Basic Written Chinese: Move From Complete Beginner Level to Basic Proficiency (Audio CD Included)
Cornelius C. Kubler

This book first helps you understand the development of Chinese characters throughout China's long and varied history. Next you learn how they are composed, combined, and written. The characters in each lesson here are chosen from those used to write the conversation of the corresponding lesson in Basic Spoken Chinese. Thus, when you begin a new lesson, you already know the pronunciations, meanings and usages of the new words, so you need only to learn their written representations. That considerably lightens your learning load!