Most characters are written with ten basic types of strokes. Some characters are composed of smaller parts called radicals. A radical may indicate the meaning of the character. For example some characters include the basic character for water as part of the character. This may indicate that the word or idea expressed has some association with water.
Chinese dictionaries list characters by a combination of stroke order and radical.
Professional Interactive Chinese for Windows can assist English speaking people in overcoming these difficulties in learning Chinese . Users can learn Chinese in the comfort of their home without having access to a native instructor. This software is effective in that it will teach users to speak, read, and even write basic Chinese. There is even a small on-line dictionary as a menu choice which allows users to look up the Mandarin Chinese equivalents of English words. Unlike other dictionaries of its kind, this dictionary not only provides users the written meaning of the Mandarin equivalent, but it also allows users to view Pinyin and hear the pronunciation of entries.