This page is for thoughts about mnemonics and Mandarin (the Chinese dialect). I knew ages ago that about 214 basic characters are used inside more complex characters; so I wanted a system where I could have a person or other object represent theose 214 'radical characters'. I learned in 2026 that there is an extra collection of subcomponent characters drawn within characters: the 'Components'. So I wanted visuals for them; and I wanted to see if the 1000 Actions system could somehow be applied to represent two brush strokes for drawing a character (since each action has a matching letter pair). Anyway, I tried to apply ideas from other lessons to the question of how to memorise both pinyin and actual Chinese characters.

Pinyin

Note: The AA-ZZ Heroes article may need a review before reading this article. It has an image for every letter pair combination like AA, AB, EF, NK, CHA, SHA [I treat CH and SH as if they are letters.]

The AA-ZZ (memory image for any letter pair) AA-ZZ Heroes article would be a nice way to visualise a lot of pinyin [letters rather than tones] - but there needs to be a rule about how the 2nd letter of an alphabet pair really means a Mandarin word ending such as 'iang'.

A small number of pinyin are not covered easily by this approach [see, above, the right hand side list of spellings]. but there are a lot of endings to represent such as 'UANG'. The Animal cartoon people could extend the alphabet Heroes system leyer pairs in order to fit in the extra endings.

Expressing tones through a story

The Chinese characters have short names, generally; and so the pinyin method at the top of this article would represent an entire pinyin word but be missing the tone. I would have an imaginary scene where a person (who represents the ENglish meaning of the word) does an action to the Hero AA-ZZ person who represents the letter spelling of the the pinyin. If the action could represent the tone then that would encapsulate the whole pinyin word. So I could list 5 actions for the 4 tones and neutral tones that Mandarin uses.

Tone actions idea:

Tone 1: The person Tickles the person/object.

Tone 2: The person brushes tar on to the person/object.

Tone 3: The person prods a small T-Rex dinosaur which charges into the object.

Tone 4: The person tumbles a barrel into the person/object.

Neutral Tone: The person plugs a USB memory stick into the object.

Components

As well as the 214 radicals, there are also frequently used 'components' (many of which are not radicals). The 560 components are in the 'Modern Chinese Character Component Table'. Some of them are based on radicals and about 166 of those are 'bound': they can not be used on their own as Chinese characters. A Chinese character might be composed of a radical AND also a 'component' AND extra brush strokes. More nuance: a character is composed of components, and one of those components is designated as the radical. Even if I learn the 214 radicals of traditional Chinese, they might be drawn quite differently in popular use in China. Nevertheless, I have seen good reasons to learn the traditional characters.

I would like to have a visual for frequently used component parts of CHinese characters because then I could imagine them within 'Person does action to person/object' stories in order to memorise how to draw a Chinese character. That assumes that I already know how to draw the component part. They themselves can be imagined in their own story where they do an action on an recipient - and so I can memorise how to draw them via mnemonics also. They can be imagined saying a corresponding English word and then the pinyin for that word which they represent; and I can do the same approach for learning characters in general: the person who represents a Chinese character can say the English meaning and then say the pinyin.

The action would be treated differently with components though because they can not be assumed to have a radical as a subpart that can be visualised as an action. So it might be more practical to treat their actions as a way to state brush strokes. If an action corresponds with letter pair AB then that action would be like saying, 'Draw brush stroke A and then draw brush stroke B'. [I list brush strokes with alphabetical codings further down this article.]

I wonder if I need to rethink the 1000 words which I have planned for the Men 1000 system: maybe I should reconcile that list with a big list of Chinese component words and try to get a big overlap. It would be good if the Women 1000 system or the Men 1000 system or the picture dictionary work has a visual that I can then use for the components? I think that might be the wrong approach. Maybe it is good for a component to have its own standalone visual so that the component is not confused with the same English word when it occurs as a standalone Chinese character. They would need different drawing instructions and so probably should not be mixed in together into one visual person.

One idea is to associate each of the 366 Ancient Greece people (from the Ancient Greece article) with a component(or with words which are commnly used within characters even if they are not strictly speaking components; and certainly not radicals). I have developed a prototype list of components:

The Composition column refers in rounded brackets to the 214 kangxi radicals but square brackets refer to this very list's enumeration. Here is the same data as a text file which, if downloaded, might be easier to read. The component parts of the composition are often confusing me since the final symbol often looks unlike the component parts stuck together. I would just want a mnemonic story to involve the component parts that aid recall of how to draw the traditional character.

So each Ancient Greece related person can be imagined saying their Chinese word English meaning such as "Logic" followed by the pinyin; And then the person would be imagined in a story involving elements that prompt how to draw the 'component' building block.

Some words will duplicate words that are already in the Women 1000 system or other vocab systems that I have designed. I am OK with that.

After I introduce the 31 or images that represent 31 basic brush strokes (see below), I will suggest a different 366 person/creature system.

[I used AI to make that list and I am not sure how correct it is. For instance, I expected there to be more differences between simplified and traditional characters. The AI says that it did the job OK!]

Drawing a character

The Women 1000 system of cartoon people is intended to represent common vocabulary words: one per woman cartoon image. Eg. The word "Twist" has a corresponding cartoon woman. I also have a list of words for a Men 1000 cartoon people system but that needs further development.

I want to be able to imagine a story involving the "Twist" cartoon person - where the action and the recipient of the action are clues as to how to draw the Chinese character for "Twist". The 1000 action system corresponds to some extent with the over 200 'radicals' which are building block characters that occur within Chinese characters. E.g. A radical plus a brush stroke can be thought of as a completely different Chinese character. So I could have the action done by the Twist person be a way to represent the subpart radical; and the recipient of the action could represent a radical too; or the recipient might be a visual way of expressing one or two brush strokes.

If I can associate the 31 or so basic brush strokes of Chinese with a letter from the 30 x 30 Heroes system (see the article about Heroes, Robots and Aliens images) then, an image of a hero could be representing two brush strokes.

I could extend the 30 x 30 system to be a 32 x 32 system so that the two letters that each hero represents can be from my 30 letters systen plus a symbolk to mean Brush stroke 31 plus a symbol to mean "Other: a brush stroke that is not easily recognised as one of the 31 brush strokes".

If the character being memorised is a radical plus a brush stroke then I can use a set of 32 images that mean brush strokes 1 to 31 plus the outlier image 32.

Here is a table of brush strokes (including the 32 images):

Fundamental

#	Stroke	Technical Name	Alternative	Mnemonic	Picture	Comment	Letter
1	㇔	Diǎn U+31D4 | D	点	Chalk			I
2	㇐	Héng U+31D0 | H	横	Hex Key (Allen Key)			A
3	㇑	Shù U+31D1 | S	竖	Staff (for walking)			E
4	㇒	Piě U+31D2 | WT	撇	Spicy Pepper			U
5	㇏	Nà U+31CF | P	捺	Golf Club			W
6	㇀	Tí U+31C0 | UP	提	Shooting Star			X

Hooks

#	Stroke	Technical Name	Alternative	Mnemonic	Picture	Comment	Letter
7	㇚	Shù Gōu U+31DA | SJ	竖钩	Litter Picker Stick			Z
8	㇖	Héng Gōu U+31D6 | HJ	横钩	Picture Frame Part		The down stroke is drawn slightly diagonal leftwards.	Y
9	㇁	Wān Gōu U+31C1 | WJ	弯钩	Saxophone			V
10	㇂	Xié Gōu U+31C2 | XJ	斜钩	Baguette			B
11	㇢	Wò Gōu U+31E2 | WòJ	卧钩	Hockey Stick			J

Turns & Compounds

#	Stroke	Technical Name	Alternative	Mnemonic	Picture	Comment	Letter
12	㇕	Héng Shù U+31D5 | HS	横折	Shelf Bracket			SH
13	㇗	Shù Zhé U+31D7 | SZ	竖折	Dachsund Dog			G
14	㇇	Héng Piě U+31C7 | HWT	横撇	Opened Sardine Can			D
15	㇙	Shù Tí U+31D9 | SUP	竖提	Slug			N
16	㇛	Piě Diǎn U+31DB | PD	撇点	Boomerang			S
17	㇄	Shù Wān U+31C4 | SW	竖弯	Weighing Scales			C
18	㇓	Wān Piě U+31D3 | WWT	弯撇	Used Nail			T

Complex Compounds

#	Stroke	Technical Name	Alternative	Mnemonic	Picture	Comment	Letter
19	㇟	Shù Wān Gōu U+31DF | SWJ	竖弯钩	Yoga Stretcher 1			F
20	㇆	Héng Shù Gōu U+31C6 | HSJ	横折钩	Coat Peg Wood			L
21	㇈	Héng Shù Wān Gōu U+31C8 | HSWJ	横折弯钩	Usherette Tray			CH
22	㇌	Héng Piě Wān Gōu U+31CC | HWTWJ	横撇弯钩	Unfurled Handkerchief			H
23	㇋	Héng Shù Zhé Piě U+31CB | HSZWT	横折折撇	Seagull			R
24	㇎	Héng Shù Zhé Zhé U+31CE | HSZZ	横折折折	Portable stairs			M
25	㇞	Shù Zhé Zhé U+31DE | SZZ	竖折折	Diver ready to jump			P
26	㇜	Shù Zhé Piě U+31DC | SZWT	竖折撇	Advert Board			Q
27	㇍	Héng Shù Wān U+31CD | HSW	横折弯	Bib			K
28	㇃	Biǎn Xié Gōu U+31C3 | BXJ	扁斜钩	Smoking pipe			TH
29	㇅	Shù Zhé Zhé Gōu U+31C5 | SZZJ	竖折折钩	Scooter			ZH
30	㇡	Héng Shù Zhé Gōu U+31E1 | HSZJ	横折折钩	Acrobat			O
31	㇊	Héng Shù Tí U+31CA | HSUP	横折提	Snake			Extra 1

I think that the action should be performed from right-to-left because I am using the left-to-right direction for learning vocabulary rather than brush strokes. The colour of the action could be one colour to mean that the action is intended to be interpreted as a radical [red]; but use green to mean that it is meant to be an AA-ZZ two brush stroke combination. A-Z can have actions too based on the alphabet images from the first AA to ZZ article. Sometimes, actions are not needed: just picturing the image for a word beside the images for its component parts can suffice; but I like the idea that an action joins pieces together: I think that this is more memorable.

Note that the recipient of the action might not be an AA-ZZ brush stroke hero but instead be a visual that means a 'component'. I am looking at the Ancient Greece 366 people system for those. Alternatively, the recipient of an action could be another radical Woman 1000 character.

Special People and Creature Characters to represent the Component symbols

Since each brush stroke has a matching visual item such as a yoga stretcher, I can have a person or creature that always represents a particular Component symbol; and I can imagine him/her with some visuals that represent some of the brush strokes needed to draw the Chinese symbol of that Component item.

The weakness of using the Ancient Greece people is that they are already used for two other purposes (days of the year and also as mythology lessons); and also the name of the component does not help you to recall the Person/Creature. So I could create a new 366 person/creature system where the first letter of the Component (e.g. P of "Person" compound) dictates that I have to imagine a particular type of person/creature. P necessitates a tourist in a Hawaiian shirt and shorts. Therefore, I have an increased ability to remember the correct visual person/creature that corresponds with the Component character 'Person'.

I can have a particular tourist who has, to his side, a walking stick and who on the other side he has a spicy pepper; this is because those are the two visuals and stroke order of the strokes needed to draw "Person".

Or maybe a radical character's person from the Woman 1000 system could be imagined if that shape is part of how one should draw a component; but if, through history, that radical shape no longer looks much like the way it is used in the component then I might just use single stroke visuals even if they only draw a small part of the overall Component item. I am still debating this because it is nice to know the history of a character but surely the mnemonic aid should be a quick way to be able to draw the character as it is nowadays [in whichever Chinese writing method you choose: Traditional or Simplified].

I would probably call the 'Person' Component visual something like "Mr Person".

And the head for people 1 to 10 of a character type can follow this design sequence (and so can 11 to 20, 21-30, and so on.

(but since loads of English words in the 366 list begin with 'S', after 30 Cityguard, switch to modern soldier character type.)

214 Kangxi Radicals

I wanted to see how the radicals would be described in terms of their components: the components from the 366 row table above as well as the standard 214 radicals in their regular drawn shapes. Again, despite seeing the components, they often go through changes before being the final shape. I used AI to help me with this work; so I can't guarantee it is strong work. Note that square brackets are references to the table higher up this article but round brackets refer to radical standard numbering from 1 to 214:

The article about Actions links off to a first list of actions where the actions 001 to 214 are meant to match the radicals of this list. However, when I made that list, the naming convention differed sometimes from what the list above says. So the Actions List 1 article states that radical 4 is named "Left" whereas the list here says that its name is "Slash". Another example is Lean versus 'Shelter' radical (a leaning shelter is the historical association). On the whole though, the names match between the two lists. It seems to me that there are many divegences when studying Chinese!

Two letter Prompt Method 2

'Shānzhài chǎnpǐn' is the name of a knock-off of someone else's product, in Mandarin. If we take the first letter of each word then we get SC; but the AA-ZZ system can accommodate Sh and Ch; so ShCh can be found in the letter pair mnemonic system. The image for ShCh can be imagined in a scene where someone is at a market and sees a knock-off version of a famous brand name handbag.

Unlike the Woman 1000 system or the Male 1000 system, the scene in the market is not part of a set of standard pictures that represent vocabulary: it is a bespoke scene. So, it would make sense to keep a journal of the mnemonic scene and the phrase "Shānzhài chǎnpǐn" and the ShCh association.

A place for a pinyin sound

It would be nice if a loci place could exist for a short pinyin sound; and then items that sound like it could be imagined at that place. You could have a mental revision place for visiting those objects.

There are about 29 starts of pinyin words and about 37 endings of pinyin words. 29 x 37 = 1073. It is quite close to the 30 times table used in the Heroes article for expressing the alphabet from AA to ZZ. If someone can quickly work out a three digit number to match a pinyin [not including tone] then a loci system of 5000 places could use some of its places to represent those spellings WITH tones. Neutral tone would use 0000 to 0999. If the spelling was, as an imaginary example, matched with three digit number 123 then place 0123 would be its loci place. If the tone is tone 1 then add a 1000 and use place 1123. If tone 4 is used then place 4123 is used.

Anyway, it's just an idea.

32 x 32 Actions

The Actions article lists 1000 actions. The table above has 32 brush stroke line items. So a pair of brush strokes could be one of 32 x 32 combinations: 1024. If I can add 24 actions to the 1000 actions then that will work.

My animal people system is intended to be a way to imagine stories where an animal person numbered from 000 to 499 does an action on a hero from the AA to ZZ Heroes article; in that way, I aim to learn which AA-ZZ letter pairs correspond with those 500 items. The action happens from left tor ight.

There are 900 AA to ZZ heroes. I can imagine the first 400 animal people doing an action from right to left and apply the action to an AA to ZZ hero. In that way, I can learn simply which letter pair corresponds with actions from 500 to 899. I will then need a way to map the remaining 100 actions and 24 extra actions to other combinations of a 32 x 32 system. That is tricky but I can at least list 24 extra actions here:

After the 900th action, I suppose that the next 30 actions can represent Brush stroke 31 being associated with those already expressed 30 brush strokes; then the next 30 brush strokes can represent Brush stroke 32 being associated with those already expressed 30 brush strokes. Then the next 32 actions can be the brush stroke pairs where the first stroke is brush stroke 31. Then the next 32 actions can be the brush stroke pairs where the first stroke is brush stroke 32.

Note that the order of the combinations is similar to the repeating 30s ordering used in the Outfits 50 article.

Prz in Polish

It is nice the way I can turn a letter pair into a many letter pinyin word; that is done, above, by mapping a particular letter to a combination of letters. With Polish, many words start with Prz or Prze or Przy and I think that a letter pair could engage the first letter to mean Prz. If X means Przed, Y means Przy and Q means Prze, for example then a letter pair starting with Y would often be intended to mean Przy...