Generally after we master one simple Chinese character then it's possible to better understand multiple characters which derived from it. That would be a quite efficient way for you to learn the Chinese characters.
A person named "倉頡 Cang Jie" in ancient China, according to the legend, created the Chinese characters.
He was a historiographer. He had 4 eyes so he could well observe the motion of stars and the footprints of animals, and then he created the characters according to the shapes. He drew the pictures of the objects in the nature, creating many pictographs, thus the Chinese characters came into being.
However, some of the things are very abstract and difficult to draw, so people thought of other ways to creat characters. For example, we add a short horizontal line under the character "木"(mù wood) then it becoms "本"(běn root), which means the most important part.
木頭 mù tou wood
這是用木頭做的。
Zhè shì yòng mùtou zuò de.
This was made of wood.
本 běn root / measure word
我有三本中文書。
Wǒ yǒu sān běn zhōngwén shū.
I have three Chinese books.
本來 běn lái originally
我本來不想去。
Wǒ běnlái bù xiǎng qù.
Originally I didn't want to go.
基本 jī běn basic / essential
我們先學一些基本的漢字。
Wǒmen xiān xué yīxiē jīběn de hànzì.
Let's learn some basic Chinese characters.
Another example, we put "人"（rén people）next to "木"，it becomes "休" (xiū to rest), which means a person leaning against a tree to have a rest.
休息 xiū xi rest
我要休息一下。
Wǒ yào xiūxi yí xià.
I'm going to have a break.
And we add the radical of three drops "氵" to the left of "木" then it becomes "沐"(mù bathe).
沐浴 mù yù bathe / revel
城市沐浴在金色的陽光裡。
Chéngshì mùyù zài jīnsè de yángguāng lǐ.
The sun bathes the city in shades of gold.
沐浴液 mù yù yè body wash
你喜歡用什麼牌子的沐浴液?
Nǐ xǐhuān yòng shénme páizi de mùyùyè?
What brand of body wash do you like?
By this way you could learn more and more characters efficiently.
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