James W. Heisig & Timothy W. Richardson       Remembering Simplified Hanzi 1 Remembering Traditional Hanzi 1 z HOW NOT TO FORGET THE MEANING AND WRITING OF CHINESE CHARACTERS Honolulu: University of Hawaíi Press, 2008. 440/432 pages. paperback, $25.00

Based on the best-selling series of books on the Japanese characters, Remembering the Kanji, Jim Heisig and Tim Richardson have combined forces to produce comparable courses for Simplified and Traditional Chinese characters.

   Book 1 of each course covers 1,500 characters, organized around the 1,000 most frequently used characters (for details on the process of selection, read pages 8-9 of the download). Book 2 will add another 1,500 characters for a total of 3,000 frequently-used characters and a solid foundation for the serious student of Chinese. To facilitate the memorizing of the characters as quickly and efficiently as possible, the course introduces a unique order for learning and makes use of "imaginative memory" to combine the basic building blocks—or "primitive elements" of which all characters are composed—into memorable images and patterns.

   The Introduction and a sampling of the first lessons for each course is available for downloading free of charge (Simplified | Traditional).