{"id":20259,"date":"2025-05-12T21:20:30","date_gmt":"2025-05-12T19:20:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hackingchinese.com\/?p=20259"},"modified":"2025-05-14T21:15:48","modified_gmt":"2025-05-14T19:15:48","slug":"zi-tools-a-powerful-free-resource-for-exploring-chinese-characters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hackingchinese.com\/zi-tools-a-powerful-free-resource-for-exploring-chinese-characters\/","title":{"rendered":"Zi.Tools: A powerful free resource for exploring Chinese characters"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.hackingchinese.com\/zi-tools-a-powerful-free-resource-for-exploring-chinese-characters\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright wp-image-20261 size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/www.hackingchinese.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/zitools-frame-300x300.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.hackingchinese.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/zitools-frame-300x300.png 300w, https:\/\/www.hackingchinese.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/zitools-frame-150x150.png 150w, https:\/\/www.hackingchinese.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/zitools-frame.png 698w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/zi.tools\/\">Zi.Tools<\/a> is a great free resource for exploring Chinese characters. See what it offers and how you can use it to boost your learning!<\/p>\n<p>Learning about Chinese characters online is both easy and hard at the same time:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>It&#8217;s easy because there are many resources that provide information about character components, etymology and much more, completely free.<\/li>\n<li>It&#8217;s hard because most of this information is wrong.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><em>Tune in to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hackingchinese.com\/podcast\/\">the Hacking Chinese Podcast<\/a> to listen to the related episode (#249):<br \/>\n<\/em><iframe src=\"https:\/\/open.spotify.com\/embed\/episode\/4f6MFagcVfNSBHxvnywhGI?utm_source=generator\" width=\"100%\" height=\"152\" allow=\"autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; fullscreen; picture-in-picture\" frameborder=\"0\" style=\"border-radius:12px;\" allowfullscreen loading=\"lazy\"><\/iframe>\n<em>Available on <a href=\"https:\/\/podcasts.apple.com\/us\/podcast\/hacking-chinese-podcast\/id1536284827\">Apple Podcasts<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/open.spotify.com\/show\/5iCRv1jg3j3yJZGJlYVYaO\">Spotify<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/YIMCqqGSKMU\">YouTube<\/a>\u00a0and many other platforms!<\/em><\/p>\n<h3>Why most of the information about Chinese characters is wrong<\/h3>\n<p>Resources are wrong in many different ways. When it comes to analysing compound characters, many sites simply break characters down automatically into their graphical components.<\/p>\n<p>For example, showing that \u6728 (m\u00f9), &#8220;tree&#8221;, consists of \u5341 (sh\u00ed), &#8220;ten&#8221;, and \u516b (b\u0101), &#8220;eight&#8221;, which is both wrong and unhelpful (it&#8217;s actually a picture of a tree).<\/p>\n<h3>Big sheep are not beautiful<\/h3>\n<p>When it comes to the origin of characters, there are also a lot of incorrect explanations floating around on the internet. While incorrect explanations can still be helpful if they enable you to memorise a character, it&#8217;s always better to at least start with the correct explanation and take it from there.<\/p>\n<p>For example, \u7f8e (m\u011bi), &#8220;beautiful&#8221;, looks like it consists of \u7f8a (y\u00e1ng), &#8220;sheep&#8221; and \u5927 (d\u00e0), &#8220;big&#8221;, giving rise to common explanations along the line of &#8220;big sheep are beautiful&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>However, that&#8217;s not how this character came about. Instead, it depicts a person with fancy headgear. The way the top part is written has converged with how we write &#8220;sheep&#8221; over the centuries, but they are completely unrelated. The bottom part shows a person, which is the origin of \u5927. We will return to the origin of this character later in this article.<\/p>\n<h3>Character etymology: How deep should you dig?<\/h3>\n<p>From a learner&#8217;s perspective, it&#8217;s much less problematic to memorise how to write \u7f8e by visualising a big, fat sheep admiring its own beauty in the mirror than it is to think that \u6728 consists of \u5341 and \u516b. The former has practical value as a mnemonic, but the latter is just bad.<\/p>\n<p>Still, Chinese characters are not arbitrary or random, there is a system there. It&#8217;s not a neat system designed by committee once and then left static in its perfection, but it is a system.<\/p>\n<p>So, while it seems innocent to memorise \u7f8e as &#8220;big + sheep = beautiful&#8221; and it has little cost in the short run, if you always go with folk etymology or incorrect information, you will never learn how characters really work. This doesn&#8217;t mean that you always need to use the correct etymology, though, something I&#8217;ve discussed in this article: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hackingchinese.com\/5-levels-of-understanding-chinese-characters-superficial-forms-to-deep-structure\/\">5 levels of understanding Chinese characters: Superficial forms to deep structure<\/a>.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-embedded-content\" data-secret=\"SvKpX9dkx9\"><p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.hackingchinese.com\/5-levels-of-understanding-chinese-characters-superficial-forms-to-deep-structure\/\">5 levels of understanding Chinese characters: Superficial forms to deep structure<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"wp-embedded-content\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts\" security=\"restricted\" style=\"position: absolute; visibility: hidden;\" title=\"&#8220;5 levels of understanding Chinese characters: Superficial forms to deep structure&#8221; &#8212; Hacking Chinese\" src=\"https:\/\/www.hackingchinese.com\/5-levels-of-understanding-chinese-characters-superficial-forms-to-deep-structure\/embed\/#?secret=PhN2jtsehm#?secret=SvKpX9dkx9\" data-secret=\"SvKpX9dkx9\" width=\"500\" height=\"282\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<h3>Learning Chinese characters becomes easier if you understand the system<\/h3>\n<p>Taking shortcuts and making up stories might be okay if you want to learn ten or even a hundred characters, but if you want to learn a thousand and more, learning how that system works is important!<\/p>\n<p>This requires two things: accurate information about characters and direct insight into the system itself. The resource I want to talk about today is great for providing the former. For learning about the system itself, I strongly suggest that you check out the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hackingchinese.com\/outlier-chinese-character-masterclass-review-understand-more-learn-faster-remember-longer\/\">Outlier Chinese Character Masterclass<\/a>.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-embedded-content\" data-secret=\"0q0dcDlaS6\"><p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.hackingchinese.com\/outlier-chinese-character-masterclass-review-understand-more-learn-faster-remember-longer\/\">Outlier Chinese Character Masterclass review: Understand more, learn faster, remember longer<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"wp-embedded-content\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts\" security=\"restricted\" style=\"position: absolute; visibility: hidden;\" title=\"&#8220;Outlier Chinese Character Masterclass review: Understand more, learn faster, remember longer&#8221; &#8212; Hacking Chinese\" src=\"https:\/\/www.hackingchinese.com\/outlier-chinese-character-masterclass-review-understand-more-learn-faster-remember-longer\/embed\/#?secret=yZ8woXnDtn#?secret=0q0dcDlaS6\" data-secret=\"0q0dcDlaS6\" width=\"500\" height=\"282\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<h3>Zi.Tools: A powerful free resource for exploring Chinese characters<\/h3>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/zi.tools\">Zi.tools<\/a> is a powerful online resource for learning about Chinese characters. It draws on many different sources to provide a wealth of information about any Chinese character you might want to look up.\u00a0While not the easiest to use, it&#8217;s by far the best free online resource I know of.<\/p>\n<p>One of the only drawbacks with the site is that it can be a bit chaotic to navigate, so you need to know where to look, and some information is not accessible if you don&#8217;t already know Chinese. In this article, I will explain how to extract the information you need!<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.hackingchinese.com\/review-the-outlier-linguistics-dictionary-of-chinese-characters-with-discount-code\/\">The Outlier Dictionary of Chinese Characters<\/a> remains my go-to resource for looking up characters, but that one is neither free nor available online. I will compare it more directly to Zi.tools later in this article.<\/p>\n<p>Please note that Zi.Tools provides in-depth information about individual characters. If you just want to look up what a character means, how it&#8217;s pronounced or how it&#8217;s used, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hackingchinese.com\/21-essential-dictionaries-and-corpora-for-learning-chinese\/\">please refer to a normal dictionary<\/a>.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-embedded-content\" data-secret=\"pRT2pYukgK\"><p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.hackingchinese.com\/21-essential-dictionaries-and-corpora-for-learning-chinese\/\">21 essential dictionaries and corpora for learning Chinese<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"wp-embedded-content\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts\" security=\"restricted\" style=\"position: absolute; visibility: hidden;\" title=\"&#8220;21 essential dictionaries and corpora for learning Chinese&#8221; &#8212; Hacking Chinese\" src=\"https:\/\/www.hackingchinese.com\/21-essential-dictionaries-and-corpora-for-learning-chinese\/embed\/#?secret=ebP2I6Il1J#?secret=pRT2pYukgK\" data-secret=\"pRT2pYukgK\" width=\"500\" height=\"282\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<h3>Find the Chinese character by searching or composing<\/h3>\n<p>Looking up characters works like in any other online dictionary; just type or paste the character in the top bar. If you don&#8217;t have the character in a digitised format or can&#8217;t type it, you can use the compose (\u7d44\u5b57) function to combine components to form the character you&#8217;re looking for. There is no handwriting input.<\/p>\n<p>Once you&#8217;ve found the character, you&#8217;ll be presented with much more information than you probably bargained for.<\/p>\n<p>Don&#8217;t panic!<\/p>\n<p>We&#8217;re going to start by looking up \u5988 (m\u0101), &#8220;mother&#8221;, which you might know already, so this way it will be easier to see how Zi.Tools presents the information you need.<\/p>\n<h3>Basic character information on Zi.Tools<\/h3>\n<p>First, you&#8217;re presented with a visual overview of how the components of the compound contribute to the meaning and sound of the compound itself. Here&#8217;s what it looks like for \u5988:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.hackingchinese.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/ma-components.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-20265\" src=\"https:\/\/www.hackingchinese.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/ma-components-1024x438.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"214\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.hackingchinese.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/ma-components-1024x438.png 1024w, https:\/\/www.hackingchinese.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/ma-components-300x128.png 300w, https:\/\/www.hackingchinese.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/ma-components-768x329.png 768w, https:\/\/www.hackingchinese.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/ma-components.png 1166w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>So, what does this mean, exactly?<\/p>\n<ul data-spread=\"false\">\n<li><strong>Components are written out with a small picture next to them.<\/strong> The meaning is not written out, so if you don&#8217;t know it, you need to click the component. This is a bit awkward, because you then have to scroll down quite a bit to find what the character means. Using a pop-up dictionary in your browser might be a better option.<\/li>\n<li><strong>The function of each component is indicated using coloured (red, blue or grey) lines (dotted or solid).<\/strong> I will explain how this works below, but for now, it&#8217;s enough to know that blue means a phonetic (sound) component and red indicates a semantic (meaning) component. If you don&#8217;t know what this means, you might want to check the series of articles starting here before you continue:\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.hackingchinese.com\/the-building-blocks-of-chinese-part-1-chinese-characters-and-words-in-a-nutshell\/\">The building blocks of Chinese, part 1: Chinese characters and words in a nutshell<\/a>. Grey means that the character has been transformed from another character, here indicating the traditional character for &#8220;horse&#8221;, \u99ac.<\/li>\n<li><strong>You can see the standard written form of the character.<\/strong> This is displayed as an image <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hackingchinese.com\/chinese-character-variants-and-fonts-for-language-learners\/\">to avoid problems with fonts<\/a>. In the screenshot above, it says \u7576\u4ee3 (d\u0101ngd\u00e0i), &#8220;contemporary, modern&#8221;, \u6a19\u6e96\u5b57\u5f62 (bi\u0101ozh\u01d4n z\u00ecx\u00edng), &#8220;standard character form&#8221;, and then \u9678 (l\u00f9), short for \u4e2d\u56fd\u5927\u9678 (d\u00e0l\u00f9), &#8220;Mainland China&#8221;. If you looked up the traditional version of &#8220;mother&#8221;, \u5abd, instead, you would see a whole range of standard forms, including when\/where they are\/were the standard.\u00a0 For modern usage, look for\u00a0\u00a0\u7576\u4ee3 (d\u0101ngd\u00e0i), then \u53f0, for \u53f0\u7063 (t\u00e1iw\u0101n), &#8220;Taiwan&#8221; or \u6e2f for \u9999\u6e2f (xi\u0101ngg\u01ceng), &#8220;Hong Kong&#8221;. Please note that this information is sometimes only displayed in the left sidebar.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-embedded-content\" data-secret=\"rMZsXvItIC\"><p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.hackingchinese.com\/the-building-blocks-of-chinese-part-1-chinese-characters-and-words-in-a-nutshell\/\">The building blocks of Chinese, part 1: Chinese characters and words in a nutshell<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"wp-embedded-content\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts\" security=\"restricted\" style=\"position: absolute; visibility: hidden;\" title=\"&#8220;The building blocks of Chinese, part 1: Chinese characters and words in a nutshell&#8221; &#8212; Hacking Chinese\" src=\"https:\/\/www.hackingchinese.com\/the-building-blocks-of-chinese-part-1-chinese-characters-and-words-in-a-nutshell\/embed\/#?secret=evdtgwlR8i#?secret=rMZsXvItIC\" data-secret=\"rMZsXvItIC\" width=\"500\" height=\"282\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<h3>Understanding compound characters through coloured lines<\/h3>\n<p>Most of the above is pretty straightforward when you know where to look, but the coloured lines require extra explanation. Here&#8217;s the one available in the tooltip on Zi.tools:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.hackingchinese.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/coloured-lines.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-20266\" src=\"https:\/\/www.hackingchinese.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/coloured-lines-951x1024.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"538\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.hackingchinese.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/coloured-lines-951x1024.png 951w, https:\/\/www.hackingchinese.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/coloured-lines-279x300.png 279w, https:\/\/www.hackingchinese.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/coloured-lines-768x827.png 768w, https:\/\/www.hackingchinese.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/coloured-lines.png 964w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Here&#8217;s the text with my translation:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u300c\u6703\u610f\u300d <em>Associative compounds<\/em><\/p>\n<p>\u5b57\u5f62\u7531A\u8207B\u62fc\u5408\u800c\u4f86\uff0c\u5b57\u7fa9\u8207\u5b57\u97f3\u8207\u5169\u8005\u6240\u62fc\u5408\u5b57\u5f62\u6709\u95dc\u3002<\/p>\n<p><em>The character shape is formed by combining A and B, and its meaning and pronunciation are related to the combined components.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>\u300c\u6307\u4e8b\u300d<em> Indicatives<\/em><\/p>\n<p>B\u662f\u4e00\u500b\u975e\u6210\u5b57\u90e8\u4ef6\uff0c\u6216\u662f\u4e00\u500b\u64cd\u4f5c\uff08\u5982\u6e1b\u7701\u3001\u65cb\u8f49\u3001\u93e1\u50cf\u7b49\uff09\uff0c\u5b57\u7fa9\u8207\u5b57\u97f3\u8207\u5169\u8005\u6240\u62fc\u5408\u5b57\u5f62\u6709\u95dc\u3002<\/p>\n<p><em>B is a non-character component or an operation (such as reduction, rotation, mirroring, etc.), and the meaning and pronunciation are related to the combined components.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>\u300c\u5f62\u8072\u300d <em>Phono-semantic compounds<\/em><\/p>\n<p>\u5b57\u7fa9\u8207A\u6709\u95dc\uff0c\u5b57\u97f3\u8207B\u6709\u95dc\u3002\uff08\u4ea6\u6709\u5c11\u90e8\u5206\u300c\u5f62\u8072\u517c\u6703\u610f\u300d\u60c5\u6cc1\u4e0b\uff0c\u5b57\u7fa9\u4ea6\u8207B\u6709\u95dc\u3002\uff09<\/p>\n<p><em>The meaning is related to A, while the pronunciation is related to B. In some cases of &#8220;Phonetic-Semantic with Associative Meaning,&#8221; the meaning is also related to B.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>\u300c\u8868\u97f3\u300d <em>Phonetic representation<\/em><\/p>\n<p>A\u548cB\u7686\u70ba\u6f22\u5b57\u7684\u60c5\u6cc1\u4e0b\u8b80\u97f3\u70ba\u5b83\u5011\u7684\u5207\u97f3\uff0c\u6216\u8005\u70ba\u5169\u8005\u8b80\u97f3\u7684\u62fc\u5408\uff1b\u540c\u6642B\u4e5f\u53ef\u80fd\u662f\u4e00\u500b\u64cd\u4f5c\uff08\u8868\u97f3\u7b26\u865f\uff0c\u6216\u8b8a\u5f62\uff09\u3002<\/p>\n<p><em>If both A and B are Chinese characters, the pronunciation may be a clipped sound of both or a combination of their sounds. B may also represent an operation, such as a phonetic symbol or transformation.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>\u300c\u8a1b\u8b8a\u300d <em>Corruption<\/em><\/p>\n<p>\u8a72\u5b57\u662fA\u7684\u8b8a\u5f62\uff0c\u97f3\u7fa9\u8207A\u5168\u540c\u3002<\/p>\n<p><em>The character is a variant of A, with the same pronunciation and meaning.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Again, the goal of this article is not to explain how Chinese characters work, so if even the English translations above are new to you, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hackingchinese.com\/the-building-blocks-of-chinese-part-1-chinese-characters-and-words-in-a-nutshell\/\">you might want to read the article I linked to earlier<\/a> or <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hackingchinese.com\/outlier-chinese-character-masterclass-review-understand-more-learn-faster-remember-longer\/\">check out Outlier Linguistics&#8217; course<\/a>.<\/p>\n<h3>More useful character information on Zi.Tools<\/h3>\n<p>As mentioned, Zi.tools lists much more information than any sane learner will want to know. Feel free to look around to see what attracts your attention, but here are some things that I think are useful and that you might be interested in too:<\/p>\n<h3>Origin (\u5b57\u6e90\u8af8\u8aaa)<\/h3>\n<p>This section explains how the character came about. Note that there are several sources given and that they are\u00a0<em>not<\/em> equal. For example, \u8aaa\u6587 (short for \u8aaa\u6587\u89e3\u5b57), is almost 2,000 years old and full of inaccuracies, yet many people today still regard it as the ultimate truth when it comes to character explanations.<\/p>\n<p>By comparison, \u8aaa\u6587\u65b0\u8b49 is a modern academic work of palaeography, and thus far more reliable. As the name implies, it also strives to correct many of the errors in \u8aaa\u6587.<\/p>\n<p>Here&#8217;s what it says about \u7f8e, for example (again with my translation):<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><em>\u7532\u9aa8\u6587\u4ece\u300c\u5927\u300d\uff0c\u4e0a\u8c61\u6bdb\u7fbd\u98fe\u7269\uff0c\u6545\u6709\u7f8e\u7fa9\uff0c\u7fbd\u6bdb\u98fe\u7269\u8a1b\u8b8a\u70ba\u300c\u7f8a\u300d\u5f62\uff0c\u56e0\u6b64\u300a\u8aaa\u6587\u300b\u4ee5\u70ba\u300c\u7f8a\u5927\u70ba\u7f8e\u300d\u6bb5\u8a3b\u300c\u7f8a\u5927\u5247\u80a5\u7f8e\u300d\u3002\u7532\u9aa8\u6587\u504f\u65c1\u5f9e\u300c\u5927\u300d\u90fd\u8868\u793a\u6b63\u9762\u7ad9\u7acb\u7684\u4eba\u5f62\u5f88\u5c11\u7528\u300c\u5927\u300d\u8868\u300c\u5927\u5c0f\u300d\u4e4b\u300c\u5927\u300d\uff0c\u6545\u8aaa\u6cd5\u4e0d\u53ef\u5f9e<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>The oracle bone script comes from \u5927 , with the upper part resembling feathered ornaments, which is why it carries the meaning of &#8220;beauty&#8221;. Over time, the feathered ornament transformed into the shape of \u7f8a, leading \u8aaa\u6587 to incorrectly interpret it as &#8220;a large sheep is beautiful&#8221;, with the annotation stating &#8220;a large sheep is fat and beautiful&#8221;.\u00a0<\/em><em>In oracle bone script, components derived from \u5927 typically represent a person standing rather than indicating &#8220;big&#8221; in size. Therefore, this explanation should not be followed.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>An obvious drawback is that these explanations are written in Chinese, but you can always use a pop-up dictionary to aid your reading or use AI to generate a translation.<\/p>\n<h3>Evolution (\u5b57\u5f62\u6f14\u5316)<\/h3>\n<p>Here you can find earlier forms of the same character. You don&#8217;t need to be a paleographer to make use of this information; sometimes just seeing older forms can help. For example, if you look up <a href=\"https:\/\/zi.tools\/zi\/%E7%BE%8E\">\u7f8e<\/a>, the fancy headgear is easy to see.<\/p>\n<h3><a href=\"https:\/\/www.hackingchinese.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/mei.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-20267\" src=\"https:\/\/www.hackingchinese.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/mei-1024x794.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"501\" height=\"388\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.hackingchinese.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/mei-1024x794.png 1024w, https:\/\/www.hackingchinese.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/mei-300x233.png 300w, https:\/\/www.hackingchinese.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/mei-768x595.png 768w, https:\/\/www.hackingchinese.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/mei.png 1258w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 501px) 100vw, 501px\" \/><\/a>Calligraphy (\u5f8c\u4e16\u66f8\u6cd5)<\/h3>\n<p>In this section, you can see samples of calligraphy featuring the character in question, including what style of calligraphy it is and who wrote it.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.hackingchinese.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/mei-cailgraphy.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-20268\" src=\"https:\/\/www.hackingchinese.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/mei-cailgraphy-1024x788.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"385\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.hackingchinese.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/mei-cailgraphy-1024x788.png 1024w, https:\/\/www.hackingchinese.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/mei-cailgraphy-300x231.png 300w, https:\/\/www.hackingchinese.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/mei-cailgraphy-768x591.png 768w, https:\/\/www.hackingchinese.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/mei-cailgraphy.png 1258w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h3>Comparison \u7528\u5b57\u5c0d\u6bd4<\/h3>\n<p>This section is found in the left sidebar towards the bottom and shows the same character according to different standards. This is great if you&#8217;re confused about what variant to use when, or just want to compare different versions. The comparisons often include Japanese and Korean as well. Since it&#8217;s not very exciting to compare \u7f8e in different standards, let&#8217;s look at \u6236 instead:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.hackingchinese.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/hu-comparison.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-20269\" src=\"https:\/\/www.hackingchinese.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/hu-comparison.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"365\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.hackingchinese.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/hu-comparison.png 660w, https:\/\/www.hackingchinese.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/hu-comparison-300x219.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<h3>Too much information about Chinese characters?<\/h3>\n<p>As we have seen, Zi.Tools provides a wealth of information about Chinese characters, but I&#8217;ve just mentioned a fraction of the information available.<\/p>\n<p>We also have indexing in various character sets, reconstructed Old Chinese, rimes and rime books, entries in various historical dictionaries, kinship diagrams (which rarely make sense, at least to me) and more.<\/p>\n<p>I would go as far as to say that this is too much information, and if you want carefully curated content presented in an easy-to-understand manner, you might want to look elsewhere.<\/p>\n<h3>Why you should still get\u00a0The Outlier Dictionary of Chinese Characters<\/h3>\n<p>When I first stumbled upon Zi.Tools, I thought that it would replace Outlier Linguistics&#8217; character dictionary for Pleco, not because it&#8217;s more reliable or better, but because it&#8217;s online and free to use. I&#8217;m a computer person and don&#8217;t like using my phone more than I have to.<\/p>\n<p>The more I use Zi.Tools (and I do use it quite a lot), the more I realise that there are significant shortcomings that remind me of the reason Outliers&#8217; dictionary is so useful. Let&#8217;s have a look at these shortcomings:<\/p>\n<ul data-spread=\"false\">\n<li><strong>Explanations in Chinese &#8211;<\/strong> This might not be an issue if you can read Chinese already, but then again, your need to look up characters is greatly diminished unless you&#8217;re interested in historical texts and the development of the writing system.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Not aimed at learners &#8211;<\/strong> The site is clearly built with native speakers or highly proficient learners in mind. Knowledge about how the writing system works is almost always assumed and rarely explained.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Too much information &#8211;<\/strong> If you don&#8217;t know what you&#8217;re looking for, Zi.Tools can be annoying to use. Printing the page for \u7f8e would result in a 9-page document, whereas the entry in Outliers&#8217; dictionary is just a few screens on my phone, but still contains everything I need<\/li>\n<li><strong>Unclear trustworthiness &#8211;<\/strong> Since Zi.Tools just lists several explanations of character origins, it&#8217;s hard as a learner to know which one to trust. I know that \u8aaa\u6587\u65b0\u8b49 is to be reckoned with mostly because the Outlier guys refer to it a lot. By including everything, the choice of whom to trust falls on you as a learner, and you&#8217;re very unlikely to be in a position to judge correctly.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>These are both great resources, but suitable for different students in different situations. I&#8217;ll keep using them in parallel!<\/p>\n<h3>Conclusion: Zi.Tools is a great online resource for learning more about Chinese characters<\/h3>\n<p>As should be clear by now, I think that Zi.Tools is a great resource for exploring Chinese characters, by far the best I know that is freely available online. After using it for a while, you&#8217;ll know what to look for and what to ignore.\u00a0For those of you who prefer to use a computer when studying characters or just can&#8217;t or don&#8217;t want to purchase Outliers&#8217; dictionary, Zi.Tools is a great choice!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Zi.Tools is a great free resource for exploring Chinese characters. See what it offers and how you can use it to boost your learning!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20261,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,5,6,10,18,19,22],"tags":[112,169,193,1065,428,432,1456,765,1455],"class_list":["post-20259","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-advanced","category-beginner","category-distinctively-chinese","category-intermediate","category-recommended-resources","category-reviews","category-vocabulary","tag-chinese-characters","tag-dictionary","tag-etymology","tag-outlier-linguistics","tag-phonetic-components","tag-phonology","tag-podcast-eepisode","tag-semantic-components","tag-zi-tools"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Zi.Tools: A powerful free resource for exploring Chinese characters<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Zi.Tools is a great free resource for exploring Chinese characters. 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