Characters are the main carrier of culture. Through characters, ancient values or things could pass and be succeeded. The efficiency of teaching of Chinese characters has a close relationship with the success of language education and the passing of culture. Word recognition is the base of language education and language is further the foundation of all academic subjects. How to elevate the efficiency of the teaching of word recognition is the major problem language educators are facing now. It's also the great challenge of the passing of culture. Learning vocabulary by visualization is a method using images to present and introduce the formation of characters and the development of the form of characters. It also explains and analyzes the characters having similar structures, sounds or meanings. This method is based on the theory of etymology and cognitive psychology. It is not the opposite of other teaching methods of word recognition. On the contrary, this method could help learners recognize words faster and have a deeper impression. It could also motivate learners. For them, it's an effective and interesting way to learn. This article discusses the characteristics of Chinese characters, the relationship between their forms and meanings and the application of cognitive psychology in word recognition. The discussions are from easier ones to more complicated ones. It helps to demonstrate the teaching principles of learning vocabulary by visualization step by step.