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中文沒有太難!

Basics

Introduction to Chinese Characters​
  • Word Etymologies
  • Why should you learn etymology? By understanding the basis of where the word came from, it is a lot easier to understand the meaning and remember how to write it. For the intents and purposes of this lesson, the words will be written in Traditional form. 
    • Pictographs (象形 xiàng xíng: literally "similar shape")
      • ​Drawings of objects they represent (use your imagination)
      • Examples: 馬, 木, 火 (horse, wood, fire)
    • Ideographs (指事 zhǐ shì)
      • Abstract characters expressed as a character
      • Examples: 上, 下 (Up, Down)
    • Compound Ideographs (會意 huì yì:)
      • A character composed of 2 or more pictographs or ideographs
      • Example: 看- to look, to see (Combines the pictographs of a hand over an eye)
    • Phono-semantic Compounds (形聲 xíng shēng: literally "Shape sound")
      • The most common type of word. It combines a character that provides pronunciation with a "radical", a kind fo word 'root' to give it meaning
      • Example: 麵- flour (Combines the meaning of 麥, wheat, with the sound of 面 to form the word)
    • Phonetic loan (假借 jiǎ jiè)
      • A character that borrows its sound from one word and meaning from another
      • Example: 沙- sand (Borrows sound from 少,  "little", and derives its meaning from the 氵radical that indicates water)
    • Derivative Cognates (轉注 zhuǎn zhù )
      • ​Words that have the same roots but have been changed to have different meanings.
      • Example: 考- to test    and  老- old, both have the same roots as meaning "old" in ancient Chinese, but have been changed to mean different things now. 
  • Resources: http://www.yellowbridge.com/chinese/character-dictionary.php  is great for explaining words and discovering how each word was formed.
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