Bad news: I somehow managed to lose my only pair of glasses. It might have been nicked while I was sleeping in the bus – but who in the world steals spectacles? Anyway, today you can indulge in a list of job-related expressions. If you should happen find a pair of horn-rimmed glasses with a [...]
Archive for the ‘Hanzi’ Category
Characters 191 – 210 : Professions
Posted in Hanzi, tagged addressing, job, politeness, profession, titles on July 20, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Characters 171-190
Posted in Hanzi, tagged elementary, preposition, tense marker on July 19, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
见
jian4
APPEAR, SEE. It’s actually a picture of an eye with lashes. This was more obvious in the traditional form: 見
现
xian4
NOW, PRESENT, SHOW. Kings 王 like to SHOW off their wealth, PRESENTing it for everyone.
讯
xun4
INVESTIGATE; INTERROGATE; INFORMATION. Another character that contains the “speak”-radical. Apart from that, there’s also a cross, so we could think of the [...]
Characters 141-170 : Family Affairs Part 一
Posted in Hanzi, tagged children, family, family members, people on July 17, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Since I’m so elated that my husband finally got a week off to come and see me, I’ll provide you with some family-related vocab.
If you can think of more mnemonics or if you have anything else to share, feel free to comment or send me a mail: zhanglihua80 (at) ymail (dot) com .
In Chinese, there [...]
Characters 101-111: “Comrades”
Posted in Hanzi, tagged attitude, love, relationship on July 13, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
As per request, some LGBT vocab for you. (I had no idea what that term stood for, so thanks for broadening my vocabulary). If you don’t care about this kind of stuff, please read on nevertheless, the characters are useful and common (and not queer at all)!
The formal term for homosexuality is 同性恋, and it’s [...]
Character 71-100 : Surnames
Posted in Hanzi, tagged history, surnames on July 12, 2008 | 2 Comments »
Here I will give you the characters for 20 of the more common Chinese family names.
But first, some general info:
姓
xing4
TO BE SURNAMED. The etymology of this character is a bit confusing. It consists of 女(nü3, woman) and 生 (sheng1, be born), so although surnames take the patrilinear line, it came to mean “be surnamed”. But [...]
Characters 51-70
Posted in Hanzi on July 12, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
I am grateful for the nice comments and encouragement I have received. Please tell me whether this blog lives up to your expectations!
We will continue with a few simple (well, easier said than done) but crucial characters.
手
shou3
HAND. Doesn’t have enough fingers to provide a good mnemonic…so you might want to think of it as a [...]
Characters 31-50: Olympics
Posted in Hanzi, tagged Olympics on July 11, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
In this lesson, we will cover some of the most relevant vocabulary items for the upcoming Olympic Games in Beijing, enabling you to read commercials and cheer along with your Chinese friends.
The first expression is
北京奥运会
北京 bei3jing1
This phrase is the name of China’s capital Beijing, of course.
Let’s take a look at the characters for the [...]
Characters 21-30
Posted in Hanzi, tagged particles, transliteration on July 11, 2008 | 2 Comments »
This time, we will delve into the obscure world of onomatopoeia and particles. Not all of them will be particularly useful for a pre-intermediate learner, but I promise that this afternoon I will post a set of more common characters. The first ones are indispensable, though!
了
le
This particle is not just ” a thing of the [...]
Characters 1-20
Posted in Hanzi on July 9, 2008 | 4 Comments »
Let’s start with a few common ones. Note that they are all related to some extent. ALl of them are HSK 1.
人
ren2
A rough stick drawing of a PERSON. It also means PEOPLE. We can’t see the head, so it is probably bowed. It will be lifted, which indicated the RISING (2nd) tone.
大
da4
It means BIG. Imagine [...]
