250 Essential Chinese Characters for Everyday Use

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View books by Philip Yungkin Lee.

A great workbook - Rated
This is a book for writing in. It shows stroke order, and has spaces to practice each character. However, it also has lots of interesting context and examples for each of the 250 characters. Definitely a book for grown-ups, as there is not a picture or a colour to be seen. There is an alphabetical (pinyin) index as well as a radical index. There are quizzes and review sections.
My only gripe is that there is no dictionary by English meaning, so you can't look up an English word directly. However, if you have a dictionary handy that is not a serious problem.
It is not a coffee-table book : it is soft-cover, in yellow, orange and red, so it won't match your decor or impress your friends.
I will buy vol 2 when I have finished this vol 1.

Excellent tool - Rated
This book is a clear, practical and helpful resource for anyone studying Chinese characters. Each page gives stroke order, meanings, common compound words, blank squares for writing practice and pinyin for a different character. Volume I covers 250 of the most frequently used characters. An additional useful feature are the exercises (word finds, word-matching games, etc.) included after every 10 characters. Volume II follows the same format and introduces a futher 250 characters.