School & Learning学习
Study, read, write — the characters of the classroom.
The classroom characters carry more cultural weight than any other beginner set. 学 (study) appears in 学生 (student, a 'study-person'), 学校 (school) and 大学 (university, literally 'big learning'). 字 itself — character, the writing you're learning right now — shows a child under a roof, a tidy image of where literacy begins. The very name of this site lives inside this topic.
Two compounds here are worth savoring. 老师 (teacher) leads with 老, 'old' — a title of respect in a culture where age implies earned wisdom. And 中文 (Chinese language) contains 中 from 中国, the Middle Kingdom. These aren't just vocabulary: they're the first pieces of how the language talks about itself, and every one of them will follow you to the end of your studies.