Augmented Reality (AR) is believed a suitable teaching method for beginning-level Chinese as a Foreign Language (CFL) learners in learning Chinese characters, as the effects of AR on visualization may enhance recognition of pictographic characters and the integration of multimedia may facilitate comprehension of this logographic language. Yet the multimodal presentation may trigger different reactions in learners with distinct learning preference, including visual, aural, reading/writing, and kinesthetic (VARK) sensory modalities. This exploratory study aimed to investigate the effects and impacts of learning Chinese characters using AR application on beginning-level CFL learners, and took the impact of learning styles into consideration. Twenty-eight beginning-level Chinese as a foreign language (CFL) learner participated in the study, learning 24 Chinese characters with an AR application that demonstrated animated evolutionary processes. A Chinese character recognition test was implemented to evaluate the learning effects in terms of meaning identification and pinyin transliteration before and after the AR intervention. A VARK questionnaire was used to assess their preferred learning styles, and to cross-examine with the learning effects. The results showed significant improvements in the posttest, in particular the identification of character meanings. However, no significant difference was found in the test scores of the four modes of the VARK learning styles, though the learners with multimodal preferences that included the visual learning style had better scores.