peasants in Xiaotun in Anyang County ，Henan Province kept finding fragments of the bones and shells of ancient animals as they ploughed their fields.They thought that they were“dragonbones”which could be used for medical treatment.Therefore，more and more peasants went into the fields and they turned up the soil，hoping that they could pick up more bones of this kind and sell them to medicinal herb stores.

Several decades later，in 1899，a man by the name of Wang Yirong was sick and was about to take some Chinese herb medicine from a herb store.Wang saw some bone fragments and discerned some inscribed figures which looked very much like ancient writing.Wang was the president of a college in Beijing under the Qinggovernment.Being well-learned scholar，Wang knew that these fragments were not “dragon bones.”He went back to the store and purchased some more bones for his study.At the same time，he was informed that these bones were all from Henan.

Through his careful study，Wang came to realize that the symbols engraved on thebones were script used before the Qin Dynasty.At a considerable price，he bought the whole lot of bones and shells that bore inscribed figures and designs.He named these symbols“Tortoise Shell Characters .”This important discovery opened up the way to the study of the Shang and Zhou dynasties in the fields of socio-politics，economics and culture.