The Chinese characters

Opening fact

Did you know that...
...many Chinese characters contain an element which hints at the meaning or the pronunciation of the character?

Lesson aims

After Lesson 2, you will be able to:

• say where Chinese characters came from;
• say what characters consist of;
• type characters on your computer.

Introduction

Contrary to what many may think, Chinese characters are not a collection of unrelated pictures, but consist of shapes created centuries ago in a very clever and logical manner. Each character represents not a word, as is commonly thought, but a syllable (remember? we learned about syllables in Lesson 1).
So a 2-syllable word is written using 2 characters.

Although there are thousands and thousands of characters, many of them are not used on a daily basis. It is enough to know a few thousand to be fully literate. However, for basic day-to-day needs a much smaller number is sufficient.

Basic information

Originally, characters came from old pictographic signs that represented various objects:

yuè [moon]	月
rì [sun]	日
shuĭ [water]	水
shān [mountain]	山
rén [human being, person]	人
huŏ [fire]	火
yŭ [rain]	雨

Some characters were combined together to make new characters:

míng [bright: combination of a sun and moon]	明
hăo [good: a combination of a child and a woman]	好
cóng [from: combination of 2 people]	从
zhòng [crowd: combined of 3 people]	众
xiū [rest: combination of a person and a tree]	休
shuāng [two, twin, both: a combination of two birds]	双
nán [Man: a combination of a field and a plough-like tool for harvest, “strength on the field”]	男

 

Today, the majority of characters are composed of two elements: a phonetic element, showing how to read the character and a meaning element, pointing out the meaning of the character. This means that sometimes you can guess the approximate meaning of the character if you know the meanings of its components.

hěn [very]

很

gēn [with, follow]  跟

phonetic element: 艮 gen

meaning element: 足 zu [foot, characters with that element are to do with walking]

guān [government official] 官

guăn [accomodation for guests] 馆

phonetic element: 官 guan

meaning element: 食 [food, characters with that element are to do with food, hunger etc.]

zhòng [grow, seed] 种

zhōng [bell] 钟

phonetic element: 中 zhong

meaning element: 禾 [standing grain]  金[gold, characters with that element are connected with metals]

Evaluate and comment this lesson

Latest comments

• Maksymilian Rakoczy

  10.10.2020 20:59
  TRUDNE
• Max Imperiali

  04.09.2020 15:25
  ok2
• Massimo Imperiali

  14.05.2020 17:55
  ok
• Massimo Imperiali

  14.05.2020 17:49
  ok
• Massimo Imperiali

  30.04.2020 20:44
  ok
• Massimo Imperiali

  30.04.2020 20:39
  ok
• Massimo Imperiali

  30.04.2020 20:36
  ok
• Marta Guzy

  29.04.2020 20:43
  fajne... tylko trudne!
• Massimo Imperiali

  26.04.2020 15:58
  facile per ora !
• Massimo Imperiali

  26.04.2020 15:51
  vedremo … !
• Massimo Imperiali

  26.04.2020 15:48
  chiarissimo !
• Massimo Imperiali

  26.04.2020 15:44
  :)
• Jaakko Koskelo

  07.10.2019 09:39
  Very useful information!
• Jaana Mattila

  10.07.2019 13:50
  Sekava. Esim. värien käyttö näyttämään mitä merkin osaa kulloinkin tarkoitetaan, tekisi heti selkeämmän.
• Jaana Mattila

  10.07.2019 13:45
  Sekava vaikutelma
• Chiara Camporese

  02.05.2018 22:15
  Spiegato benissimo
• ΕΥΘΥΜΙΟΣ - ΡΑΦΑΗΛ ΑΓΓΕΛΗΣ

  01.05.2018 23:52
  Excellent!!!
• Paolo Pasquini

  01.10.2017 07:47
  Ottima la lezione, i caratteri cinesi sono scritti troppo piccoli!
• levente schepisi

  10.07.2017 19:10
  Ottima lezione!
• Florian Costea

  08.05.2017 16:27
  Varianta in Romana foarte slaba.
  Textul incepe in Engleza.
  
• Florian Costea

  08.05.2017 16:23
  Corectati varianta in Romana
  xiū = odihna
• Aleksandra Kmin

  11.12.2016 15:33
  super brnę do przodu
• Amojo Samuel

  09.11.2016 20:07
  fine
• Carlo MARINO

  31.07.2016 22:03
  Very interesting lesson
• Ruzica Mikulic

  12.05.2016 17:01
  super
• Alexandru Popescu

  15.04.2016 21:58
  Excelenta lecție!
• reneja marn

  01.10.2015 15:22
  great lesson
• maria paola ricci

  31.07.2015 15:37
  interessante ... fa venire voglia di approfondire l'origine dei caratteri e come sono cambiati nel tempo
• Enrico Rossini

  13.03.2015 17:11
  very fashinating...it has a different and interesting tongue roots comparing with european languages
• Agnieszka Mazur

  11.03.2015 15:39
  I love this GOLD sign :) good sign :) very logic explanation
• Amaresh Biswas

  27.12.2014 15:52
  It is good for understanding, how a character has got the shape.
• Giovanni Villella

  14.11.2014 14:45
  Buono
• Waldemberg Fernandes osta Berg

  02.09.2014 03:25
  Bem explicativo.
• Milena Koleva

  20.04.2014 22:16
  Много интересно, веднага се запомня.
• Grace Sumidanu

  18.03.2014 21:54
  Przydatne złożenia podobnych znaków i ich wyjaśnienie.
• ari saarinen

  25.01.2014 19:16
  Guan no 2 pin yin not written right
• Raimo Pullat

  10.06.2013 16:12
  Grammatika on selgelt esitatud.
• Marius Lapė

  29.05.2013 09:43
  See on hästi kirjutatud.
• Esztora Petőfi

  16.05.2013 13:12
  Nagyon jól strukturált.
• Blanka Slavik

  14.05.2013 08:46
  Myslím, že táto lekcia je dosť atraktívna.
• Valdek Pall

  13.05.2013 13:38
  Väga hea heli kvaliteet
• Donata Cazacu

  13.05.2013 08:50
  Un mod foarte uşor şi interesant de a învăţa limbi străine.
• Андрей Врабчев

  10.05.2013 12:15
  Информацията е представена по много интересен начин.
  
• Marta Malinowska

  09.05.2013 14:33
  Faktycznie znaki bardzo fajnie i czytelnie przedstawione.
• Małgorzata Jendryczka

  30.12.2012 15:47
  Bardzo obrazowo przedstawione znaki, nawet dla manualnie niezbyt zdolnych użytkowników.