Learning Chinese

Did you know that, including the rarely used and archaic ones, there are about 50,000 Chinese characters? However, “full” literacy only requires a knowledge between three to four thousand characters…

 

Chinese markings dating back even earlier than the Mesopotamian writing system were reportedly found, although there have been doubts on whether or not these should be considered writings.  The Oracle Bone Script（甲骨文, literally “shell bone script”）are the oldest known Chinese inscriptions which are unmistakably writings.  They were discovered on pieces of bone and turtle shell, thus earning its name.  It is a well-developed writing system, dating back to the Shang Dynasty (1200 – 1050 BC).  Since then, characters in the Chinese language have developed over time into the traditional Chinese writing often seen in older versions of books, and the simplified Chinese writing we more commonly use today.

The Oracle Bone Script

Chinese characters, or Han characters （汉字）were formed through various ways, such as resemblance of an object (pictograms), or sound (phono-semantic compounds).  In most cases, however, the resemblance can no longer be seen or heard.  Chinese characters, as a whole, are now classified as logograms (symbols used to represent a word, for example the $ sign for dollar).

 

Based on the formation of characters, they are usually classified into six categories:

 

1. Pictograms （象形字）

Characters derived from pictures and simplified to make writing easier.

Example: “日”, for “sun”; “木”, for “tree”  

2. Ideograms（指事字）

Literally meaning “indicating the object”, these characters are mostly direct iconic illustrations.

Example: “上”and“下”, for “up” and “down”, the character for “up” has two strokes above a line, while the character for “down” has two strokes below the line.

 

3. Ideogrammic compounds（会意字）

Characters created from the combination of pictograms or ideograms.

Example: By doubling and tripling the pictogram “木”, the characters “森林”are produced, meaning “forest”.

 

4. Phono-semantic compounds（形声字）

Characters composed of two parts: the first part, known as the radical, is a set of pictographs which represent the general meaning of the character or what they’re related to (semantic); the other is an existing character pronounced about the same as the new character (phono).

Example: “河”for “river”, and“湖”for “lake”.  Both characters have three dots as the radical, which is the pictogram for water droplets, indicating that the meanings of the characters have something to do with water.  The phonetic indicator for “河” (pronounced “hé”) is “可” (pronounced “kĕ”), and in the case of “湖”it is“胡”, both pronounced “hú”.

 

Strictly speaking, the last two categories,” transformed cognates” （转注字）and “rebus”（假借字）are not categories based on the formation of characters, but more on the usage of characters.  Transformed cognates are characters which were originally one character with multiple meanings, later on separated into different but similar characters.  Rebus, literally meaning “falsely borrowing a character”, covers cases where another character is “borrowed” to represent another unrelated word with a similar pronunciation.

 

A single Chinese character can have multiple meanings and also multiple pronunciations.  Note that Chinese characters should not be confused with Chinese words.  Chinese characters have a single syllable, whereas Chinese words require two or more characters put together, thus being poly-syllabic, but have meaning that can be derived from the characters they are made out of.  For example, “手”means “hand”, and“机”can mean “machine”.  Put them together and you have “手机”, which means “hand phone”.  Since different meanings, pronunciations, and combinations of characters produce different words with different meanings, it is, of course, somewhat difficult to determine the meaning of a word you haven’t come across before.

 

The funny thing about Chinese characters is that when you play around with them, you often get ironic, but also meaningful results.  Here are a few examples:

 

1. Have you ever seen the Chinese character “福”pasted upside-down on someone’s front door?

 

Well, it wasn’t an accident.  The character “福”means “happiness”, or “good fortune”.  The Chinese character for upside-down is “倒”, pronounced the same as“到”, which means “arrive”.  So when “福”is upside-down, it is“福倒”, which sounds exactly like “福到”, meaning “happiness/good fortune has arrived/will be arriving”.

 

2. The Chinese word for “crisis” is “危机”.  Broken down into characters, “危”means “danger”, while“机”means “opportunity”.  Thus, it could be interpreted as a reminder to see the golden opportunity offered in every crisis.

 

3. The character “饭”means “rice”.  The radical for this character is also used in characters related to food, such as “饿”, meaning “hungry”.  The right side of the character is “反”, meaning “anti-” or “against”.  As often seen in the history of China, once the people of the country do not have enough food to survive, they rebel.

 

4. “不”means “no”.  “可”and “能”means “can”, or “able to”.  Put together, “不可能”means “impossible”.  However, adding a comma makes “不，可能”meaning “no, it’s possible!”

 

So, anyone interested in learning Chinese?