How time flies by…

This morning, some neighbourhood kid greeted me with “老张你好!” Am I overreacting because I think that’s subtly disrespectful, make me aware of the fact that my 30th birthday is approaching? Does everyone (including my family) have to rub it in? 呵呵

肏! I’m 28, how can I be old?

These are the moments in life when I feel strangely alone, with a cute-but-exhausting toddler to take care of, an ancient tortoise shuffling under the wobbly table and a weird cousin to keep me company in a tiny flat. Besides, my husband hasn’t called in days, I hope he is well.

This post is solely to vent my frustration. But you learned a way of greeting older people and a swearword. Very helpful, don’t you think?

Character 71-100 : Surnames

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 if you know that women in China usually keep their family name, it might be easy to remember.

百姓

bai2xing4

Literally, “one hundred family names”. It can also be used to describe the ordinary folk, or peasants.

Some of the more common surnames are:

李

li3

PLUM. This is probably the most common family name. A friend from the UK once told me: “If you’ve forgotten the name of your interlocutor, simply call him Mr Li. Works almost all the time.” In my opinion, that’s too reductionist, but I can definitely see the appeal.

王

wang2

KING. See “Characters 51-70″ for an explanation.

张

zhang1

SHEET, STRETCH. A measure word for flat objects like photos. If I introduced myself as “Mrs. Sheet”, it would by a bit awkward. But the origins of Chinese surnames don’t really reflect a physical property or occupation.

陈

chen2

DISPLAY, NARRATE. Examples: Chen Duxiu, the founder of the Chinese Communist Party; Joan Chong Chen, a very successful actress who appeared in The Last Emperor; Steve Chen, Co-Founder of YouTube.

赵

zhao4

It is the name of a state in ancient times, but apart from that, it’s just a surname. Examples:

Zhao Shuli, a writer of the begiining of the 20th century; Zhao Yuanren, an important linguist.

何

he2

HOW, WHICH, CARRY.

刘

liu2

DESTROY, KILL.

黄

huang2

YELLOW, SULPHUR.

胡

hu2

BEARD. Hu Jintao, the current President of China, bears this surname.

杨

yang2

WILLOW, POPLAR.

周

zhou1

WEEK, CYCLE. Zhou Enlai, a popular CCP leader and premier 1949-1976.

林

lin2

FOREST.

梁

liang2

BRIDGE.

孙

sun1

GRANDCHILD. Sun Yixian (Sun Yatsen), the “father of modern CHina”.

朱

zhu1

VERMILLION, SCARLET.

马

ma3

HORSE.

邓

deng4

Just a surname. Deng Xiaoping, a reformer in the 80s and pioneer of “Socialism with Chinese characteristics”.

温

wen1

TEMPERATURE, WARM. Wen Jiabao, the current very popular Premier, has this surname.

丁

ding1

CUBE, FOURTH (in an old enumeration).

方

fang1

DIRECTION.

龙

long2

DRAGON. It can be a personal name as well, as in the case of Jackie Chan, 成龙 (Cheng2 Long2).

毛

mao2

FUR. The surname of Chairman Mao Zedong!

于

yu2

AT, BY, OUT.

There are very few compound surnames consisting of more than one character like 司马 (si1ma3, commander)

If you can think of well-known persons with one the names mentioned above, please let me know.

Characters 51-70

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 raised fist, the horizontal lines being the rows of the knuckles.

戈

ge1

LANCE. A radical. This a picture of a kind of ancient weapon that looks a bit like a blend of a dagger and an ax. Think of it as a dagger tied to one’s belt (the almost horizontal stroke). It’s blade is very sharp, hence first tone.

我

wo3

I, ME. It is a bit militaristic as it consists of the hand (手, shou3) and the lance (戈, ge1)- thus you’re the one wielding the weapon. It sound slightly like the Spanish “yo”.

找

zhao3

LOOK FOR, VISIT. The connection between the hand (in this case, the side-hand radical, which looks somewhat different, don’t confuse the two) and your weapon is broken: You don’t know where it is, so you have to SEARCH everywhere for it.

儿

er2

CHILD, SON, phonetic R. It used to be the “legs” radical. The traditional character 兒 is the picture of a baby with a fontanel that’s not yet closed (or if it helps you to remember this one, it could also resembles a cradle). Now, in the simplified form, you can only see the weirdly bent legs. 儿 is also used for the typical Beijing-R (in fact found in all norther accents), like in 好玩(儿): hao3wanr2 (“good fun” = enjoyable) . Note that with the 儿, you don’t add a syllable. 那儿 (there) is pronounced na4-r, not na4-er2. So actually 好玩儿 should be correctly spelled hao3war2, and not wanr2, but few textbooks do this.

无

wu2

TO LACK, NOT. (bookish) This is actually 尢 (you2, lame, still) with an additional stroke on top, so it’s “more than just being lame, rather having no legs (the lower part of the character is 儿) at all”, hence NOT.

气

qi4

ENERGY (in the spiritual and physical sense), BREATH, SOUL, VAPOR, “QI”. To me it looks like fumes from an exhaust pipe, hardly a spiritual connotation.

世

shi4

ERA, WORLD, GENERATION. It looks like a timeline with certain highlighted events, the second and third horizontal stroke indicating the duration of eras.

界

jie4

The arrow points at the BOUNDARY of a field 田 which at the same time represents the WORLD。It also reminds us that within our “common ground”, the SOCIETY, certain LIMITs persist.

夫

fu1

HUSBAND, SPECIALIST (in a field of expertise, not a military rank). Think of it as the 大 (da4, big) character with and extra stroke as the head (the head of a family, although this idea is old-fashioned).

天

tian1

SKY, HEAVEN, DAY, GOD. Although the stroke order is the same as in 夫, 天 can be (to yield a “memory hook”) split up into 人 (ren2, person) and the top part. “Man 人 is aspiring to reach the sky 天, so he builds a ladder to reach even the highest level of the heavenly realm.” Some consider it to be the picture of a deity though, perhaps a kind of Janus-faced god.

竹

zhu2

Let’s get botanical. This character is a drawing of two stalks of BAMBOO. This perennial plant can grow very tall, hence the second tone.

笑

xiao4

LAUGH, RIDICULE. So, let’s devise a little fairy tale: Once upon a time, the people of a village tied together millions of bamboo竹 stalks to build a tower that reaches up to the sky 天. The gods could only laugh 笑 about this feeble effort. If you think you’ve outgrown this kind of story, the following description might serve you better: “When bamboo is brushed by the wind, it gently leans back like someone laughing.” Sometimes laughs come out in bursts though, so the fourth tone is used.

禾

he2

GRAIN, RICE. This is a pictograph as well, note that is has one more stroke than 木 (mu4, tree), perhaps be cause you use the top of the grain and discard the stalks but only the trunk of a tree is used.

和

he2

AND. 禾 is the phonetic here, as indicated by the mouth 口. 和 cannot link whole clauses.

王

wang2

KING. (and a very common surname). A monarch used to present himself as a kind of mediator between earthly matters, human being and the heaven. And of course, there are three classes in a typical monarchy: clergy, nobility, commoner.

玉

yu4

JADE. It’s a picture of a stack consisting of three shiny (the dot!) disks of jade.

主

zhu3

HOST, LORD, MAIN THING. Appears frequently as a phonetic. A kind of king, but with a drop as a crown, so his authority is a bit “watered down” in comparison to the monarch.

住

zhu4

LIVE, STAY. A person (the side-man radical) approaches the landlord 主 of a house to ask him whether he can STAY there.

注

zhu4

ANNOTATE, CONCENTRATE, STAKE. Measure word for sums of money, deals or transactions. (FIrst meaning:  ) A principal 主 has the authority to interrupt the flow (indicated by the water-dots) of a text with annotations.(Second meaning: ) The flow of money, on the other hand, is determined by international tradings.

Namesake

This morning, I received an email from a former student of mine (now at the university) who’d been struggling for three weeks to get his academic website online after it had been blocked. He succeeded and wrote in to tell me what had been the reason for the inexplicable inaccessibility: Apparently, one of the papers he’d cited had been co-authored by a Chinese engineering scientist who bears the same name as a prominent critic of the  Government.

Ah, the ails of modern software….

Spicy prejudices

One of my students, sitting idly on a wall with some friends of his, is munching away on a bag of what appears to be wasabi-coated nuts or beans. Upon stuffing one of the greenish balls into his mouth, he remarks: “Hmm, brilliant taste. One of the few things those Japs actually got right.”

He seems to be brimming with intellect.

Characters 31-50: Olympics

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 directions first:

北

bei3

North. The parallel strokes point towards the north. Just think of Beijing, and you aren’t likely to forget the pronunciation.

南

nan2

South. It seems to contain a form of 羊 (yang2, sheep, note that it has only two horizontal strokes in nan2), which helps with the meaning (a lot of wool is produced in Australia) and the pronunciation. An interesting sidenote: 男人 (nan2ren2, male) from the south of China are supposed to be less “masculine” then men from the northern areas. I wouldn’t know…

西

xi1

West. It resembles 酒 (jiu3, alcohol), so perhaps the thought of wine or whiskey will help you with the meaning. Or: It looks like the lower part of 元 (yuan2, dollar) and a mouth – I’m sure you can draw a vivid image yourself, I won’t explain my thoughts since I’m sure you’d mind me getting political . 西班牙 (xi1ban1ya2) – Spain is the “western job tooth”.

东

dong1

East. This is 东西的东, meaning the “dong1 that’s also found in dong1xi. Since the term 东西 (“things”) literally means east-west (but pronounce the xi in the neutral tone, otherwise it will really mean “east-west” and not “things”), we can remember this compound by thinking of how different from the west things are done in the east (whether you think of the US east and west coast or the “western world” and china, is your decision). Regarding东 itself, it you think of the character in 3D, it looks like bird poking its head out of a nest, a simile for the rising sun, ex oriente lux. The O of orient helps to remember the pronunciation. First write the upper horizontal stroke, then the V-like part and finally the little bird 小。

“清 东南西北” means “to know the directions”.

京

(jing1) means capital, 京城 (jing1cheng2) is “capital city”. It looks like 小 a huge head and a crown – a capital is usually one of the biggest cities of a country and the seat of the government.

Moving on to 奥运会 (ao4yun4hui4):

In fact, it’s the abbreviation of 奥林匹克运动会.

会

(hui4) means meeting, or association. It looks like a roof above a cloud 云 (yun2). Under the association’s roof, many ideas are assembled together.

运

(yun4) is 运动的运, 运动 means exercise or training, which is of course appropriate for the olympics. Both radicals means move (the辶 walking radical, someone taking a long stride) or transport (yun2, the cloud 云 that transports water).

奥

(ao4) is simply used for the sound, to make the Chinese word resemble “Olympia”.

The next phrase we will look at is

中国加油

中

zhong1

The meaning is very clear – a rectangcle cut in half, hence MIDDLE, CENTRE. No wavy lines, thus the flat first tone. AS a student of Chinese, you ought to remember this character…unless you want to embarass yourself. Write the rectangle first, then cross it out.

国

guo2

This is a very patriotic character: COUNTRY. It consists of the jade radical, a very valuable ornamental stone, enclosed within borders (or in the heart, figuratively). The jade radical was originally a picture of a stack of stones, the dot was added to distinguish it from 王 (wang2, king/family name).

加

jia1

It means ADD, INCREASE. It consists of 力 and 口. Imagine your teacher telling 口 (perhaps he’s even “chanting”, hinting at jia1) you to use your strength 力 and make an extra effort.

油

you2

This character, confusingly enough, means OIL. The side-water radical indicates that it’s a liquid. The second part looks like a fountain springing from a field 田 (tian2), hence, OIL field.

中国 therefore means “country of the centre”, CHINA. (The official name is 中华人民共和国)

加油 literally means “add oil”, so it basically means “put in extra effort”.

中国加油 is the official cheer for the Olympics, to spur on Chinese athletes. You could replace the 中国 with other country names like 英国(ying1guo2, English)， 日本 (ri4ben3, Japan)， 德国 (de2guo2, Germany)，美国(mei3guo2, United States) and so on.

The next set of expressions is

福娃

福

fu2

GOOD FORTUNE, BLESSING. A calligraphy of this character is hung upside-down in the house during Chinese New Year, to entice luck to come to the household. This is a relic of superstitions, and the cult radical 礻hints at that. If you have one 一 (yi1) field 田(tian2) per mouth 口(kou3), you certainly are very wealthy and lucky.

娃

wa2

Baby, doll. This looks similiar to the “wailing” character 哇, the sound a baby would make. The character consists of two 土 (tu3, earth) and 女 (nü3, woman). The earth component could indicate property, and for ages, the only purpose in life and property of a woman was her child, hence BABY.

福娃 (fu2wa4) “the fortune dolls” is the name of the official mascots of the Beijing Olympics. The are sometimes called “Friendlies” and are depicted on everything ranging from t-shirts to coins (I actually got five of them from my husband). There are five of them, and their names are 特别 (te4bie2, special):

贝贝

bei4

Money, cowrie. It looks like a clam with protruding feet. Cowries were an early form of currency.

晶晶

jing1

crystal, radiant, clear. The character consists of three suns 日 (ri4) resembling the facets of a crystal, hence “extremely bright”. Common component of feminine names.

欢欢

huan1

joyful, pleased.

迎迎

ying2

welcome, embrace. Again, we have the “walk”-radical 辶. So you’re running to greet your backpacked guest (卩 is the seal radical, but it looks like the profile image of a person with a backpack, at least for the sake of the mnemonic …) with open arms (the C-shaped part), yelling “yippie!” (ying2).

妮妮

ni1

cutie, maid. Phonetic in feminine names.

Put together, these names read (some of the characters and tones change, but the

sound remains!):

北京欢迎你 (bei3jing1 huan1ying2 ni3)

Beijing welcomes you!

Characters 21-30

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 PAST”. Instead, it indicates a change of state, and as such, may be used for past events that may or may not be repeatable. It also has a feeling of currentness (Examples: 我感冒了。 wo3gan3mao4 le. I have caught a cold: I am ill now [my condition has changed]. 我毕业了. wo3bi4ye4le. I have graduated. [In the past, can only be done once, so 过 - guo4 would not be appropriate. My state has changed, I am no longer a student. This has an impact on the present.]) As for the pronunciation – what happens when you turn the character by 180°? You get an “L”.

吗

ma

Particle to form a question. Note that it contains 马, the horse (ma3). The “Mouth” on the left gives us a hint that the next part is phonetic (the ma3 horse, in this case) or the character is a particle/used for transliterations. The word order in a Chinese question is the same as in a statement, just put the ma 吗 at the end. YOu will not need (so DON’T use it) a 吗 if you use a “this-or-not-this” structure (你大不大? Are you big (“or not big”)?). Nor is it to be used if you already have a question word (for a content question, not just a yes-no-question) like 哪 (na3 -what) or 谁 (shei2 – who), e.g. 你是谁? (ni3 shi4 shei2 – You are who? = Who are you?)

呢

ne

This is a weird one, ne. The easiest meaning is “and” as in 你呢? (ni3ne – And you? =What about you?) It refers to the status of an object that is known to the speakers, has been introduced before or is somehow in a relationship to other similar things in the conversation. The feeling it convey is similar to “sooo….”, “and that?” “what about XX, then?”. If your friend passes out candy, but you get missed out, you can use 呢 to complain – “Hey, what about me?”. Or, in a chat “So, regarding these books….”. In a store: “And this pair of shoes?” It is rather conversational. The mouth-radical fulfills its usual function. Then we have a family-radical (户, hu4) and something that looks like a sugary stick (what are these brightly coloured sweets actually called? They look like walking sticks. I once heard the term in a movie, but 我忘了, I forgot. I hope you’re familiar with them.) So let’s imagine everyone in the family gets a sweet, except for you. Which particle can you use here?

拉

la (often la1)

Not really a particle, but often to be found in transliterations like 拉法格 (la1 fa3 ge2), 拉登 (la1deng1), 法拉利 (fa3la1li4) or 潘多拉 (pan1duo1la1), and even 法拉 (fa3la1). (Can you guess who is hiding behind these transliterations? Post a comment!) There are also some independent words like manufacture or pulled noodles that contain it. Lesbians in China have adopted the terms 拉拉 or 拉子.

嘛

soon to come

啊

soon to come

呵

he

Sound of laughter (hehe!). The mouth indicates the onomatopoeic quality of this character. The partial face on the right is almost “all mouth”, so the person is laughing very hard.

哈

ha

Sound of laughter (haha!). The mouth at the side again, warning of a phonetic. To me, the other part looks like someone who has thrown his head back in laughter, you only see his wide, open mouth and the nostrils.

哦

soon to come

噢

soon to come

For in-depth explanation of all these elusive particles, consult a grammar book or ask nicely (呵呵).

我困死了，下次见。 晚安。

(Wo3 kun4 si3 le, xia4ci4jian4. Wan3an1- I am extremely (“to death”) sleepy, see you next time. Good night.)

The Student of Chinese and the Order of the Strokes

That’s where the exhausting business starts – actual writing. And, you could have guessed: There are even rules for the very order according to which you have to draw the strokes of a character, as if you didn’t have to worry about a thousand things already.

I can almost hear your collective sigh: Hey, the characters and pronunciation are complicated enough! Nonetheless, following these rules will makes your writing more orderly (duh!) and fluent. They also serve as mental “hooks” for remembering the components.

I dare admit that I cannot read most calligraphy (traditional characters are also a challenge, I was born way after the initial introduction of the simplified ones), but a sloppy handwriting is probably just as bad. There are even a few characters that differ just by the very direction of a slant or a single dot.

But do not despair! The rules are fairly straightforward and simple. They are introduced in the following paragraphs.

1. Write from the top to the bottom. Example: 三 (san1 – three) Please be not lead to think that you will have to write all the top strokes first – learn to think in radicals (the components of a character), which are written top down.

2. Write left to right. In calligraphy, there may be different arrangements (columns or squares) of the text, but in normal writing, left-right is observed. Same goes true for the characters themselves. Example: 慢 (man4 – slow) – first the heart radical on the left, the proceed to the components on the right-hand side.

Let’s get a bit into more specific rules here:

3. The vertical (竖 – shu4） stroke is preceded by the horizontal （横 – heng2）one. Remember: You need a baseline first to which you can “attach” other lines or on which you can “put” others. Example: 十 (shi2 – ten) Mnemonic: To hang (heng2) a shoe (shu4).

4. Draw the slant to the left (left falling stroke) before the right one. This rule applies even if the start of the left slant (撇 – pie3) starts farther on the right than the right falling stroke (捺 – na4). The horizontal will be written before either of these. Examples: 人 (ren2 – person) ; 大 (da4 -big) Mnemonic: To gnaw (na4) at a pie (pie3).

5. Write the dot(s) first, unless: They occur inside of a character, beneath other components (as in the case of the four fire dots, e.g. in 黑 hei1 – black), they belong to a radical that cannot be written at the beginning or go in the top right corner. 我 (last; wo3 – I) 门 (first; men2 – gate), 冰 (first; bing1 – ice); 太 (last; tai4 – too)

6. If there are more than one horizontal and vertical stroke, write the vertical first, the horizontal at the bottom last. Example: 士 (shi4 – scholar/knight)

7. If there is a horizontal stroke that goes straight through the character, write it last. (imagine not liking your character and crossing it out) Example: 女 (nü3 – woman)

8. If there are components that look like 廴 or 辶 in your character, write them last. (Don’t forget to leave enough space for them!)

9. First centre, then periphery. Example: 小 (xiao3 – small)

10. First write the outside, then the inside. Example: 肉 (rou4 – meat)

11. First complete the inside of a “box”, then write the last stroke that “seals” the “box”. Example: 目 (mu4 – eye)

I hope you will not disconcerted. Pay attention to the stroke order when learning your first characters, after a while the correct order will become logical and natural. It is really not as complicated as it might seem. Just give it a try!

Books like Reading & Writing Chinese (Simplified Character Edition) by William McNaughton are strongly recommended. They also serve as dictionaries for beginners.

Characters 1-20

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 a person with her arms spread to indicate the enormity of something she has just seen. Or perhaps she is your big sister trying to give you a hug…? Big things are usually heavy, so there is the chance that you might drop them, hence, the FALLING (4th) tone.

不

bu4

This versatile little character means NO or NOT. Note that there are more Hanzi that have a negating function. 不 is used for negating most verbs except 有 “to have”. Forcefully, you negate an accusation, thus 4th tone. The stroke order might be a bit counter-intuitive (see next blog entry for an explanation of the rules for stroke order): First the horizontal stroke (from left to right, of course), then then slant to the left, then the downward stroke (touching the slant and not the horizontal stroke!) and finally the slant to the right.

木

mu4

This character means TREE or WOOD and fortunately, it looks like a tree. Note that it seems to consist of 大(da4) and a downward stroke. Imagine a steadfast (4th tone!) tall growing tree. You will have to turn your eyes upwards to see the whole of it, which gives you an indication for the pronunciation: 目, the “eye” radical, is pronounced mu4 as well.

林

lin2

Several tree form what? A FOREST of, course. Note that the left tree is a bit “crippled”, perhaps because it grew first and is weathered. Lin is also a surname, e.g Lin Sang (Olympic athlete, archer) or Lin Biao (Communist PLA general).

本

ben3

But one day, our glorious tree has to give in eventually, being upROOTed or cut down so that only the TRUNK, the very BASE or FOUNDATION of it is left. 本 is also a measure word for books and documents, which are the SOURCEs of information. Although a base seems like something level, roots branch out and keep the tree from rising into the air as well as falling, hence the rising-falling tone (3rd).

杯

bei1

It means CUP or GLASS. 杯 is also a kind of measure word for beverages (“be-” hints at the pronunciation), as in “I want to drink a GLASS of water”. It constists of “wood” 木 and “not” 不, obviously cups are rarely made of wood. The 不 probably gives the sound here. It is the first tone, which is easy to remember since cups are smooth and the surface of a drink is still and level as well.

十

shi2

This simple character means TEN. The hand sign to indicate ten in Chinese is two arms or hands crossed to form a plus/shape. Jesus’ teachings, who was crucified, are based on the ten commandments, that might help you remember. 十 consists of two strokes, so the second tone is used. Note that in some regions of China, the “sh” becomes a “s”, so 十 shi2 will sound a bit like 四 si4. Confusions abound!

一

yi1

ONE. Couldn’t be any simpler. The tone marker (flat and high first tone) looks exactly like the characters itself.

二

er4

TWO. Note that the first stroke is shorter than the second. If you look at the right side of this character, you can imagine a falling line, which looks like the tone marker for the 4th tone, connecting both strokes.

女

nü3 (nv3)

This character means WOMAN. According to some scholars, it depicts a sitting woman with her legs modestly crossed. The first stroke could also refer to the hump of the bosom. This character, as a radical, occurs in a great number of seemingly unrelated zi. Women are said to waver, this stereotypical idea will help us remember the tone: 3rd.

任

ren4 for the whole character, ren2 for the “side-man”-radical

Let’s focus on the left part, which looks like the profile of a person, of this character only. It is the “SIDE-MAN”-radical, which can’t be found on it’s own (the human being is a zoon politicon…), but is used in countless characters for clarification.

门

men2

This character already looks like a DOORway, and that’s exactly what it means: DOOR, GATE etc. See the next character for tips on how to memorize the pronunciation. Remember to write the little dot first!

们

men2

It’s 门 clarified with the side-man. It is used to indicate PLURAL. Note than the concept of pluralising in Chinese is different from many other languages. If the plural is already clear from the context,们 is not used. Men is the plural of man, so you know the pronunciation and the composing elements!

小

xiao3

A LITTLE/SMALL bird that has not spread its wings (unlike the man in 大!). It’s used for anything small, even as a friendly prefix for close acquaintances that are younger than oneself (小林 – Xiao3Lin2 “Little Lin”). First draw the central stroke, then the left wing, after that, the right one.

冂

jiong1

This is the BORDERS radical. Note that it comprises of two strokes forming three sides of a square (obviously, the fourth side is unnecessary since that’s where the country that shares the drawn borders with her neighbours is situated). After periods of smooth (1st tone!) relations, fierce (“xiong”, we’ll learn this character later) fights over borders break out.

口

kou3

A complete square, this character is apparently a picture of an opening, the MOUTH. We use it as a measure words for people (like in the English “hungry MOUTHS to fill”) It is also a very common element in other characters, indication exclamations or particles or anything to do with speech. Thinking of “to chew”, “kauen”, “mâcher”, “macxo” or “mascar” might help you with the pronuciation.

尔

er3 for the whole character, mi4 for the topmost crown radical

Please take a look at the top of the character. We are already familiar with the 小. mi4 is the reading of the CROWN of our little bird. (FYI, the character 尔 itself means “you”, but is very bookish. It is only used in transliterations, f.e 沃尔沃 Wo4er3wo4 ; 沃尔玛 wo4er3ma3 or 希尔顿xi1er3dun4. Can you guess which brands are transliterated here? We will get to know the real You in a moment.)

你

ni3

The side-man helps us with the meaning: YOU. Perhaps thinking of “née” will help with the pronunciation, since even after a name change, you are still yourself.

言

yan2

Four strokes/puffs of breath coming out of the mouth? WORDS, clearly. Note that the topmost stroke usually is a little dot. All this idle talk makes me “yawn” – a good hint at the pronunciation.

欢迎你们! Welcome everybody!

Aims:

This weblog has been designed to help learners of Mandarin Chinese, providing them with a powerful memorization tool for Hanzi, the intricate characters the Chinese writing system comprises of. Despite their elegance, they are very difficult to keep in mind, especially if you also want to be able to write them instead of “merely” recognizing them. I will try to help you with mnemonics, insights on etymology and funny stories. Children acquire their writing skills through pure rote learning. This approach doesn’t work for teenagers and adults anymore.
Each day, we will take a close look at 20 characters, their reading, translation compounds and radicals. This
way, you will hypothetically be able to learn the 6000 most common characters within a single year. But it
doesn’t matter if you can’t keep up with that speed, although I am sure you’ll be able to retain most of them
even without writing them for hundreds of times (but that would make your handwriting more fluent). Concentrate on the ones that are appropriate and useful at your level. The HSK level indicates when knowledge of a certain Hanzi is required, and the frequency with which they appear can be measured, at least for the 2000 most common ones, so they can be ranked in several ways.
On Sundays, additional material will be posted for your enjoyment, like song lyrics, subtitled movies, excerpts, poems, Chengyu, the 101 of studying Chinese, select online lessons and critiques of books and other learning material.

It is sometimes not advisable to learn the characters from the very start and congest your brain with loads of abstract information, but it can be a very fulfilling endeavour. I recommend to learn a few important
characters even if you’re just a tourist because it will faciliate communication and enable you to find
restaurant and the right bathroom.

Even a little knowledge will go a long way!
I wish you all the best for your studies!
Feel welcome to leave comments and let me know about any questions or suggestions. If you have a story or mnemonic to share, do not hesitate.
If you have any questions concerning grammar, I refer you to the community at chinesepod.com, where you can also find excellent, professionally done podcasts and materials. Since I am not affiliated with them, I will introduce and review other resources and books,too.

A few pieces of information about myself:
My name is Zhang Lihua (张 莉花, zhang1 li4hua1), I sometimes go by the English name Jasmine Zhang. Born in 1980, I am a native of Hunan 湖南 province, therefore Chinese (Mandarin) is my mother tongue. I started learning English properly and intensively when I was 12. After graduating from high school, I spent two years in the army, receiving vocational training as an engineer. During that time, I realized that my true calling was teaching. So I studied education and now I work as a regular teacher for Physics and English at a local high
school in Wuhan 武汉 , Hubei 湖北 province, occasionally for Biology as well. I also tutor foreigner trying to come to terms with the Chinese
language and culture, whether they need it for business, exploration of personal heritage, family or leisure.
From that aspect of my profession arose the idea of providing you with memorization hints for the characters. I married in 2005 and with my husband, who currently works in Beijing, I have a little daughter. I enjoy reading, watching movies, music and photography.

The website:

The title 真善美 (zhen1shan4mei3) is a poetic term which means “truth, virtue and beauty”. You will need Chinese language support in order to display the characters properly. Since I live in the PRC, I will teach you the simplified characters. This blog might not be accessible all the time, but I think have found a good method.