Categories of Chinese characters
Chinese characters are usually grouped into five categories:
1. Pictograms: These are a relatively small number of characters that resemble the things they denote. They tend to represent basic physical objects like the sun (日), water (水) or a tree (木).
2. Ideograms: A small number of characters that iconically represent their meaning. For example 上 meaning 'up' and 下 meaning 'down'.
3. Meaning/meaning compounds: The meaning of the character is related to the meaning of its constituents. 好 for example is made up of 女 (woman) and 子 (son) , representing the idea of 'good'. 家 has 豕 (pig) under 宀 (roof) to suggest the idea of 'house' or 'home'.
4. Sound-loan characters: A character is used to represent a syllable with an identical or similar pronunciation. 自 (zì, self) originally meant 'nose' and was then used to represent the similar sounding word meaning 'self'. The modern character for 'nose' 鼻 (bí) still retains 自 as a compound.
5. Sound-meaning compounds: The majority of characters are sound meaning compounds, where one component represent the sounds with the other giving an indication of the meaning.
For example, the character 中(zhōng, middle) appears in the compounds:
种 (zhǒng, kind, seed) - meaning component 禾 (grain)
忠 (zhōng, faithful) - meaning component 心 (heart)
钟 (zhōng, clock) - meaning component 钅 (metal)
冲 (chōng, to rinse) - meaning component 冫 (ice)
in traditional form 冲 was written as 沖 with 氵 (water)