Only a small percentage of Chinese characters are pictographs. Over 95% are compounds, with the first part suggesting the broad category of meaning and the second part suggesting the pronunciation.
> Each single character translates to an English word or phrase
Each single character represents one Mandarin syllable (with a very small number of exceptions, like 儿), which may or may not be its own word. Hence each character may or may not translate into an English word or phrase.
Only a small percentage of Chinese characters are pictographs. Over 95% are compounds, with the first part suggesting the broad category of meaning and the second part suggesting the pronunciation.
> Each single character translates to an English word or phrase
Each single character represents one Mandarin syllable (with a very small number of exceptions, like 儿), which may or may not be its own word. Hence each character may or may not translate into an English word or phrase.