9. Chinese Character Fonts

There are a lot of Chinese fonts ( 字型 zi6 jing4 or 字體 zi6 tai2). Three common categories of Chinese fonts are listed below.

Font

Example

 明體 ming4 tai2 /
 宋體 sung3 tai2

 黑體 hak1 tai2

 楷體 kaai2 tai2

Among these three categories of fonts, 楷體 kaai2 tai2 looks most similar to handwritten Chinese characters. It is often used in Chinese textbooks. In other contexts, such as books, newspapers, websites, signage, you will usually see the other two categories of fonts.