This paper presents the primary results of research on Chinese characters teaching of Chinese as maternal language and Chinese as a foreign language. In China, the teaching of characters has a long history and has accumulated precious experiences. The author especially studied the method of teaching characters in the Mass Education movement (pingmin jiaoyu) of the years 1920-1927, and the “regrouped character teaching” (jizhong shizi) created in 1958 for primary schools. He insists on the answers these methods have given to two main questions: 1. How many characters must a student learn in order to be able to read? 2. How is it possible to teach characters in a “reasoned ”way, respecting the rules of the graphic composition of the characters and using the most efficient way for a student to memorize them?