This handbook is designed to help learners of Chinese language master the meaning and usage of the most commonly used Chinese characters and phrases. Features include (1) around 1,000 entries of the most commonly used characters; (2) stroke order of the characters in simplified Chinese and, if applicable, also in traditional Chinese; (3) around 10,000 entries of words and phrases under the respective word entries, including synonyms, antonyms and idioms; (4) meaning of the characters and phrases in straightforward English; (5) pinyin of the characters and phrases; (6) sample sentences to illustrate the usage of the characters.