Chinese Character Structure
The character structure information is very useful for Chinese language learners to recognize the character composition. The following table
lists the common character structures of modern Chinese characters. It is based on the 12 Ideographic Description Characters (IDCs)
introduced in ISO 10646 and the version 3.0 of the Unicode standard, They describe the ideographic character composition at the abstract
level.
From: http://www.archchinese.com/arch_character_structure.html
Ideographic
Description Description Description in Chinese Example Characters
Character
1⿰ Left to Right 左右结构 好, 你, 吗, 他
2⿱ Above to Below 上下结构 主, 全, 分, 乔
3⿲ Left to Middle and Right 左中右结构 辩, 班, 辙, 弼
Above to Middle and
4⿳
Below
上中下结构 复, 享, 兽, 养
5⿴ Full Surround 全包围结构 囚, 回, 因, 叉
6⿵ Surround from Above 上包围结构 冈, 闭, 咸, 凤
Note: Example 1: You will write from left side of character 好 first then write right after. Please try to recite these 12 principal of
Chinese character structure. When you recite these characters, you can write each one character down in your paper and recite
only one character in your mind for example in the beginning level.
Ideographic
Description Description Description in Chinese Example Characters
Character
7⿶ Surround from Below 下包围结构 凶, 凿, 鼎, 凼
8⿷ Surround from Left 左包围结构 匠, 区, 医, 匪,
Surround from Upper
9⿸
Left
左上包围结构 厘, 危, 友, 发
Surround from Upper
10⿹
Right
右上包围结构 乌, 可, 包, 乃
Surround from Lower
11⿺
Left
左下包围结构 勉, 处, 起, 建,
12⿻ Overlaid 交叉结构 坐, 农, 幽, 臾
