> In Mandarin, if I want to tell you a new character I have to show you. There is no way to describe it.
This isn't strictly true. Some characters are simple combinations of radicals and other characters and can be sufficiently described as saying "the radical for x and the character for y." For example, the word for hungry (饿, è) is a combination of the radical for "eat" or "food" (饣, shí) and the character for "self" or "me" (我, wǒ).
I'm only a beginning student of the language, so I can't claim that many other characters are as simple to describe.
This isn't strictly true. Some characters are simple combinations of radicals and other characters and can be sufficiently described as saying "the radical for x and the character for y." For example, the word for hungry (饿, è) is a combination of the radical for "eat" or "food" (饣, shí) and the character for "self" or "me" (我, wǒ).
I'm only a beginning student of the language, so I can't claim that many other characters are as simple to describe.