Written Chinese
Written Chinese () comprises Chinese characters used to represent the Chinese language. Chinese characters do not constitute an alphabet or a compact syllabary. Rather, the writing system is roughly logosyllabic; that is, a character generally represents one syllable of spoken Chinese and may be a word on its own or a part of a polysyllabic word. The characters themselves are often composed of parts that may represent physical objects, abstract notions, or pronunciation. Literacy requires the memorization of a great many characters: educated Chinese know about 4,000. The large number of Chinese characters has in part led to the adoption of Western alphabets as an auxiliary means of representing Chinese.
Chinese Character Simplification Scheme
The "Chinese Character Simplification Scheme" is divided into three parts. The first part consists of 230 simplified characters; the second part consists of 285 simplified characters; the third part consists of 54 simplified radicals. The first and second parts differ in their time of implementation; the first part was to be implemented the day after the announcement, while the second part was mostly implemented in three batches later between 1956 and 1959 after further trials and slight changes, leaving out 28 simplified characters which were implemented in 1964 when the "List of Simplified Chinese Characters" was published.