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.
Written Chinese
Chinese characters conform to a roughly square frame and are not usually linked to one another, so do not have a preferred direction of writing. Traditionally Chinese text was written in vertical columns which were read from top to bottom, right-to-left; the first column being on the right side of the page, and the last column on the left. Text written in Classical Chinese also uses little or no punctuation, with sentence and phrase breaks being determined by context and rhythm. Vertical Chinese is still used for effect or where space requires it, such as signs or on spines of books.