You probably think learning how to write in Chinese is impossible.
And I get it.
I’m a native English speaker, and I know how complex Chinese characters seem.
But you’re about to learn that it’s not impossible.
I’ve teamed up with Kyle Balmer from Sensible Chinese to show you how you can learn the basic building blocks of the Chinese written language, and build your Chinese vocabulary quickly.
First, you’ll learn the basics of how the Chinese written language is constructed. Then, you’ll get a step-by-step guide for how to write Chinese characters sensibly and systematically.
Wondering how it can be so easy?
Then let’s get into it.
Don’t have time to read this now? Click here to download a free PDF of the article
By the way, if you want to learn Chinese fast and have fun, my top recommendation is Chinese Uncovered which teaches you through StoryLearning®.
With Chinese Uncovered you’ll use my unique StoryLearning® method to learn Chinese through story… not rules.
It’s as fun as it is effective.
If you’re ready to get started, click here for a 7-day FREE trial.
How To Write In Chinese
Chinese is a complex language with many dialects and varieties.
Before we dive into learning to write Chinese characters, let’s just take a second to be clear exactly what we’ll be talking about.
First, you’ll be learning about Mandarin Chinese, the “standard” dialect. There are 5 main groups of dialects and perhaps 200 individual dialects in China & Taiwan. Mandarin Chinese is the “standard” used in Beijing and spoken or understood, by 2/3 of the population.
Second, there are two types of Chinese characters: Traditional and Simplified. In this article, we’ll be talking about Simplified Chinese characters, which are used in the majority of Mainland China.
There is an ongoing politicised debate about the two kinds of characters, and those asking themselves: “Should I learn traditional or simplified Chinese characters?” can face a difficult choice.
- For more on difference between Simplified and Traditional characters read this article
- To learn more about “the debate” read this excellent Wikipedia article
- If you want to switch Simplified characters into Traditional, you might like the fantastic New Tong Wen Tang browser plugin
First Steps in Learning Chinese Characters
When learning a European language, you have certain reference points that give you a head start.
If you’re learning French and see the word l’hotel, for example, you can take a pretty good guess what it means! You have a shared alphabet and shared word roots to fall back on.
In Chinese this is not the case.
When you’re just starting out, every sound, character, and word seems new and unique. Learning to read Chinese characters can feel like learning a whole set of completely illogical, unconnected “squiggles”!
The most commonly-taught method for learning to read and write these “squiggles” is rote learning.
Just write them again and again and practise until they stick in your brain and your hand remembers how to write them! This is an outdated approach, much like reciting multiplication tables until they “stick”.
I learnt this way.
Most Chinese learners learnt this way.
It’s painful…and sadly discourages a lot of learners.
However, there is a better way.
Even without any common reference points between Chinese and English, the secret is to use the basic building blocks of Chinese, and use those building blocks as reference points from which to grow your knowledge of written Chinese.
This article will:
- Outline the different levels of structure inherent in Chinese characters
- Show you how to build your own reference points from scratch
- Demonstrate how to build up gradually without feeling overwhelmed
The Structure Of Written Chinese
The basic structure of written Chinese is as follows:
I like to think of Chinese like Lego... it’s very “square”!
The individual bricks are the components (a.k.a radicals).
We start to snap these components together to get something larger – the characters.
We can then snap characters together in order to make Chinese words.
Here’s the really cool part about Chinese: Each of these pieces, at every level, has meaning.
The component, the character, the word… they all have meaning.
This is different to a European language, where the “pieces” used to make up words are letters.
Letters by themselves don’t normally have meaning and when we start to clip letters together we are shaping a sound rather than connecting little pieces of meaning. This is a powerful difference that comes into play later when we are learning vocabulary.
Let’s look at the diagram again.
Here we start with the component 子. This has the meaning of “child/infant”.
The character 好 (“good”) is the next level. Look on the right of the character and you’ll see 子. We would say that 子 is a component of 好.
Now look at the full word 你好 (“Hello”). Notice that the 子 is still there.
- The character 好 is built of the components 女 and 子.
- The character 你 is built from 人 + 尔.
- The word 你好 in turn is constructed out of 你 + 好.
Here’s the complete breakdown of that word in an easy-to-read diagram:
Now look at this photo of this in real life!
Don’t worry if you can’t understand it. Just look for some shapes that you have seen before.
The font is a little funky, so here are the typed characters: 好孩子
What components have you seen before?
Did you spot them?
This is a big deal.
Here’s why…
Why Character Components Are So Important
One of the big “scare stories” around Chinese is that there are 50,000 characters to learn.
Now, this is true. But learning them isn’t half as bad as you think.
Firstly, only a few thousand characters are in general everyday use so that number is a lot more manageable.
Second, and more importantly, those 50,000 characters are all made up of the same 214 components.
And you already know one of them: 子 (it’s one of those 214 components).
The fact that you can now recognise the 子 in the image above is a huge step forward.
You can already recognise one of the 214 pieces all characters are made up of.
Even better is the fact that of these 214 components it’s only the 50-100 most common you’ll be running into again and again.
This makes Chinese characters a lot less scary.
Once you get a handle on these basic components, you’ll quickly recognise all the smaller pieces and your eyes will stop glazing over!
This doesn’t mean you’ll necessarily know the meaning or how to pronounce the words yet (we’ll get onto this shortly) but suddenly Chinese doesn’t seem quite so alien any more.
Memorising The Components Of Chinese Characters
Memorising the pieces is not as important as simply realising that ALL of Chinese is constructed from these 214 pieces.
When I realised this, Chinese became a lot more manageable and I hope I’ve saved you some heartache by revealing this early in your learning process!
Here are some useful online resources for learning the components of Chinese characters:
- An extensive article about the 214 components of Chinese characters with a free printable PDF poster.
- Downloadable posters of all the components, characters and words.
- If you like flashcards, there’s a great Anki deck here and a Memrise course here.
- Wikipedia also has a sweet sortable list here.
TAKEAWAY: Every single Chinese character is composed of just 214 “pieces”. Only 50-100 of these are commonly used. Learn these pieces first to learn how to write in Chinese quickly.
Moving From Components To Chinese Characters
Once you’ve got a grasp of the basic building blocks of Chinese it’s time to start building some characters!
We used the character 好 (“good”) in the above example. 好 is a character composed of the components 女 (“woman”) and 子 (“child”).
Unlike the letters of the alphabet in English, these components have meaning.
(They also have pronunciation, but for the sake of simplicity we’ll leave that aside for now!)
- 女 means “woman” and 子 means “child”.
- When they are put together, 女 and 子 become 好 …and the meaning is “good”.
- Therefore “woman” + “child” = “good” in Chinese 🙂
When learning how to write in Chinese characters you can take advantage of the fact that components have their own meanings.
In this case, it is relatively easy to make a mnemonic (memory aid) that links the idea of a woman with her baby as “good”.
Because Chinese is so structured, these kind of mnemonics are an incredibly powerful tool for memorisation.
Some characters, including 好, can also be easily represented graphically. ShaoLan’s book Chineasy does a fantastic job of this.
Here’s the image of 好 for instance – you can see the mother and child.
Visual graphics like these can really help in learning Chinese characters.
Unfortunately, only around 5% of the characters in Chinese are directly “visual” in this way. These characters tend to get the most attention because they look great when illustrated.
However, as you move beyond the concrete in the more abstract it becomes harder and harder to visually represent ideas.
Thankfully, the ancient Chinese had an ingenious solution, a solution that actually makes the language a lot more logical and simple than merely adding endless visual pictures.
Watch Me Write Chinese Characters
In the video below, which is part of a series on learning to write in Chinese, I talk about the process of actually writing out the characters. Not thousands of times like Chinese schoolchildren. But just as a way to reinforce my learning and attack learning Chinese characters from different angles.
My Chinese handwriting leaves a lot to be desired. But it’s more about a process of reinforcing my language learning via muscle memory than perfecting my handwriting.
You’ll also hear me discuss some related issues such as stroke order and typing in Chinese.
The Pronunciation Of Chinese Characters
The solution was the incredibly unsexy sounding… (wait for it…) “phono-semantic compound character”.
It’s an awful name, so I’m going to call them “sound-meaning characters” for now!
This concept is the key to unlocking 95% of the Chinese characters.
A sound-meaning character has a component that tells us two things:
- the meaning
- a clue to how the character is pronounced
So, in simple terms:
95% of Chinese characters have a clue to the meaning of the character AND its pronunciation.
Example:
到 means “to arrive”.
This character is made of two components. On the left is 至 and on the right is 刀.
These are two of the 214 components that make up all characters. 至 means “to arrive” and 刀 means “knife”.
Any idea which one gives us the meaning? Yup – it’s 至, “to arrive”! (That was an easy one 🙂 )
But how about the 刀? This is where it gets interesting.
到 is pronounced dào.
刀, “knife” is pronounced dāo.
The reason the 刀 is placed next to 至 in the character 到 is just to tell us how to pronounce the character! How cool is that?
Now, did you notice the little lines above the words: dào and dāo?
Those are the tone markers, and in this case they are both slightly different. These two characters have different tones so they are not exactly the same pronunciation.
However, the sound-meaning compound has got us 90% of the way to being able to pronounce the character, all because some awesome ancient Chinese scribe thought there should be a shortcut to help us remember the pronunciation!
Let’s look at a few more examples of how 刀 is used in different words to give you an idea of the pronunciation.
Even if sometimes:
- the sound-meaning character gives us the exact sound and meaning
- or it gets us in the ballpark
- or worse it is way off because the character has changed over the last 5,000 years!
Nevertheless, there’s a clue about the pronunciation in 95% of all Chinese characters, which is a huge help for learning how to speak Chinese.
TAKEAWAY: Look at the component parts as a way to unlock the meaning and pronunciations of 95% of Chinese characters. In terms of “hacking” the language, this is the key to learning how to write in Chinese quickly.
From Chinese Characters To Chinese Words
First we went from components to characters.
Next, we are going from characters to words.
Although there are a lot of one-character words in Chinese, they tend to either be classically-rooted words like “king” and “horse” or grammatical particles and pronouns.
The vast majority of Chinese words contain two characters.
The step from characters to words is where, dare I say it, Chinese script gets easy!
Come on, you didn’t think it would always be hard did you? 🙂
Unlike European languages Chinese’s difficulty is very front-loaded.
When you first learn to write Chinese, you’ll discover a foreign pronunciation system, a foreign tonal system and a very foreign writing system.
As an English speaker, you can normally have a good shot at pronouncing and reading words in other European languages, thanks to the shared alphabet.
Chinese, on the other hand, sucker-punches you on day one… but gets a little more gentle as you go along.
One you’ve realised these things:
- there aren’t that many components to deal with
- all characters are made up of these basic components
- words are actually characters bolted together
…then it’s a matter of just memorising a whole bunch of stuff!
That’s not to say there isn’t a lot of work involved, only to say that it’s not particularly difficult. Time-consuming, yes. Difficult, no.
This is quite different from European languages, which start off easy, but quickly escalate in difficulty as you encounter complicated grammar, tenses, case endings, technical vocabulary and so on.
Making words from Chinese characters you already know is easy and really fun. This is where you get to start snapping the lego blocks together and build that Pirate Island!
The Logic Of Chinese Writing
Here are some wonderful examples of the simplicity and logic of Chinese using the character 车 which roughly translates as “vehicle”.
- Water + Vehicle = Waterwheel = 水 +车
- Wind + Vehicle = Windmill = 风＋车
- Electric + Vehicle = Tram/Trolley = 电＋车
- Fire + Vehicle = Train = 火＋车
- Gas + Vehicle = Car = 汽＋车
- Horse + Vehicle = Horse and cart/Trap and Pony = 马＋车
- Up + Vehicle = Get into/onto a vehicle =上＋车
- Down + Vehicle = Get out/off a vehicle =下＋车
- Vehicle + Warehouse = Garage = 车＋库
- To Stop + Vehicle = to park = 停＋车
Chinese is extremely logical and consistent.
This is a set of building blocks that has evolved over 5,000 years in a relatively linear progression. And you can’t exactly say the same about the English language!
Just think of the English words for the Chinese equivalences above:
Train, windmill, millwheel/waterwheel, tram/trolley, car/automobile, horse and cart/trap and pony.
Unlike Chinese where these concepts are all linked by 车 there’s very little consistency in our vehicle/wheel related vocabulary, and no way to link these sets of related concepts via the word itself.
English is a diverse and rich language, but that comes with its drawbacks – a case-by-case spelling system that drives learners mad.
Chinese, on the other hand, is precise and logical, once you get over the initial “alienness”.
Making The Complex Simple
This logical way of constructing vocabulary is not limited to everyday words like “car” and “train”. It extends throughout the language.
To take an extreme example let’s look at Jurassic Park.
The other day I watched Jurassic Park with my Chinese girlfriend. (OK, re-watched. It’s a classic!)
Part of the fun for me (annoyance for her) was asking her the Chinese for various dinosaur species.
Take a second to look through these examples. You’ll love the simplicity!
- T Rex 暴龙 = tyrant + dragon
- Tricerotops 三角恐龙 three + horn + dinosaur
- Diplodocus 梁龙 roof-beam + dragon
- Velociraptor 伶盗龙 clever + thief + dragon (or swift stealer dragon)
- Stegosaurus 剑龙 (double-edged) sword + dragon
- Dilophosaurus 双脊龙 double+spined+dragon
Don’t try to memorise these characters, just appreciate the underlying logic of how the complex concepts are constructed.
(Unless, of course, you are a palaeontologist…or as the Chinese would say a Ancient + Life + Animal + Scientist!).
I couldn’t spell half of these dinosaur names in English for this article. But once I knew how the construction of the Chinese word, typing in the right characters was simple.
Once you know a handful of characters, you can start to put together complete words, and knowing how to write in Chinese suddenly becomes a lot easier.
In a lot of cases you can take educated guesses at concepts and get them right by combining known characters into unknown words.
For more on this, check my series of Chinese character images that I publish on this page. They focus on Chinese words constructed from common characters, and help you understand more of the “building block” logic of Chinese.
TAKEAWAY: Chinese words are constructed extremely logically from the underlying characters. This means that once you’ve learned a handful of characters vocabulary acquisition speeds up exponentially.
How To Learn Written Chinese Fast
Before diving into learning characters, make sure you have a decent grounding in Chinese pronunciation via the pinyin system.
The reason for this is that taking on pronunciation, tones and characters from day one is really tough.
Don’t get me wrong, you can do it. Especially if you’re highly motivated. But for most people there’s a better way.
Learn a bit of spoken Chinese first.
With some spoken language under your belt, and an understanding of pronunciation and tones, starting to learn how to write in Chinese will seem a whole lot easier.
When you’re ready, here’s how to use all the information from this article and deal with written Chinese in a sensible way.
I’ve got a systematic approach to written Chinese which you can find in detail on Sensible Chinese.
Right now, I’m going to get you started with the basics.
The Sensible Character System
The four stages for learning Chinese characters are:
- Input
- Processing
- Review
- Usage
Sounds technical huh? Don’t worry, it’s not really.
1. Input
This part of the process is about choosing what you put into your character learning system.
If you’re working on the wrong material then you’re wasting your efforts. Instead choose to learn Chinese characters that you are like to want to use in the future.
My list in order of priority contains:
- daily life: characters/words I’ve encountered through daily life
- textbooks: characters/words I’ve learnt from textbooks
- frequency lists: characters/words I’ve found in frequency lists of the most common characters and words
2. Processing
This is the “learning” part of the system.
You take a new word or character and break it down into its component parts. You can then use these components to create memory aids.
Hanzicraft.com or Pleco’s built-in character decomposition tool are fantastic for breaking down new characters. These will be helpful until you learn to recognise the character components by sight. These tools will also show you if there are sound-meaning component clues in the character.
Use the individual components of a character to build a “story” around the character. Personal, sexy and violent stories tend to stick in the mind best! 🙂 I also like to add colours into my stories to represent the tones (1st tone Green, 2nd tone Blue etc.)
3. Review
After the “input” and the “process”… it’s time to review it all!
The simplest review system is paper flashcards which you periodically use to refresh your memory.
A more efficient method can be found in software or apps that use a Spaced Repetition System, like Anki or Pleco.
An important point: Review is not learning.
It’s tempting to rely on software like Anki to drill in the vocabulary through brute-force repetition. But don’t skip the first two parts – processing the character and creating a mnemonic are key parts of the process.
4. Usage
It isn’t enough to just learn and review your words… you also need to put them into use!
Thankfully, technology has made this easier than ever. Finding a language exchange partner or a lesson with a cost-effective teacher is super simple nowadays, so there’s no excuse for not putting your new vocabulary into action!
The resources I personally use are:
- Spoken – iTalki
- Written – Lang-8
- Short form written – WeChat/HelloTalk
Importantly, whilst you are using your current vocabulary in these forms of communication, you’ll be picking up new content all the time, which you can add back into your system.
The four steps above are a cycle that you will continue to rotate through – all the corrections and new words you receive during usage should become material to add to the system.
To recap, the four steps of systematically learning Chinese characters are:
- Input
- Processing
- Review
- Usage
By building these steps into your regular study schedule you can steadily work through the thousands of Chinese characters and words you’ll need to achieve literacy.
This is a long-haul process! So having a basic system in place is very important for consistency.
You can find out a lot more about The Sensible Chinese Character Learning System and how to write in Chinese here.
Top Chinese Learning Links And Resources
- Chinese Language Learning Resource List – a curated list of tools and content available online and in print to help your Chinese learning, all categorised by usage type.
- Sensible Character Learning System – the full system outlined in a series of blog articles for those who want more detail and tips on how to refine their character learning.
- 111 Mandarin Chinese resources you wish you knew – Olly’s huge list of the best resources on the web for learning Chinese
I hope you enjoyed this epic guide to learning how to write in Chinese!
Please share this post with any friends who are learning Chinese, then leave us a comment below!
Contents
- 1 Chinese Words List
- 1.1 List of Chinese Words (Beginner Chinese words top 250)
- 1.1.1 All students can practice writing with a live 1-on-1 tutor with TutorMandarin.
- 1.1.2 Sign up now for a free class!
- 1.1 List of Chinese Words (Beginner Chinese words top 250)
Chinese Pronunciation
So, you’ve started learning Chinese. You’ve learned all the correct Chinese pronunciation through pinyin. You can clearly say the difference between “j” and “zh” and between “z” “c” and “s.” Note: if you can’t, feel free to watch our video on all the correct pronunciation here:
Chinese Tones
On top of this, you’ve masted Chinese tones. You know all 4 tones like the back of your hand and even know that there’s a secret 5th neutral tone! When Chinese words are written in pinyin with the tones above the word, you can read the whole word correctly. Practice with our pinyin lessons here.
Chinese Vocabulary
If you’ve learned all the things (and only once you’ve learned all these things!) are you ready to learn Chinese words. Please do not skip ahead. Make sure you can say the words properly.
Now, onto learning Chinese vocabulary. Vocabulary is a big part of language learning. The key is to learn the most important words ist. Learn the high-frequency words that appear as often as possible. Did you know that you can read/understand 90% of daily Chinese with just 1000 Chinese characters! How cool is that?
So which words to learn first? Luckily, the Chinese proficiency test tells us. The HSK (Hanyu Shuiping Kaoshi) has 6 levels and tells you what vocabulary you should learn for each of the 6 levels. THe HSK1 has 150 vocabulary words to learn. The list below is 250 words that include these 150 plus some from HSK 2. If you’re looking for full lists of the top 100, 250, 500, or even 100 words to learn, we have those here for free and with downloadable PDF. If you want lists of HSK 1 Vocabulary, HSk2 Vocabulary, HSK 3 Vocabulary, or HSK 4 Vocabulary we have all of those two.
Good luck with this Chinese word list. This should get you started. All these words are used in our free PDF lessons. When you’re ready, sign up for a free trial class apply what you’ve learned with a live Chinese tutor!
List of Chinese Words (Beginner Chinese words top 250)
| 叫 | jiào | Verb | to be called | 我叫大卫。 | Wǒ jiào Dàwèi. | My name is David. |
| 姓 | xìng | Noun/Verb | surname, one’s family name is | 我姓程。 | Wǒ xìng chéng. | My surname is Cheng. |
| 名字 | míngzi | Noun | name | 她的名字是玛丽。 | Tā de míngzi shì Mǎlì. | Her name is Mary. |
| 哪国人 | nǎguórén | Phrase | a person of which country | 你是哪国人？ | Nǐ shì nǎ guó rén? | Which country are you from ? |
| 你 | nǐ | Pronoun | you | 你姓程 吗？ | Nǐ xìng chéng ma? | Is your surname Cheng? |
| 我 | wǒ | Pronoun | I, me | 我不姓程。 | Wǒ bú xìng Chéng. | My surname is not Cheng. |
| 认识你很高兴 | rènshì nǐ hěn gāoxìng | Phrase | It’s nice to meet you | 我叫大卫, 认识你很高兴。 | Wǒ jiào dàwèi, rènshì nǐ hěn gāoxìng. | My name is David. It is nice to meet you. |
| 是 | shì | Verb | is | 我不是美国人, 我是日本人。 | Wǒ bú shì Měiguó rén,wǒ shì Rìběn rén | I’m not American, I’m Japanese. |
| 美国 | Měiguó | Noun | United States | 他是美国人吗？ | Tā shì Měiguó rén ma? | Is he an American? |
| 中国 | Zhōngguó | Noun | China | 我不是中国人。 | Wǒ bú shì Zhōngguó rén. | I’m not Chinese. |
| 忙 | máng | Adj | busy | 你忙吗？ | Nǐ máng ma? | Are you busy? |
| 累 | lèi | Adj | tired , tiring | 我很累。 | Wǒ hěn lèi. | I am tired. |
| 好 | hǎo | Adj | good | 你好吗？ | Nǐ hǎo ma? | How are you? |
| 你们 | nǐmen | Pronoun | you (plural), y’all | 你们都是学生吗？ | Nǐmen dōu shì xuéshēng ma? | Are you all students? |
| 学生 | xuéshēng | Noun | student, students | 我不是学生。 | Wǒ bú shì xuéshēng. | I am not a student. |
| 老师 | lǎoshī | Noun | teacher | 我的老师不是中国人。 | Wǒ de lǎoshī bú shì Zhōngguó rén. | My teacher is not Chinese. |
| 再见 | zàijiàn | Phrase | goodbye | 再见！ | Zàijiàn. | Goodbye. |
| 日本 | Rìběn | Noun | Japan | 他不是日本人。 | Tā bú shì Rìběn rén. | He is not a Japanese. |
| 他 | tā | Pronoun | He, him | 他累不累? | Tā lèi búlèi? | Is he tired or not? |
| 要 | yào | Verb | to want | 我要喝咖啡。 | Wǒ yào hē kāfēi. | I want to drink coffee. |
| 喜欢 | xǐhuan | Verb | to like | 我喜欢中国茶。 | Wǒ xǐhuan Zhōngguó chá. | I like Chinese tea |
| 喝 | hē | Verb | to drink | 我很喜欢喝中国茶。 | Wǒ hěn xǐhuan hē Zhōngguó chá. | I really like to drink Chinese tea. |
| 吃 | chī | Verb | to eat | 你喜欢吃什么？ | Nǐ xǐhuan chī shénme? | What do you like to eat? |
| 咖啡 | kāfēi | Noun | coffee | 你喜不喜欢喝咖啡？ | Nǐ xǐ bùxǐhuan hē kāfēi? | Do you like to drink coffee? |
| 菜 | cài | Noun | dish, cuisine | 你喜欢哪国菜？ | Nǐ xǐhuan nǎ guó cài? | Which country’s food do you like? |
| 茶 | chá | Noun | tea | 我很喜欢喝茶。 | Wǒ hěn xǐhuan hē chá. | I really like to drink tea. |
| 口 | kǒu | Measure word | measure word for family members | 我家有三口人 | Wǒ jiā yǒu sān kǒu rén. | There are three people in my family. |
| 个 | gè | Measure word | general measure word, measure word for people | 我有两个妹妹。 | Wǒ yǒu lǐang gè mèimei. | I have two younger sisters. |
| 爸爸 | bàba | Noun | father | 我的爸爸有一个姐姐。 | Wǒ de bàba yǒu yí gè jiějie. | My father has an older sister. |
| 妈妈 | māma | Noun | mother | 他的妈妈是玛丽。 | Tā de māma shì Mǎlì. | His mother is Mary. |
| 哥哥 | gēge | Noun | older brother | 我有两个哥哥。 | Wǒ yǒu liǎng gè gēge. | I have two older brothers. |
| 姐姐 | jiějie | Noun | older sister | 他的姐姐叫玛丽。 | Tā de jiějie jiào Mǎlì. | His older sister is called Mary. |
| 弟弟 | dìdi | Noun | younger brother | 你有没有弟弟？ | Nǐ yǒu méiyǒu dìdi? | Do you have younger brothers? |
| 妹妹 | mèimei | Noun | younger sister | 你的妹妹叫什么名字? | Nǐ de mèimei jiào shénme míngzì? | What is your younger sister’s name? |
| 家 | jiā | Noun | home, family | 我家有三口人。 | Wǒ jiā yǒu sān kǒu rén. | There are three people in my family. |
| 和 | hé | Conj | and | 我有一个哥哥和一个姐姐。 | Wǒ yǒu yí gè gēge hé yí gè jiějie. | I have an older brother and an older sister. |
| 谁 | shéi | Pronoun | who | 他是谁? | Tā shì shéi? | Who is he? |
| 狗 | gǒu | Noun | dog | 平安的狗叫奶茶。 | Píng’ān de gǒu jiào nǎichá. | Ping An’s dog is called Milk Tea. |
| 好看 | hǎokàn | Adj | good-looking | 我的房子很好看 | Wǒ de fángzi hěn hǎokàn. | My house is good-looking. |
| 书 | shū | Noun | book, books | 我有一本书。 | Wǒ yǒu yìběn shū. | I have a book. |
| 兄弟姐妹 | xiōngdì jiěmèi | Noun | siblings | 美美有三个兄弟姐妹。 | Měiměi yǒu sān gè xiōngdì jiěmèi. | Meimei has there siblings. |
| 房子 | fángzi | Noun | house | 他喜欢他爸爸妈妈的房子。 | Tā xǐhuan tā bàba māma de fángzi. | He likes his parent’s house. |
| 家人 | jiārén | Noun | family member | 我和我的家人都喜欢喝咖啡。 | Wǒ hé wǒ de jiārén dōu xǐhuan hē kāfēi. | My family and I all like to drink coffee. |
| 介绍 | jièshào | Verb | to introduce | 请你介绍你的家人。 | Qǐng nǐ jièshào nǐ de jiārén. | Please introduce your family. |
| 漂亮 | piàoliàng | Adj | beautiful | 你姐姐很漂亮。 | Nǐ jiějie hěn piàoliàng. | Your older sister is really beautiful. |
| 张 | zhāng | Measure word | a measure word for photograph, picture, paper, table etc. | 我有很多张照片。 | Wǒ yǒu hěn duō zhāng zhàopiàn. | I have many pictures. |
| 女儿 | nǚér | Noun | daughter | 我有一个漂亮的女儿。 | Wǒ yǒu yí gè piàoliàng de nǚér. | I have a beautiful daughter. |
| 猫 | māo | Noun | cat | 他有很多只猫。 | Tā yǒu hěnduō zhī māo. | He has many cats. |
| 照片 | zhàopiàn | Noun | pictures, photos | 我有很多照片。 | Wǒ yǒu hěn duō zhàopiàn. | I have many pictures. |
| 多 | duō | Adj | many, more | 我有很多书。 | Wǒ yǒu hěn duō shū. | I have many books. |
| 两 | liǎng | Numeral | two | 我有两个女儿。 | Wǒ yǒu liǎng gè nǚér. | I have two daughters. |
| 可爱 | kěài | Adj | cute,lovely | 他很可爱。 | Tā hěn kěài. | She is cute. |
| 块 | kuài | Measure word | piece； dollar | 我有两块钱。 | Wǒ yǒu liǎng kuài qián. | I have two dollars. |
| 杯 | bēi | Measure word | cup, cups | 我有一杯咖啡。 | Wǒ yǒu yì bēi kāfēi. | I have a cup of coffee. |
| 瓶 | píng | Measure word | bottle, bottles | 我有一瓶牛奶。 | Wǒ yǒu yì píng niúnǎi. | I have a bottle of milk. |
| 买 | mǎi | Verb | buy | 我们去买东西。 | Wǒmen qù mǎi dōngxi. | Let’s go to buy some things. |
| 钱 | qián | Noun | money | 那个东西多少钱? | Nà gè dōngxi duōshǎo qián? | How much does that thing cost? |
| 东西 | dōngxi | Noun | thing, things, stuff | 这不是我的东西。 | Zhè búshì wǒ de dōngxi. | This is not my stuff. |
| 谢谢 | xièxie | Phrase | Thank you | 谢谢你! | Xièxie nǐ! | Thank you! |
| 不客气 | búkèqì | Phrase | You’re welcome | A: 谢谢你帮忙检查我的文章。 B: 不客气，随时都乐意！ | A: Xièxiè nǐ bāngmáng jiǎnchá wǒ de wénzhāng. B: Bù kèqì, suíshí dōu lèyì! | A: Thanks for checking my essay. B: No problem! Happy to anytime! |
| 些 | xiē | Measure word | some | 这些东西是谁的? | Zhè xiē dōngxi shì shéi de? | Whose things are these? |
| 百 | bǎi | Noun | hundred | 这个东西一百块钱。 | Zhègè dōngxi yìbǎi kuài qián. | This thing is one hundred dollars. |
| 一共 | yígòng | Adv | altogether | 三杯咖啡和一杯茶,一共多少钱？ | Sān bēi kāfēi hé yì bēi chá, yígòng duōshǎo qián？ | How much for 3 cups of coffee and one cup of tea? |
| 今天 | jīntiān | Noun | today | 我今天晚上看电影。 | Wǒ jīntiān wǎnshàng kàn diànyǐng. | I’ll watch a movie tonight. |
| 几点 | jǐdiǎn | Phrase | What time | 现在几点? | Xiànzài jǐdiǎn？ | What time is it? |
| 分 | fēn | Noun | minute | 现在是两点十分。 | Xiànzài shì liǎng diǎn shí fēn. | It is ten past two o’clock now. |
| 看 | kàn | Verb | to read, to watch | 他喜欢看电影。 | Tā xǐhuan kàn diànyǐng. | He likes to watch movies. |
| 电影 | diànyǐng | Noun | movie | 你喜欢看什么电影？ | Nǐ xǐhuan kàn shénme diànyǐng? | What movie do you like to watch? |
| 上网 | shàngwǎng | Verb Object | Surf Internet | 我喜欢上网。 | Wǒ xǐhuan shàngwǎng. | I like to surf the Internet. |
| 现在 | xiànzài | Noun | now | 现在是一点五十五分。 | Xiànzài shì yì diǎn wǔshí wǔ fēn. | It’s one fifty-five now. |
| 半 | bàn | Noun | half | 现在是六点半。 | Xiànzài shì liù diǎn bàn. | Now it is six thirty. |
| 做 | zuò | Verb | to do | 你喜欢做什么? | Nǐ xǐhuān zuò shénme? | What do you like to do? |
| 做饭 | zuòfàn | Verb Object | to cook | 你喜欢做饭吗？ | Nǐ xǐhuan zuò fàn ma? | Do you like to cook? |
| 吃饭 | chīfàn | Verb Object | to eat | 你今天几点吃饭？ | Nǐ jīntiān jǐdiǎn chīfàn? | What time do you eat today? |
| 请问 | qǐngwèn | Phrase | Excuse me, may I ask… | 请问这个东西多少钱? | Qǐngwèn zhège dōngxi duōshǎo qián? | May I ask about how much does this thing cost? |
| 饭馆 | fànguǎn | Noun | restaurant | 这间饭馆好不好？ | Zhè jiān fànguǎn hǎo bùhǎo? | Is this restaurant good or not? |
| 服务员 | fúwùyuán | Noun | waiter, waitress | 这家饭馆的服务员，人很好。 | Zhè jiā fànguǎn de fúwùyuán, rén hěnhǎo. | The waiter/ waitress from this restaurant is very nice. |
| 杯子 | bēizi | Noun | cup | 我们要两个杯子。 | Wǒmen yào liǎng gè bēizi. | We would like to have two cups. |
| 真 | zhēn | Adv | really | 你妹妹真漂亮。 | Nǐ mèimei zhēn piàoliang. | Your younger sister is really pretty. |
| 点菜 | diǎncài | Verb Object | to order food | 请服务员来帮我们点菜。 | Qǐng fúwùyuán lái bāng wǒmen diǎn cài. | Please ask the waiter to take our order. |
| 好吃 | hǎochī | Adj | tasty/delicious | 我妈妈做的饭很好吃。 | Wǒ māma zuò de fàn hěn hǎochī. | The dish made from my mother is tasty. |
| 水 | shuǐ | Noun | water | 我有一杯水。 | Wǒ yǒu yì bēi shuǐ. | I have a cup of water. |
| 少 | shǎo | Adj | few | 我们家书很少。 | Wǒmen jiā shū hěn shǎo. | We have very few books at home. |
| 买单 | mǎidān | Verb Object | to pay | 服务员，请买单。 | Fúwùyuán, qǐng mǎidān. | Waiter, we want to pay. |
| 昨天 | zuótiān | Noun | yesterday | 昨天我跟我妈妈去看电影。 | Zuótiān wǒ gēn wǒ māma qù kàn diànyǐng. | I went to watch a movie with my mother yesterday. |
| 明天 | míngtiān | Noun | tomorrow | 明天要不要去吃饭? | Míngtiān yàobúyào qù chīfàn? | Do you want to go and eat tomorrow? |
| 什么时候 | shénme shíhou | Phrase | when | 你什么时候去看电影? | Nǐ shénme shíhou qù kàn diànyǐng? | When are you going to watch movie? |
| 上午 | shàngwǔ | Noun | morning | 我上午要上课。 | Wǒ shàngwǔ yào shàngkè | I have classes in the morning. |
| 星期 | xīngqī | Noun | Week, day of the week | 星期一我们要上课。 | Xīngqī yī wǒmen yào shàngkè. | We have class on Monday. |
| 起床 | qǐchuáng | Verb Object | wake up | 我八点起床。 | Wǒ bādiǎn qǐchuáng. | I wake up at eight. |
| 早饭 | zǎofàn | Noun | breakfast | 我们九点吃早饭。 | Wǒmen jiǔdiǎn chī zǎofàn. | We eat breakfast at nine. |
| 睡觉 | shuìjiào | Verb Object | sleep | 我爸爸十点睡觉。 | Wǒ bàba shídiǎn shuìjiào. | My dad sleeps at ten. |
| 上课 | shàngkè | Verb Object | go to class,attend class | 我们明天要上课。 | Wǒmen míngtiān yào shàngkè. | We have class tomorrow. |
| 想 | xiǎng | Verb | to want to ,to plan to/to think | 我想跟你看电影。 | Wǒ xiǎng gēn nǐ kàn diànyǐng. | I want to watch a movie with you. |
| 月 | yuè | Measure word | month | 明天是十二月六日。 | Míngtiān shì shíèr yuè liù rì. | Tomorrow is December 6th. |
| 日 | rì | Measure word | day | 今天是十二月五日。 | Jīntiān shì shíèr yuè wǔ rì. | Today is December 5th. |
| 下午 | xiàwǔ | Noun | afternoon | 你明天下午做什么? | Nǐ míngtiān xiàwǔ zuò shénme? | What are you going to do tomorrow afternoon? |
| 晚上 | wǎnshàng | Noun | evening | 你明天晚上看电影吗? | Nǐ míngtiān wǎnshàng kàn diànyǐng ma? | Do you want to watch a movie tomorrow night? |
| 请 | qǐng | Verb | to treat, to invite | 明天我请你去中国饭馆吃饭。 | Míngtiān wǒ qǐng nǐ qù Zhōngguó fànguǎn chīfàn. | Tomorrow I’ll treat you to a meal at a Chinese restaurant. |
| 来 | lái | Verb | to come | 他来我家吃饭。 | Tā lái wǒ jiā chīfàn. | He came to my house and had a meal. |
| 有空 | yǒukòng | Verb | have free time, to be free | 你有空吗? | Nǐ yǒukòng ma? | Are you free? |
| 对不起 | duìbùqǐ | Phrase | sorry | A: 对不起。 B: 没关系 。 | A: Duìbùqǐ. B: Méiguānxi. | A: I am sorry. B: It’s ok. |
| 没关系 | méiguānxi | Phrase | that’s ok, no problem | A: 对不起。 B: 没关系。 | A: Duìbùqǐ. B: Méiguānxi. | A: I am sorry. B: It’s ok. |
| 生日 | shēngrì | Noun | birthday | 我的生日是二月十八号。 | Wǒ de shēngrì shì èr yuè shíbā hào. | My birthday is February eighteenth. |
| 打球 | dǎqiú | Verb Object | to play ball games, ball sports | 每个周末我都会跟朋友去打球 | Měi gè zhōumò wǒ dūhuì gēn péngyou qù dǎqiú | I play basketball with my friends every weekend. |
| 篮球 | lánqiú | Noun | basketball | 你打篮球吗? | Nǐ dǎ lánqiú ma? | Do you play basketball? |
| 球赛 | qiúsài | Noun | match, ball games | 你喜欢看球赛吗? | Nǐ xǐhuan kàn qiúsài ma? | Do you like to watch sports matches? |
| 逛街 | guàngjiē | Verb Object | shopping | 他喜欢去逛街。 | Tā xǐhuan qù guàngjiē. | She likes to go shopping. |
| 周末 | zhōumò | Noun | weekend | 周末他做什么? | Zhōumò tā zuò shénme? | What does he do on weekends? |
| 早起 | zǎoqǐ | Verb | to wake up early | 我喜欢早起去打球。 | Wǒ xǐhuan zǎoqǐ qù dǎ qiú. | I like to wake up early to play the ball. |
| 觉得 | juéde | Verb | to feel,to think,to consider | 我觉得做饭很好玩儿。 | Wǒ juéde zuòfàn hěn hǎowánr. | I think cooking is fun. |
| 好玩儿 | hǎowán’er | Adj | interesting, fun, enjoyable | 打篮球很好玩儿。 | Dǎ lánqiú hěn hǎowánr. | It’s fun to play basketball. |
| 运动 | yùndòng | Noun | exercise, to exercise | 你喜欢什么运动? | Nǐ xǐhuan shénme yùndòng? | What sports do you like? |
| 电影院 | diànyǐngyuàn | Noun | cinema | 我现在在电影院看电影。 | Wǒ xiànzài zài diànyǐngyuàn kàn diànyǐng. | I am now at the cinema watching a movie. |
| 学习 | xuéxí | Verb | to study | 他在中国学习中文。 | Tā zài Zhōngguó xuéxí Zhōngwén. | He studies Chinese in China. |
| 酒吧 | jiǔba | Noun | bar | 晚上我们去酒吧喝啤酒。 | Wǎnshàng wǒmen qù jiǔbā hē píjiǔ. | We are going to a bar to drink beer at night. |
| 啤酒 | píjiǔ | Noun | beer | 我们一起喝啤酒。 | Wǒmen yìqǐ hē píjiǔ。 | We drink beer together. |
| 有意思 | yǒuyìsi | Adj | interesting, fun | 我觉得出门很有意思! 我喜欢出门去运动。 | Wǒ juéde chūmén hěn yǒuyìsi! Wǒ xǐhuan chūmén qù yùndòng. | I think going out is fun! I like to go out to exercise. |
| 无聊 | wúliáo | Adj | boring,bored | 他觉得出门太麻烦了，也觉得很无聊。 | Tā juéde chūmén tài máfán le, yě juéde hěn wúliáo. | He thinks going out is too troublesome and boring. |
| 麻烦 | máfán | Verb | be annoyed,to bother, troublesome, annoying | 我是一个麻烦的人。 | Wǒ shì yí gè máfán de rén. | I am a troublesome person. |
| 出门 | chūmén | Verb Object | to go outside | 他早上九点出门去上课。 | Tā zǎoshàng jiǔdiǎn chūmén qù shàngkè. | He goes to class at 9 in the morning. |
| 种 | zhǒng | Measure word | kind,type | 你喜欢吃哪种菜? | Nǐ xǐhuan chī nǎ zhǒng cài? | What kind of food do you like? |
| 一起 | yìqǐ | Adv | together | 星期二我们一起去吃日本菜。 | Xīngqīèr wǒmen yìqǐ qù chī Rìběn cài. | Let’s have Japanese food on Tuesday together. |
| 算了 | suànle | Phrase | forget about it | A: 外面下雨，我不能跟你出去。 B: 算了，我跟玛丽去。 | A: Wàimiàn xiàyǔ, wǒ bùnéng gēn nǐ chūqù. B: Suànle, wǒ gēn Mǎlì qù. | A: It’s raining outside, I can’t go out with you. B: Fine, I’ll go out with Mary. |
| 下雨 | xiàyǔ | Verb Object | raining | 今天, 明天都下雨。 | Jīntiān, míngtiān dōu xiàyǔ. | Today and tomorrow it will rain. |
| 外面 | wàimiàn | Noun | outside | 他现在在外面,不在家。 | Tā xiànzài zài wàimiàn , bú zài jiā. | He is out now, he’s not at home. |
| 没问题 | méi wèntí | Phrase | no problem | A: 你有空吗？我们一起去打球，好不好？ B: 没问题。 | A: Nǐ yǒu kòng ma? Wǒmen yīqǐ qù dǎqiú, hǎo bùhǎo? B: Méi wèntí. | A: Do you have free time? Let’s go play ball games, what do you think? B: No problem. |
| 可是 | kěshì | Conj | but | 我想出去, 可是外面下雨。 | Wǒ xiǎng chūqù,kěshì wàimiàn xiàyǔ. | I want to go out, but it’s raining outside. |
| 做菜 | zuòcài | Verb | cooking | 妹妹喜欢做菜。 | Mèimei xǐhuan zuò cài。 | My younger sister likes to cook. |
| 唱歌 | chànggē | Verb | to sing | 我们一起去唱歌，好吗？ | Wǒmen yīqǐ qù chànggē, hǎo ma? | How about we go sing together? |
| 说 | shuō | Verb | say,speak a language | 请您再说一次。 | Qǐng nín zài shuō yīcì. | Can you please say it one more time? |
| 汉语 | hànyǔ | Noun | Mandarin | 我明天有汉语课。 | Wǒ míngtiān yǒu hànyǔ kè. | I have Chinese class tomorrow. |
| 英语 | yīngyǔ | Noun | English | 我不会说英语。 | Wǒ bú huì shuō yīngyǔ. | I can’t speak English. |
| 不错 | búcuò | Adj | pretty good, not bad | 她唱得不错。 | Tā chàng dé búcuò. | She sings well. |
| 教 | jiāo | Verb | to teach | 你可以教我怎么说英语吗? | Nǐ kěyǐ jiāo wǒ zěnme shuō yīngyǔ ma? | Can you teach me how to say English? |
| 写字 | xiězì | Verb Object | to write | 汉语老师教我们怎么写字。 | Hànyǔ lǎoshī jiào wǒmen zěnme xiě zì. | The Chinese teacher teach us how to write words. |
| 快 | kuài | Adj | fast, quick | 他走得很快。 | Tā zǒu de hěn kuài. | He walks fast. |
| 功课 | gōngkè | Noun | homework | 我今天有很多功课。 | Wǒ jīntiān yǒu hěn duō gōngkè. | I have a lot of homework today. |
| 图书馆 | túshūguǎn | Noun | library | 他星期一去图书馆看书。 | Tā xīngqī yī qù túshūguǎn kànshū. | He goes to library on Mondays to read books. |
| 中饭 | zhōngfàn | Noun | lunch | 我们一起吃中饭吧! | Wǒmen yìqǐ chī zhōngfàn ba! | Let’s eat lunch together. |
| 晚饭 | wǎnfàn | Noun | dinner | 我没有时间做晚饭。 | Wǒ méiyǒu shíjiān zuò wǎnfàn. | I don’t have time for making dinner. |
| 中午 | zhōngwǔ | Noun | noon | 我中午上英语课。 | Wǒ zhōngwǔ shàng yīngyǔ kè. | I have English class at noon. |
| 非常 | fēicháng | Adv | very,extremely | 他非常喜欢看书, 也喜欢运动。 | Tā fēicháng xǐhuan kànshū, yě xǐhuan yùndòng. | He really likes to read books, he also likes to do sports. |
| 题 | tí | Noun | question | 这题好难，我不会。 | Zhè tí hǎo nán, wǒ bú huì. | This question is so hard, I don’t know how to do it. |
| 难 | nán | Adj | difficult | 写汉字很难，说汉语也很难! | Xiě hànzì hěn nán, shuō hànyǔ yě hěn nán. | Writing Chinese is difficult, speaking Chinese is also difficult. |
| 新 | xīn | Adj | new | 这是一支新手机. | Zhè shì yìzhī xīn shǒujī. | This is a new cell phone. |
| 旧 | jiù | Adj | old, used, worn | 我有一支旧手机 | Wǒ yǒu yìzhī jiù shǒujī | I have an old cell phone |
| 大 | dà | Adj | big | 这支手机有一点大, 我不喜欢。 | Zhè zhī shǒujī yǒu yìdiǎn dà, wǒ bù xǐhuan. | This phone is a bit big, I don’t like it. |
| 支 | zhī | Measure word | Measure word (for a cell phone etc) | 我有一支新手机 | Wǒ yǒuyìzhī xīn shǒujī | I have a new cell phone |
| 商店 | shāngdiàn | Noun | shop, store | 这家商店卖一些手机。 | Zhè jiā shāngdiàn mài yì xiē shǒujī. | This store sells some cell phones. |
| 手机 | shǒujī | Noun | cell phone | 这不是我的手机。 | Zhè bú shì wǒ de shǒujī. | This is not my cell phone. |
| 看一看 | kànyíkàn | Phrase | look, have a look | 我去商店看一看。 | Wǒ qù shāngdiàn kànyíkàn. | Let me go to the store and have a look. |
| 万 | wàn | Numeral | ten thousand | 我有一万三千元 | Wǒ yǒu yí wàn sān qiān yuán | I have thirteen thousand dollars |
| 千 | qiān | Numeral | thousand | 我有四千元 | Wǒ yǒu sì qiān yuán | I have four thousand dollars |
| 能 | néng | Verb | to express ability | 哪支手机能上网？ | Nǎ zhī shǒujī néng shàngwǎng? | Which mobile phone can access the Internet? |
| 上面 | shàngmiàn | Noun | on top of | 你的猫在我的房子上面! | Nǐ de māo zài wǒ de fángzi shàngmiàn. | Your cat is on top of my house. |
| 下面 | xiàmiàn | Noun | down/under | 照片在杯子下面。 | Zhàopiàn zài bēizi xiàmiàn. | The photo is under the cup. |
| 旁边 | pángbiān | Noun | next to/beside | 饭馆旁边是图书馆。 | Fànguǎn pángbiān shì túshūguǎn. | The library is next to the restaurant. |
| 里面 | lǐmiàn | Noun | inside | 图书馆里面有很多书。 | Túshūguǎn lǐmiàn yǒu hěn duō shū. | There are a lot of books inside the library. |
| 大楼 | dàlóu | Noun | building | 我家旁边有很多大楼。 | Wǒ jiā pángbiān yǒu hěn duō dàlóu. | There are a lot of buildings next to my house. |
| 海边 | hǎibiān | Noun | beach | 我们一起去海边玩儿吧! | Wǒmen yìqǐ qù hǎibiān wánr ba! | Let’s go to the beach together and have fun! |
| 住 | zhù | Verb | to live | 我住在那个大楼里面。 | Wǒ zhù zài nàge dàlóu lǐmiàn. | I live inside that building. |
| 知道 | zhīdào | Verb | to know | 我知道他家在哪儿! | Wǒ zhīdào tā jiā zài nǎr. | I know where his house is. |
| 欢迎 | huānyíng | Noun/Verb | to welcome, welcome | 欢迎你来我家玩儿。 | Huānyíng nǐ lái wǒ jiā wánr. | You are welcome to come to my house to hang out. |
| 玩儿 | wánr | Verb | to play, have fun | 我喜欢去海边玩儿。 | Wǒ xǐhuan qù hǎibiān wánr. | I like to go to the beach and have fun. |
| 公共汽车 | gōnggòng qìchē | Noun | bus | 我每个星期都坐公共汽车去上汉语课。 | Wǒ měige xīngqī dōu zuò gōnggòng qìchē qù shàng Hànyǔ kè. | I take the bus every week to Chinese class. |
| 自行车 | zìxíngchē | Noun | bicycle/bike | 我喜欢骑自行车。 | Wǒ xǐhuan qí zìxíngchē. | I like to ride a bicycle. |
| 走路 | zǒulù | Verb Object | to walk | 我的朋友每天都走路去学校。 | Wǒ de péngyǒu měitiān dōu zǒulù qù xuéxiào. | My friend walks to school every day. |
| 站 | zhàn | Measure word | stations, stops | 从我家到图书馆坐公共汽车要三站。 | Cóng wǒ jiā dào túshūguǎn zuò gōnggòng qìchē yào sān zhàn. | It takes 3 stations to get from my house to the library. |
| 椅子 | yǐzi | Noun | chair | 你家有几把椅子? | Nǐ jiā yǒu jǐ bǎ yǐzi? | How many chairs do you have at home? |
| 休息 | xiūxí | Verb | to take a rest | 你中午几点休息? | Nǐ zhōngwǔ jǐdiǎn xiūxi? | What time do you rest at noon? |
| 上班 | shàngbān | Verb Object | to go to work | 你在哪儿上班? | Nǐ zài nǎr shàngbān? | Where do you work? |
| 坐 | zuò | Verb | to take (a bus, airplane etc) | 我坐公共汽车去电影院。 | Wǒ zuò gōnggòng qìchē qù diànyǐngyuàn. | I go to cinema by bus. |
| 骑 | qí | Verb | to ride | 我常骑自行车去上课。 | Wǒ cháng qí zìxíngchē qù shàngkè. | I often go to class by bike. |
| 超市 | chāoshì | Noun | supermarket | 我想去超市买鸡蛋。 | Wǒ xiǎng qù chāoshì mǎi jīdàn. | I want to buy eggs in the supermarket. |
| 件 | jiàn | Measure word | Measure word (for events, things, clothes etc) | 这件衣服是我妹妹的。 | Zhè jiàn yīfú shì wǒ mèimei de. | This cloth is my younger sister’s. |
| 衣服 | yīfú | Noun | clothes | 他昨天买了很多漂亮的衣服。 | Tā zuótiān mǎi le hěn duō piàoliàng de yīfú. | He bought a lot of nice cloth yesterday. |
| 对了 | duìle | Phrase | by the way | 对了，他昨天告诉我他不来学校。 | Duìle, tā zuótiān gàosù wǒ tā bù lái xuéxiào. | By the way, he told me yesterday that he is not coming to school. |
| 告诉 | gàosù | Verb | to tell | 她没有告诉我这件事情。 | Tā méiyǒu gàosù wǒ zhè jiàn shìqíng. | She didn’t tell me this thing. |
| 鸡蛋 | jīdàn | Noun | egg | 我的早餐是鸡蛋和牛奶。 | Wǒ de zǎocān shì jīdàn hé niúnǎi. | My breakfast was eggs and milk. |
| 忘了 | wàngle | Verb | to forget | 我昨天忘了去超市。 | Wǒ zuótiān wàngle qù chāoshì. | I forgot to go supermarket yesterday. |
| 牛奶 | niúnǎi | Noun | milk | 我每天早上都喝一杯咖啡和一瓶牛奶。 | Wǒ měitiān zǎoshàng dōu he yì bēi kāfēi hé yì píng niúnǎi. | I drink a cup of coffee and a bottle of milk every morning. |
| 怎么 | zěnme | Adv | how to…? | 这个字非常难,我不知道怎么写。 | Zhè gè zì fēicháng nán. Wǒ bù zhīdào zěnme xiě. | This word is so difficult. I don’t know how to write it. |
| 走 | zǒu | Verb | to get there,walk | 从这儿往前走就到他家了。 | Cóng zhèr wǎng qián zǒu jiù dào tā jiā le. | Go forward from here, you’ll go right to his house. |
| 前 | qián | Noun | front/forward/ahead | 往前走就是我家。 | Wǎng qián zǒu jiù shì wǒ jiā. | Go forward and that’s my house. |
| 就 | jiù | Adv | then,right away | 图书馆，往前走右拐就到了。 | Túshūguǎn, wǎng qián zǒu yòuguǎi jiù dào le. | Go forward and turn right, the library is there. |
| 邮局 | yóujú | Noun | post office | 图书馆在邮局的旁边。 | Túshūguǎn zài yóujú de pángbiān. | The post office is next to the library. |
| 认识 | rènshì | Verb | to know, to recognise | 我不认识那个人。 | Wǒ bú rènshì nàge rén. | I don’t know that person. |
| 路 | lù | Noun | road | 我知道这条路的名字! | Wǒ zhīdào zhè tiáo lù de míngzì. | I know the name of this road. |
| 左拐 | zuǒguǎi | Verb | to turn left | 那条路左拐就到我家。 | Nà tiáo lù zuǒguǎi jiù dào wǒ jiā. | Turn left on that road and you’ll arrive at my house. |
| 右拐 | yòuguǎi | Verb | to turn right | 邮局在前面那条路右拐。 | Yóujú zài qiánmiàn nà tiáo lù yòuguǎi. | Post office is at the road ahead, turn right. |
| 从 | cóng | Prep | from | 从这儿往左走就是邮局。 | Cóng zhèr wǎng zuǒ zǒu jiùshì yóujú. | Turn left from here and there is the post office. |
| 到 | dào | Verb | to arrive, arrive | 从这里往前走, 就到了。 | Cóng zhèlǐ wǎng qián zǒu, jiù dào le. | Go straight from here, then you will arrive. |
| 事情 | shìqíng | Noun | Affair,matter,thing | 这件事情很难也很麻烦。 | Zhè jiàn shìqing hěn nán yě hěn máfán. | This thing is very difficult and troublesome. |
| 得 | děi | Adv | must,have to | 我得出门去上课! | Wǒ děi chū mén qù shàng kè. | I have to go out to go to class. |
| 时间 | shíjiān | Noun | time | 我有很多时间写功课。 | Wǒ yǒu hěn duō shíjiān xiě gōngkè. | I have a lot of time to write homework. |
| 怕 | pà | Verb | to fear, to be afraid of | 学生都很怕老师。 | Xuéshēng dōu hěn pà lǎoshī | The students are all afraid of teacher. |
| 担心 | dānxīn | Verb | anxious,worried to worry |
我很担心今年的汉语考试考得不好。 | Wǒ hěn dānxīn jīnnián de Hànyǔ kǎoshì kǎo de bù hǎo | I am really worried that I did bad on this year’s Chinese test. |
| 考试 | kǎoshì | Noun | to test, test, exam | 你明天考试考什么？ | Nǐ míngtiān kǎoshì kǎo shénme? | What are your exams tomorrow? |
| 今年 | jīnnián | Noun | this year | 今年我要跟家人去中国玩儿。 | Jīnnián wǒ yào gēn jiārén qù Zhōngguó wánr. | I am going to China with my family this year. |
| 不好意思 | bùhǎoyìsi | Phrase | excuse me, to be sorry | 不好意思，请问这儿可以照相吗? | Bùhǎo yìsi, qǐngwèn zhèr kěyǐ zhàoxiàng ma? | Excuse me, can we take pictures here? |
| 听音乐 | tīng yīnyuè | Verb Object | to listen to music | 我喜欢听音乐。 | Wǒ xǐhuan tīng yīnyuè. | I like to listen to music. |
| 附近 | fùjìn | Adv | nearby | 你家附近有商店吗? | Nǐ jiā fùjìn yǒu shāngdiàn ma? | Is there a shop nearby your house? |
| 照相 | zhàoxiàng | Verb Object | to take a photo | 他周末喜欢去爬山、照相。 | Tā zhōumò xǐhuan qù páshān, zhàoxiàng. | He likes to go mountain climbing and take pictures on the weekend. |
| 博物馆 | bówùguǎn | Noun | museum | 博物馆里面不可以照相! | Bówùguǎn lǐmiàn bù kěyǐ zhàoxiàng. | You can’t take pictures inside the museum. |
| 朋友 | péngyǒu | Noun | friend, friends | 我跟我朋友明天要一起去博物馆。 | Wǒ gēn wǒ péngyou míngtiān yào yìqǐ qù bówùguǎn. | I am going to the museum with my friend tomorrow. |
| 天 | tiān | Measure word | day | 一个星期有七天。 | Yí ge xīngqī yǒu qī tiān. | There are seven days in a week. |
| 等一会儿 | děng yìhuǐr | Phrase | Wait a moment, later | 我跟我朋友等一会儿要一起去逛街。 | Wǒ gēn wǒ péngyou děng yìhuǐr yào yìqǐ qù guàngjiē. | My friend and I will go shopping later. |
| 地方 | dìfāng | Noun | area, place | 那个地方在哪儿? | Nà gè dìfāng zai nǎr? | Where is that place? |
| 远 | yuǎn | Adj | far | 图书馆离邮局很远。 | Túshūguǎn lí yóujú hěn yuǎn. | The library is far away from the post office. |
| 近 | jìn | Adj | near/close | 图书馆离我家很近! | Túshūguǎn lí wǒ jiā hěn jìn. | The library is close to my house. |
| 小时 | xiǎoshí | Noun | hour | 从我家到图书馆要三个小时。 | Cóng wǒ jiā dào túshūguǎn yào sān gè xiǎoshí. | It takes three hours from my house to library. |
| 山 | shān | Noun | mountain | 我家旁边有一座山。 | Wǒ jiā pángbiān yǒu yí zuò shān. | There’s a mountain next to my house. |
| 爬山 | páshān | Verb Object | to climb a mountain, to hike a mountain | 我们这个周末要去爬山。 | Wǒmen zhège zhōumò yào qù páshān. | We are going mountain climbing this weekend. |
| 公司 | gōngsī | Noun | company | 我爸爸的公司离我们家很远。 | Wǒ bàba de gōngsī lí wǒmen jiā hěn yuǎn. | My father’s company is far away from our house. |
| 分钟 | fēnzhōng | Noun | minute | 从这儿去那儿要走三十分钟。 | Cóng zhèr qù nàr yào zǒu sānshí fēnzhōng. | To get from here to there you need to walk thirty minutes. |
| 要 | yào | Verb | to need, require | 从我家到公司要走半小时。 | Cóng wǒ jiā dào gōngsī yào zǒu bàn xiǎoshí. | It takes half an hour from my house to the company by foot. |
| 方便 | fāngbiàn | Adj | convenient | 我家旁边有一些餐厅，也有超市和图书馆 ， 住在那里很方便。 | Wǒ jiā pángbiān yǒu yìxiē cāntīng, yě yǒu chāoshì hé túshūguǎn. Zhù zài nàlǐ hěn fāngbiàn. | There are some restaurants, supermarkets and libraries near my house. Living there is very convenient. |
| 车票 | chēpiào | Noun | transportation ticket | 坐公共汽车要买车票。 | Zuò gōnggòng qìchē yào mǎi chēpiào. | You need to buy a ticket to take the bus. |
| 出租车 | chūzūchē | Noun | taxi | 中国有很多出租车。 | Zhōngguó yǒu hěn duō chūzūchē. | There are a lot of taxis in China. |
| 地铁 | dìtiě | Noun | subway, metro | 我每天都坐地铁去上班。 | Wǒ měitiān dōu zuò dìtiě qù shàngbān. | I go to work by subway every day. |
| 载 | zài | Verb | to give somebody a ride | 我姐姐载我去超市买东西。 | Wǒ jiějie zài wǒ qù chāoshì mǎi dōngxi. | My older sister drives me to buy things in the supermarket. |
| 汽车 | qìchē | Noun | car | 我有三辆汽车。 | Wǒ yǒu sān liàng qìchē. | I have three cars. |
| 开 | kāi | Verb | to drive ( a machine, car, airplan), to open | 我爸爸每天都开车去上班。 | Wǒ bàba měitiān dōu kāi chē qù shàngbān. | My father drives to work every day. |
| 风景 | fēngjǐng | Noun | scenery | 这儿的风景很漂亮。 | Zhèr de fēngjǐng hěn piàoliang. | The scenery here is pretty. |
| 便宜 | piányí | Adj | cheap | 汽车在中国很便宜。 | Qìchē zài Zhōngguó hěn piányi. | Cars are cheap in China. |
| 等 | děng | Verb | to wait | 请你等我一起去上课。 | Qǐng nǐ děng wǒ yìqǐ qù shàngkè. | Please wait for me to go to class together. |
| 迟到 | chídào | Verb | to be late | 他上班迟到了。 | Tā shàngbān chídào le. | She is late for work. |
| 从不 | cóng bù | Adv | never | 我从不爬山。 | Wǒ cóngbù páshān. | I never go mountain climbing. |
| 约 | yuē | Verb | to make an appointment/to invite. | 他朋友约我一起去爬山。 | Tā péngyou yuē wǒ yìqǐ qù páshān . | His friend asked me to go mountain climbing together. |
| 上次 | shàngcì | Noun | last time | 上次我们看电影的时候，他也迟到了。 | Shàngcì wǒmen kàn diànyǐng de shíhou, tā yě chídào le. | Last time he was also late for watching a movie,. |
| 已经 | yǐjīng | Adv | already | 今天早上我去等公交车，我到公车站的时候, 公车已经走了。 | Jīntiān zǎoshàng wǒ qù děng gōngjiāochē, wǒ dào gōngchē zhàn de shíhou, gōngchē yǐjīng zǒu le. | This morning I was going to wait for a bus, but when I arrived at the bus stop, the bus had already left. |
| 慢 | màn | Adj | slow | 他说中文，说得很慢 | Tā shuō zhōngwén,shuō de hěn màn. | He speaks Chinese slowly |
| 多久 | duōjiǔ | Phrase | how long..? | 请问从超市到邮局要多久? | Qǐngwèn cóng chāoshì dào yóujú yào duōjiǔ? | How long does it take to get from the supermarket to the post office? |
| 练习 | liànxí | Verb | to practice | 我常在家练习做菜。 | Wǒ cháng zài jiā liànxí zuòcài. | I often practice cooking at home |
| 说话 | shuōhuà | Verb Object | to speak/ to talk | 他喜欢跟美国人说话，练习英语。 | Tā xǐhuan gēn Měiguó rén shuōhuà, liànxí yīngyǔ. | He likes to speak with Americans to practice his English. |
| 为什么 | wèishénme | Phrase | why | 现在已经晚上十二点了，你为什么不睡觉? | Xiànzài yǐjīng wǎnshàng shíèrdiǎn le, nǐ wèi shénme bú shuìjiào? | It’s already twelve a.m. now, why are you not sleeping? |
| 有用 | yǒuyòng | Adj | useful | 这个东西很有用也很方便。 | Zhège dōngxi hěn yǒuyòng yě hěn fāngbiàn. | This thing is useful and convenient. |
| 放假 | fàngjià | Verb Object | to have a vacation | 我明天放假。 | Wǒ míngtiān fàngjià. | I’ll be on holiday tomorrow. |
| 因为 | yīnwèi | Conj | Because | 因为我喜欢吃中国菜，所以我常去中国饭馆。 | Yīnwèi wǒ xǐhuan chī Zhōngguó cài, suǒyǐ wǒ cháng qù Zhōngguó fànguǎn. | I like to eat Chinese food, so I go to Chinese restaurant frequently. |
| 所以 | suǒyǐ | Conj | therefore | 因为我喜欢爬山，所以周末我都去。 | Yīnwèi wǒ xǐhuan páshān, suǒyǐ zhōumò wǒ dōu qù. | I like to climb the mountain, so I go there on weekends. |
| 刚 | gāng | Adv | just | 我刚放假，你想去哪儿玩儿? | Wǒ gāng fàngjià, nǐ xiǎng qù nǎr wánr? | I just have holiday, where do you want to go? |
| 看见 | kànjiàn | Verb | to see, to catch sight of | 你昨天看见什么了? | Nǐ zuótiān kànjiàn shénme le? | What did you see yesterday? |
| 以前 | yǐqián | Noun | Noun/ before | 我三年以前不会说汉语，现在说得很好。 | Wǒ sān nián yǐqián búhuì shuō Hànyǔ, xiànzài shuō de hěnhǎo. | I couldn’t speak Chinese three years ago, but now I can speak well. |
| 书法 | shūfǎ | Noun | calligraphy | 我喜欢写书法。 | Wǒ xǐhuan xiě shūfǎ. | I like to write calligraphy. |
| 开始 | kāishǐ | Verb | to start | 从明天开始，我不上汉语课了。 | Cóng míngtiān kāishǐ, wǒ bú shàng Hànyǔ kè le. | From tomorrow I don’t take Chinese class anymore. |
| 学校 | xuéxiào | Noun | school | 这是我的学校，很漂亮吧? | Zhè shì wǒ de xuéxiào, hěn piàoliang ba? | This is my school. It’s really pretty, isn’t it? |
| 课 | kè | Noun | lesson, class | 你今天上什么课? | Nǐ jīntiān shàng shénme kè? | What class do you have today? |
| 可能 | kěnéng | Adv | maybe, might, probably | 我可能不能去他家玩儿。 | Wǒ kěnéng bù néng qù tā jiā wánr. | I might not go to his house to hang out. |
| 最近 | zuìjìn | Noun | recently | 他最近工作很忙，不常给我打电话。 | Tā zuìjìn gōngzuò hěn máng, bù cháng gěi wǒ dǎdiànhuà. | He has been busy recently, only rarely does he call me. |
| 喂 | wéi | Phrase | Hello (when answer the telephone) | 喂，你好，请问有什么事? | Wéi, nǐhǎo, qǐngwèn yǒu shénme shì? | Hello, how can I help you? |
| 开会 | kāihuì | Verb Object | to hold a meeting | 我下午一点要开会。 | Wǒ xiàwǔ yì diǎn yào kāihuì. | I have meeting at one p.m. |
| 打电话 | dǎdiànhuà | Verb Object | to make a phone call | 你晚上可以打电话来我家。 | Nǐ wǎnshàng kěyǐ dǎdiànhuà lái wǒ jiā. | You can call me at night. |
| 那 | nà | Adv | then, in that case | A: 今天外面下雨，不能打篮球。 B: 那我们去看电影吧。 | A: Jīntiān wàimiàn xiàyǔ, bùnéng dǎ lánqiú. B: Nà wǒmen qù kàn diànyǐng ba. | A: It’s raining outside, we can’t play basketball. B: Then let’s see a movie. |
| 桌子 | zhuōzi | Noun | table | 我家有三张桌子。 | Wǒ jiā yǒu sān zhāng zhuōzi. | I have three tables at home. |
| 生日会 | shēngrì huì | Noun | birthday party | 他的生日会是一月二十五日。 | Tā de shēngrì huì shì yī yuè èrshíwǔ rì. | His birthday party is on the twenty-fifth of January. |
| 苹果派 | píngguǒ pài | Noun | apple pie | 我不喜欢吃苹果派。 | Wǒ bù xǐhuan chī píngguǒ pài. | I don’t like to eat apple pie. |
| 邀请 | yāoqǐng | Verb | to invite | 我想邀请你跟你的家人来我的生日会。 | Wǒ xiǎng yāoqǐng nǐ gēn nǐ de jiārén lái wǒ de shēngrì huì. | I would like to invite you and your family to my birthday party. |
| 好久不见 | hǎojiǔ bújiàn | Phrase | long time, no see | 好久不见，你好吗? | Hǎojiǔ bújiàn, nǐhǎo ma? | Long time no see, how are you? |
| 给 | gěi | Verb | to give | 因为我要考试，所以他给我很多书。 | Yīnwèi wǒ yào kǎoshì, suǒyǐ tā gěi wǒ hěnduō shū. | He gives me a lot of books because I have a test. |
| 礼物 | lǐwù | Noun | gift | 我不知道他喜欢什么礼物。 | Wǒ bù zhīdào tā xǐhuan shénme lǐwù. | I don’t know what present he likes. |
| 蓝色 | lánsè | Noun | blue | 我有一件蓝色的衣服。 | Wǒ yǒu yí jiàn lánsè de yīfú. | I have a blue t-shirt. |
| 饺子 | jiǎozi | Noun | dumplings | 饺子是中国菜的一种。 | Jiǎozi shì Zhōngguó cài de yì zhǒng. | Dumpling is a kind of Chinese food. |
| 旅游 | lǚyóu | Verb | travel | 我喜欢和我的朋友一起去旅游。 | Wǒ xǐhuan hé wǒ de péngyou yìqǐ qù lǚyóu. | I like to go travelling with my friends. |
| 经验 | jīngyàn | Noun | experience | 他的工作经验不多。 | Tā de gōngzuò jīngyàn bùduō. | He doesn’t have much working experience. |
| 次 | cì | Measure word | Measure word for enumerated events, time | 这件事情我说了三次了。 | Zhè jiàn shìqing wǒ shuō le sān cì le. | I have told you about this three times. |
| 快乐 | kuàile | Adj | happy | 旅游是一件很快乐的事情。 | Lǚyóu shì yí jiàn hěn kuàilè de shìqing. | Traveling is a very happy thing. |
| 最 | zuì | Adv | the most, “-est” | 我最喜欢的人是我爸爸妈妈。 | Wǒ zuì xǐhuan de rén shì wǒ bàba māma. | I like my parents the most. |
| 有名 | yǒumíng | Adj | famous | 这是这儿最有名的饭馆。 | Zhè shì zhèr zuì yǒumíng de fànguǎn. | This is the most famous restaurant here. |
| 飞机 | fēijī | Noun | airplane | 从美国到中国要坐十几个小时的飞机。 | Cóng Měiguó dào Zhōngguó yào zuò shí jǐ ge xiǎoshí de fēijī. | It takes more than ten hours from America to China by plane. |
| 听说 | tīngshuō | Verb | to hear (sb. said) | 听说你去过中国很多次？ | Tīngshuō nǐ qùguò Zhōngguó hěnduō cì? | I heard that you have been to China many times? |
| 高兴 | gāoxìng | Adj | glad, happy | 很高兴你也喜欢日本菜。 | Hěn gāoxìng nǐ yě xǐhuan Rìběn cài. | I’m glad you liked Japanese food. |
| 旅馆 | lǚguǎn | Noun | hostel, hotel | 你去旅游的时候喜欢住哪种旅馆？ | Nǐ qù lǚyóu de shíhou xǐhuan zhù nǎ zhǒng lǚguǎn？ | When you travel, which kind of hotel do you like to stay at? |
| 纪念品 | jìniànpǐn | Noun | souvenir | 你会买纪念品给你家人吗？ | Nǐ huì mǎi jìniànpǐn gěi nǐ jiārén ma? | Will you buy souvenirs for your family? |
| 计划 | jìhuà | Verb | to plan, to plan to do sth. | 你计划去哪几个国家旅游？ | Nǐ jìhuà qù nǎ jǐ ge guójiā lǚyóu? | What countries are you planning to go to? |
| 习惯 | xíguàn | Verb | to get used to | 你习惯吃哪国菜？ | Nǐ xíguàn chī nǎguó cài? | Which country’s food do you get used to eat? |
| 去年 | qùnián | Noun | last year | 你去年去过哪些国家？ | Nǐ qùnián qùguò nǎxiē guójiā? | What countries did you visit last year? |
| 回国 | huíguó | Verb Object | to return to home country | 他二月三日回国。 | Tā èr yuè sān rì huíguó. | He will return home on 3rd February. |
| 打算 | dǎsuàn | Verb | to plan | 我打算三点去图书馆看书。 | Wǒ dǎsuàn sān diǎn qù túshūguǎn kànshū. | I plan to go to library to read books at 3pm. |
| 北京 | běijīng | Noun | Peking | 我爸爸的公司在北京，他在那儿工作。 | Wǒ bàba de gōngsī zài Běijīng, tā zài nàr gōngzuò. | My dad’s company is in Peking, he is working there. |
| 外国 | wàiguó | Noun | abroad/foreign country | 我跟我的朋友放假要去外国旅游。 | Wǒ gēn wǒ de péngyou fàngjià yào qù wàiguó lǚyóu. | My friend and I are going abroad during our vacation. |
| 只 | zhǐ | Adv | only | 放假的时候，他的家人只喜欢在家休息。 | Fàngjià de shíhou tā de jiārén zhǐ xǐhuan zài jiā xiūxi. | His family only like to stay at home during holiday. |
| 后天 | hòutiān | Noun | the day after tomorrow | 因为他后天要去北京工作，所以明天晚上我们一起去酒吧喝酒聊天吧! | Yīnwèi tā hòutiān yào qù Běijīng gōngzuò, suǒyǐ míngtiān wǎnshàng wǒmen yìqǐ qù jiǔbā hējiǔ liáotiān ba. | He is going to work in Peking the day after tomorrow, so let’s go to the bar and have a drink tomorrow night. |
| 女朋友 | nǚpéngyou | Noun | girlfreind | 我的女朋友是美国人。 | Wǒ de nǚpéngyou shì Měiguó rén. | My girlfriend is American. |
| 走 | zǒu | Verb | to leave | 真舍不得你走，要常回来看我们。 | Zhēn shěbude nǐ zǒu, yào cháng huílái kàn women. | Really don’t want you to go, come back to visit us often. |
| 舍不得 | shěbude | Verb | to hate to part with | 我们舍不得你回国。 | Wǒmen shěbude nǐ huí guó. | We don’t want you to return to your country. |
| 同学 | tóngxué | Noun | classmate | 我汉语课的同学是美国人。 | Wǒ Hànyǔ kè de tóngxué shì Měiguó rén. | My classmate from Chinese class is an American. |
| 想 | xiǎng | Verb | to miss | 他到中国去工作三年了，他的家人都很想他。 | Tā dào Zhōngguó qù gōngzuò sān nián le, tā de jiārén dōu hěn xiǎng tā. | He was working in China for 3 years, his family miss him a lot. |
| 写信 | xiě xìn | Verb | to write a letter | 你回国以后要常写信给我。 | Nǐ huí guó yǐhòu yào cháng xiěxìn gěi wǒ. | You have to write me a letter more often when you are back home. |
| 搭 | dā | Verb | to take (transportation) | 从美国搭飞机到中国要十三个小时。 | Cóng Měiguó dā fēijī dào Zhōngguó yào shí sān gè xiǎoshí. | It takes thirteen hours from America to China by plane. |
| 回来 | huílái | Verb | to come back | 已经很晚了，你妹妹怎么还没回来? | Yǐjīng hěn wǎn le, nǐ mèimei zěnme háiméi huílái? | It’s late, why is your younger sister not back yet? |
| 天气 | tiānqì | Noun | weather | 今天天气不错，我们要不要一起出门去玩儿? | Jīntiān tiānqì búcuò, wǒmen yào búyào yìqǐ chūmén qù wánr? | Today’s weather is good, how about go out and play? |
| 冷 | lěng | Adj | cold | 今天外面很冷，早一点儿回来。 | Jīntiān wàimiàn hěn lěng, zǎo yìdiǎnr huílái. | It’s really cold outside, come back home early. |
| 热 | rè | Adj | hot | 天气很热，我们去游泳吧! | Tiānqì hěn rè, wǒmen qù yóuyǒng ba! | It’s so hot, let’s go swimming. |
| 滑雪 | huáxuě | Verb Object | to ski | 放假的时候，我都跟我的家人去日本滑雪。 | Fàngjià de shíhou, wǒ dōu gēn wǒ de jiārén qù Rìběn huáxuě. | During vacation time, I often go to Japan to ski with my family. |
| 游泳 | yóuyǒng | Noun | to swim | 天气很热的时候，我们都喜欢去游泳。 | Tiānqì hěn rè de shíhou, wǒmen dōu xǐhuan qù yóuyǒng. | When it’s hot, we all like to go swimming. |
| 下雪 | xiàxuě | Verb Object | to snow | 外面下雪了，真漂亮。 | Wàimiàn xiàxuě le, zhēn piàoliang. | It’s snowing outside, it’s very pretty. |
| 舒服 | shūfu | Adj | comfortable | 今天的天气不冷也不热，很舒服。 | Jīntiān de tiānqì bù lěng yě bú rè, hěn shūfu. | Today is not so cold and not so warm. It’s comfortable. |
| 岁 | suì | Measure word | year old | 你是几岁开始学中文的？ | Nǐ shì jǐ suì kāishǐ xué Zhōngwén de? | How old did you start to learn Chinese? |
| 高 | gāo | Adj | high；tall | 你的家人都比你高吗？ | Nǐ de jiārén dōu bǐ nǐ gāo ma? | Is your family all taller than you? |
| 那么 | nàme | Conj | so then… | 为什么你的中文说得那么好？ | Wèishénme nǐ de zhōngwén shuō dé nàme hǎo? | Why do you speak Chinese so well? |
| 胖 | pàng | Adj | fat | 哪个比较胖？ | Nǎge bǐjiào pàng? | Which one is fatter? |
| 矮 | ǎi | Adj | short | 弟弟比较矮。 | Dìdì bǐjiào ǎi. | My younger brother is shorter. |
| 瘦 | shòu | Adj | thin | 瘦的人健康吗？ | Shòu de rén jiànkāng ma? | Are thin people healthy? |
| 长 | cháng | Adj | long | 那条路不长。 | Nà tiáo lù bù cháng. | That road is not long. |
| 头发 | tóufà | Noun | hair | 他的头发很长吗？ | Tā de tóufà hěn cháng ma? | Is his hair very long? |
| 医生 | yīshēng | Noun | doctor | 我今天不舒服，我想我得去看医生。 | Wǒ jīntiān bù shūfu, wǒ xiǎng wǒ dĕi qù kàn yīshēng. | I don’t feel well, I think I need to see a doctor. |
| 生病 | shēngbìng | Verb Object | to be sick | 他生病了。所以今天不来上班。 | Tā shēngbìng le, suǒyǐ jīntiān bù lái shàngbān. | He is sick, so he will not come to work today. |
| 看病 | kànbìng | Verb Object | to see a doctor | 我跟我妹妹今天都不舒服, 所以我们下午的时候就一起去看病了。 | Wǒ gēn wǒ mèimei jīntiān dōu bù shūfu, suǒyǐ wǒmen xiàwǔ de shíhou jiù yìqǐ qù kànbìng le. | My younger sister and I both don’t feel well, so we go to see a doctor in the afternoon together. |
| 药 | yào | Noun | medicine | 这个药每天上午、中午、晚上都要吃一次。 | Zhè gè yào měitiān shàngwǔ, zhōngwǔ, wǎnshàng dōu yào chī yícì. | This medicine has to be taken once in the morning, noon and night. |
| 身体 | shēntǐ | Noun | body, health | 我爸爸的身体不太好，所以他常常生病。 | Wǒ bàba de shēntǐ bú tài hǎo, suǒyǐ tā cháng cháng shēngbìng. | My dad’s health is in bad condition therefore he is often sick. |
| 水果 | shuǐguǒ | Noun | fruit | 你生病要多吃点儿水果。 | Nǐ shēngbìng yào duō chī diǎnr shuǐguǒ. | When you are sick, you should eat more fruit. |
| 蔬菜 | shūcài | Noun | vegetables | 谁都喜欢吃蔬菜水果。 | Shéi dōu xǐhuan chī shūcài shuǐguǒ. | Everyone likes to eat vegetables and fruit. |
| 医院 | yīyuàn | Noun | hospital | 医院离我家不近，坐公交车要一小时。 | Yīyuàn lí wǒ jiā bú jìn, zuò gōngjiāochē yào yì xiǎoshí. | The hospital is not close to my house, it takes one hour by bus. |
| 请假 | qǐngjià | Verb Object | to take a leave | 我们后天要去旅游，所以我要请假。 | Wǒmen hòutiān yào qù lǚyóu,suǒyǐ wǒ yào qǐngjià. | I’m going to travel for the day after tomorrow, so I need to take the day off. |
| 一 | yī | Noun | one, single | 我有一个弟弟。 | Wǒ yǒu yíge dìdì. | I have a younger brother. |
| 一点儿 | yìdiǎnr | Numeral | a little bit, a bit | 今天有一点儿累。 | Jīntiān yǒu yìdiǎnr lèi. | Today I’m a little tired |
| 七 | qī | Numeral | seven | 这有七个人。 | Zhè yǒu qī ge rén. | There are seven people. |
| 三 | sān | Numeral | three | 我每天喝三杯咖啡。 | Wǒ měitiān hē sān bēi kāfēi. | I drink three cups of coffee a day. |
| 上 | shàng | Noun/Verb | on, on top of | 桌上有一本书。 | Zhuō shàng yǒu yì běn shū. | There is a book on the table. |
| 下 | xià | Noun/Verb | under, off, leave | 窗下有一只猫。 | Chuāng xià yǒu yì zhī māo. | There is a cat under the window. |
| 不 | bù | Adv | do not | 我不吃牛肉。 | Wǒ bù chī niúròu. | I do not eat beef. |
| 九 | jiǔ | Numeral | nine | 我的爸爸有九个姐姐。 | Wǒ de bàba yǒu jiǔ ge jiějiě. | My dad has nine sisters. |
| 了 | le | Adv | past tense | 这件衣服太贵了。 | Zhè jiàn yīfu tài guìle. | This piece of clothing is too expensive. |
| 二 | èr | Numeral | two | 昨天星期二。 | Zuótiān xīngqī ‘èr. | Yesterday was Tuesday. |
| 五 | wǔ | Numeral | five | 我家有五口人。 | Wǒjiā yǒu wǔ kǒu rén. | My family has five people. |
| 人 | rén | Noun | people, person | 你是挪威人吗？ | Nǐ shì Nuówēi rén ma? | Are you Norwegian? |
| 什么 | shénme | Adj/Adv | what | 这是什么？ | Zhè shì shénme? | What is this? |
| 会 | huì | Verb | to be able to, can do | 我会说一点儿汉语。 | Wǒ huì shuō yìdiǎnr hànyǔ. | I can speak a little Chinese. |
| 儿子 | érzi | Noun | son | 我的儿子叫王阳。 | Wǒ de érzi jiào wáng yáng。 | My son is called Wang Yang. |
| 八 | bā | Numeral | eight | 我有八本中文书。 | Wǒ yǒu bā běn zhōngwén shū. | I have eight Chinese books. |
| 六 | liù | Numeral | six | 中国人喜欢数字六。 | Zhōngguó rén xǐhuan shùzì liù. | Chinese people like the number six. |
| 写 | xiě | Verb | to write | 我会写我的中文名字。 | Wǒ huì xiě wǒ de zhōngwén míngzì. | I can write my Chinese name. |
| 几 | jǐ | Adj | a few | 你要几个苹果? | Nǐ yào jǐ gè píngguǒ? | How many apples do you want? |
| 前面 | qiánmiàn | Noun | front, frontside | 我家前面是咖啡店。 | Wǒjiā qiánmiàn shì kāfēi diàn. | There’s a coffee shop in front of my house. |
| 十 | shí | Numeral | ten | 一瓶水十元。 | Yì píng shuǐ shí yuán. | A bottle of water is ten yuan. |
| 去 | qù | Verb | to go | 昨天我没去学校。 | Zuótiān wǒ méi qù xuéxiào. | Yesterday, I didn’t go to school. |
| 号 | hào | Noun | number | 我的鞋是二十四号。 | Wǒ de xié shì èrshísì hào. | My shoes are size twenty-four. |
| 后面 | hòumiàn | Adj | behind, backside | 学校后面是山。 | Xuéxiào hòumiàn shì shān. | There’s a mountain behind the school. |
| 吗 | ma | Question Particle | Do you?Is that? | 你好吗？ | Nǐ hǎo ma？ | How are you? |
| 听 | tīng | Verb | to listen, to hear | 我喜欢听音乐。 | Wǒ xǐhuan tīng yīnyuè. | I like to listen to music. |
| 呢 | ne | Question Particle | 我要喝咖啡，你呢？ | Wǒ yào hē kāfēi, nǐ ne? | I want to drink coffee, how about you? | |
| 哪 | nǎ | Question pronoun | which | 哪杯咖啡？ | Nǎ bēi kāfēi? | Which cup of coffee? |
| 哪儿 | nǎ’er | Adj/Adv | where | 你想把画挂在哪儿？我想把画挂在这儿。 | Nǐ xiǎng bǎ huà guà zài nǎr？Wǒ xiǎng bǎ huà guà zài zhèr. | Where do you want to hang the painting? I want to hang the painting here. |
| 四 | sì | Noun | four | 中国人不喜欢数字四。 | Zhōngguó rén bù xǐhuān shùzì sì. | Chinese people do not like the number four. |
| 回 | huí | Verb | to go back, to return | 我晚上九点回家。 | Wǒ wǎnshàng jiǔ diǎn huí jiā. | I go home at nine o’clock. |
| 在 | zài | Adj/Adv | in | 我有时候会待在图书馆里看书。 | Wǒ yǒu shíhou huì dāi zài túshūguǎn lǐ kànshū. | Sometimes I will stay in the library and read books. |
| 多少 | duōshǎo | Phrase | How many | 这个多少钱? | Zhè gè duōshǎo qián? | How much is this? |
| 太 | tài | Adj | too (as in too many) | 这件衣服太贵了。 | Zhè jiàn yīfú tài guìle. | This piece of clothing is too expensive. |
| 她 | tā | Pronoun | she, her | 她的手机很好。 | Tā de shǒujī hěn hǎo. | Her cell phone is very good. |
| 字 | zì | Noun | word, character | 写汉字不太难。 | Xiě hànzì bù tài nán. | It’s not too difficult to write Chinese characters. |
| 小 | xiǎo | Adj | small | 我要小杯的绿茶。 | Wǒ yào xiǎo bēi de lǜchá. | I want a small cup of green tea. |
| 小姐 | xiǎojiě | Noun | Miss, Ms. | 张小姐，您好。 | Zhāng xiǎojiě, nín hǎo. | Hello, Miss Zhang. |
| 工作 | gōngzuò | Noun/Verb | work, to work, job | 我的工作是医生。 | Wǒ de gōngzuò shì yīshēng. | I work as a doctor. |
| 年 | nián | Noun | year | 今年是羊年。 | Jīnnián shì yáng nián. | This is the year of the sheep. |
| 很 | hěn | Adj | very, quite | 我今天很累。 | Wǒ jīntiān hěn lèi. | I’m so tired today. |
| 怎么样 | zěnmeyàng | Phrase | how’s this? how is it? how about that? | 今天晚餐吃牛肉，怎么样？ | Jīntiān wǎncān chī niúròu, zěnmeyàng? | Let’s have beef for dinner tonight, shall we? |
| 我们 | wǒmen | Pronoun | we, us | 我们是姐妹。 | Wǒmen shì jiěmèi. | We are sisters. |
| 时候 | shíhòu | Phrase | when (we were doing sth…), at the time | 七月的时候，我去新加坡。 | Qī yuè de shíhòu, wǒ qù xīnjiāpō. | In July, I’ll go to Singapore. |
| 有 | yǒu | Verb | to have, to own | 他有很多法国朋友。 | Tā yǒu hěnduō Fǎguó péngyǒu. | He has a lot of French friends. |
| 本 | běn | Measure word | measure word for books | 这是一本旅游杂志。 | Zhè shì yī běn lǚyóu zázhì. | This is a travel magazine. |
| 没有 | méiyǒu | Verb | to not have, don’t have | 我没有妹妹。 | Wǒ méiyǒu mèimei. | I don’t have a younger sister. |
| 点 | diǎn | Noun | point, o’clock | 现在是五点十分。 | Xiànzài shì wǔ diǎn shí fēn. | It’s ten past five o’clock now. |
| 电视 | diànshì | Noun | television, TV | 我家没电视。 | Wǒjiā méi diànshì. | My house doesn’t have a TV. |
| 的 | de | Adj/Adv | of, possessive, belonging to | 她的名字是玛丽。 | Tā de míngzi shì Mǎlì. | Her name is Mary. |
| 米饭 | mǐfàn | Noun | rice | 我喜欢吃米饭。 | Wǒ xǐhuān chī mǐfàn. | I like to eat rice. |
| 苹果 | píngguǒ | Noun | apple | 我喜欢苹果口味的甜食。 | Wǒ xǐhuan píngguǒ kǒuwèi de tiánshí. | I like apple flavor sweets. |
| 读 | dú | Verb | to read | 读中文书不太难。 | Dú zhōngwén shū bù tài nán. | It’s not too hard to read Chinese books. |
| 这 | zhè | Adj | this | 这是我妈妈。 | Zhè shì wǒ māmā. | This is my mother. |
| 都 | dōu | Adj/Adv | all, every | 他们都是我的朋友。 | Tāmen dōu shì wǒ de péngyǒu. | They are all my friends. |
| 里 | lǐ | Adj | in, inside | 我的包里有一瓶水。 | Wǒ de bāo li yǒuyī píng shuǐ. | There’s a bottle of water in my bag. |
| 饭店 | fàndiàn | Noun | restaurant | 这是一间新开的饭店。 | Zhè shì yī jiàn xīn kāi de fàndiàn. | This is a newly opened hotel. |
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America’s History for the AP Course
8th Edition•ISBN: 9781457628931 (2 more)Eric Hinderaker, James A. Henretta, Rebecca Edwards, Robert O. Self
470 solutions
出租车 chūzūchē… 睡觉 shuìjiào… 怎么样 zěnmeyàng…
Do you know those words yet? They’re some of the HSK 1 vocabulary words. If you’re going to take the test, it’s time to memorize them!
If you don’t know, HSK stands for Hanyu Shuiping Kaoshi (汉语水平考试), meaning “Mandarin Chinese Proficiency Test”. It’s the world’s most well-known and acknowledged test for Chinese proficiency, with six competence levels. HSK 6 is the hardest level, considered near-fluent. HSK 1 is the easiest level, covering the basic level of Chinese.
And if you’re looking to test your skills and see where you’re at in Chinese, then HSK is a great place to try it out. Even though HSK 1 is the most basic formal Chinese test, passing the test is still an achievement worth celebrating. So here’s your quick guide to learning the necessary HSK 1 vocabulary words.
Required Vocabulary for HSK 1 Test
So, how many Chinese words do you need to learn to pass the HSK 1 test?
According to Hanban, the HSK test organizer, to pass HSK Level 1, you need to know 150 vocabulary words precisely. These words don’t change between tests, and you can expect to see them on any given HSK 1 test (though not all 150 words will necessarily appear in one test).
Here’s the official guideline from Hanban.
- HSK1: 150 words
- HSK2: 300 words
- HSK3: 600 words
- HSK4: 1200 words
- HSK5: 2500 words
- HSK6: 5000 words
What Else to Expect on HSK 1 Test
HSK 1 test is designed for basic Chinese learners. In HSK 1, Pinyin (Mandarin romanization) is provided along with Chinese characters for all questions on the test paper, and there is no writing section, meaning you don’t really need to know any character to pass the test (of course you’ll need to be totally comfortable reading Pinyin at least).
You do, however, need to be able to understand simple conversations from daily life constructed with these 150 required vocabulary words, and some basic Chinese grammar to pass HSK 1.
HSK 1 Vocabulary List – the 150 Words You Need to Know for HSK Level 1 Test
I will preface the list by saying that this is not meant to be the “generic word list for beginners” or “the most common Chinese words” by frequency. Instead, this is a vocabulary list crafted specifically for passing the HSK 1 test. Once you’ve got the 150 required words, you can start learning vocabulary words that are most relevant to your own personal daily speech.
Alright, so let’s start learning the HSK 1 vocabulary!
I’ve organized these words based on category (e.g. numbers, time, people, and places) because Chinese words are easiest to learn when you associate them with related words.
Enjoy the list!
11 Chinese Words for Numbers
We’ll start with the numbers.
Chinese numbers are important to know. They are straightforward and extremely regular. Once you know how to count to 10, you can instantly count up to 99 without any need for extra memorization. (In case you don’t, read here)
| Chinese | Pinyin | English |
| 零 | líng | zero |
| 一 | yī | one |
| 二 | èr | two |
| 三 | sān | three |
| 四 | sì | four |
| 五 | wǔ | five |
| 六 | liù | six |
| 七 | qī | seven |
| 八 | bā | eight |
| 九 | jiǔ | nine |
| 十 | shí | ten |
7 Chinese Pronouns
Chinese pronouns don’t change form according to whether they are the subject (doer of the action, e.g. “I”) or object (undergoer of the action, e.g. “me”).
Note while “he”, “she” (or “him”, “her”) are represented by two different Chinese characters, they are pronounced in exactly the same way.
Pay attention to 这儿 (zhèr) – “here”, and 那儿 (nàr) – “there” as well. People in southern China often use 这里 (zhèli) and 那里 (nàli) instead as part of the regional differences (all these words are readily understood in China though).
| Chinese | Pinyin | English |
| 我 | wǒ | I or me |
| 你 | nǐ | you (singular) |
| 他 | tā | he or him |
| 她 | tā | she or her |
| 我们 | wǒmen | we or me |
| 这/这儿 | zhè/zhèr | this/here |
| 那/那儿 | nà/nàr | that/there |
7 Chinese Question Words
Question words like “what”, “where”, “who” are technically pronouns too. I’ve listed them separately here because I would like to draw your attention to how WH Questions are raised in Chinese.
Essentially, the word order of a WH question in Chinese stays in line with the basic Chinese structure S-V-O (subject-verb-object), that is, you need to keep the word order of the statement and change the “asked part” to the corresponding question word.
This is a key grammar point in HSK 1 test. If you are not sure how to craft a WH question, read here.
| Chinese | Pinyin | English |
| 哪/哪儿 | nǎ/nǎr | which/where |
| 谁 | shéi | who |
| 什么 | shénme | what |
| 多少 | duōshao | how many or how much |
| 几 | jǐ | how many or how much |
| 怎么 | zěnme | how |
| 怎么样 | zěnmeyàng | how about |
14 Chinese Words for Time
These time words required by HSK 1 are often used together with numbers. You can pair numbers up with words like 月 (yuè) to say months of the year, like 一月 (yī yuè) – “January”, or 星期 (xīngqī) to say days of the week, like 星期二 (xīngqī èr) – “Tuesday”.
Note, the time in Chinese is expressed quite differently than in English. For instance, the elements of the dates must be named in ascending order: year + month + day, that is, 年 (nián) + 月 (yuè) + 日 (rì).
Words like 上午 (shàngwǔ), 下午 (xiàwǔ), if used, also need to be placed before the time to depict the period accurately.
| Chinese | Pinyin | English |
| 现在 | xiànzài | now |
| 今天 | jīntiān | today |
| 明天 | míngtiān | tomorrow |
| 昨天 | zuótiān | yesterday |
| 上午 | shàngwǔ | morning |
| 中午 | zhōngwǔ | noon |
| 下午 | xiàwǔ | afternoon |
| 点 | diǎn | o’clock |
| 分钟 | fēnzhōng | minute |
| 年 | nián | year |
| 月 | yuè | month |
| 日 | rì | day |
| 星期 | xīngqī | week |
| 时候 | shíhou | a certain point in time |
36 Chinese Words for People & Things
HSK 1 expects you to know 36 nouns related to people and things to pass. Some of them are very important in Chinese culture, such as 茶 (chá) – “tea”, and 米饭 (mǐfàn) – “rice”, so they pop up a lot.
| Chinese | Pinyin | English |
| 人 | rén | person or people |
| 名字 | míngzì | name |
| 妈妈 | māma | mom |
| 爸爸 | bàba | dad |
| 儿子 | érzi | son |
| 女儿 | nǚ’ér | daughter |
| 朋友 | péngyǒu | friend |
| 先生 | xiānsheng | Mr or sir |
| 小姐 | xiǎojiě | Miss |
| 老师 | lǎoshī | teacher |
| 学生 | xuésheng | student |
| 同学 | tóngxué | schoolmate |
| 医生 | yīshēng | doctor |
| 东西 | dōngxi | thing |
| 钱 | qián | money |
| 水 | shuǐ | water |
| 茶 | chá | tea |
| 菜 | cài | dish |
| 米饭 | mǐfàn | (cooked) rice |
| 衣服 | yīfu | clothes |
| 书 | shū | book |
| 桌子 | zhuōzi | table or desk |
| 椅子 | yǐzi | chair |
| 水果 | shuǐguǒ | fruit |
| 苹果 | píngguǒ | apple |
| 杯子 | bēizi | cup or glass |
| 电视 | diànshì | TV |
| 电脑 | diànnǎo | computer |
| 电影 | diànyǐng | movie |
| 飞机 | fēijī | plane |
| 出租车 | chūzūchē | taxi |
| 猫 | māo | cat |
| 狗 | gǒu | dog |
| 天气 | tiānqì | weather |
| 字 | zì | character |
| 汉语 | Hànyǔ | Chinese (language) |
13 Chinese Words for Places & Directions
The following 13 words for places and directions are the ones you’ll encounter in HSK 1 test. Of course, they are equally useful outside the realm of testing to get by in China.
| Chinese | Pinyin | English |
| 中国 | Zhōngguó | China |
| 北京 | Běijīng | Beijing |
| 家 | jiā | home or family |
| 学校 | xuéxiào | school |
| 饭馆 | fànguǎn | restaurant |
| 商店 | shāngdiàn | shop |
| 医院 | yīyuàn | hospital |
| 火车站 | huǒchēzhàn | train station |
| 上 | shàng | on, above or last |
| 下 | xià | under, below or next |
| 前面 | qiánmiàn | front |
| 后面 | hòumiàn | back |
| 里 | lǐ | inside |
5 Chinese Measure Words
The use of measure words is unique to the Chinese language. There are more than one hundred measure words used for different kinds of things in daily Chinese. Luckily, to pass HSK 1, you only need to learn five of them.
In real life, you can get by for quite a while by just using the most common, general-purpose measure word 个 (gè). It may not be strictly correct (works like 30% of the time), but you’ll be understood. (or, you can learn the 15 most common Chinese measure words in this article)
| Chinese | Pinyin | English |
| 个 | gè | generic measure word |
| 块 | kuài | basic monetary unit of China |
| 本 | běn | for books |
| 岁 | suì | year (of age) |
| 些 | xiē | some |
31 Chinese Verbs
In the HSK 1 test, you’ll be quizzed on the following 31 verbs. Many of the verbs have multiple meanings, especially when combined with other words. Don’t worry about that for now, but just know there maybe – and usually are, more ways to use them once you get farther in your Chinese studies. For now, I simply included their most common meanings you need to know for taking HSK 1.
| Chinese | Pinyin | English |
| 做 | zuò | to do |
| 是 | shì | to be |
| 在 | zài | to be in |
| 有 | yǒu | to have |
| 住 | zhù | to live or to stay |
| 来 | lái | to come |
| 去 | qù | to go |
| 回 | huí | to return |
| 想 | xiǎng | to think |
| 吃 | chī | to eat |
| 喝 | hē | to drink |
| 说话 | shuōhuà | to speak |
| 看 | kàn | to look or to watch |
| 看见 | kànjiàn | to see |
| 听 | tīng | to listen |
| 叫 | jiào | to call |
| 买 | mǎi | to buy |
| 开 | kāi | to drive or to open |
| 坐 | zuò | to sit |
| 读 | dú | to read |
| 写 | xiě | to write |
| 打电话 | dǎ diànhuà | to make a phone call |
| 认识 | rènshi | to know |
| 学习 | xuéxí | to learn |
| 工作 | gōngzuò | to work |
| 睡觉 | shuìjiào | to sleep |
| 喜欢 | xǐhuan | to like |
| 爱 | ài | to love |
| 会 | huì | can (to know how to) |
| 能 | néng | can (to be able to) |
| 下雨 | xià yǔ | to rain |
14 Chinese Adjectives and Adverbs
Coming up next are the most basic Chinese adjectives and adverbs to describe things and actions. You will most likely be quizzed on how to describe things on the HSK 1 test. To do that, simply use 很 (hěn), the default connecting word to link a noun to an adjective, like 我很好 (wǒ hěn hǎo). The literal meaning of 很 (hěn) – “very” is very weak in such cases.
Another grammar point you’ll definitely need to know for the HSK 1 test would be the use of 不 (bù) vs 没 (méi). Bear in mind that 不 (bù) works with almost all the nouns and adjectives in Chinese, but to negate the verb 有 (yǒu), you have to use the negating word 没 (méi). That’s the only exception.
| Chinese | Pinyin | English |
| 好 | hǎo | good |
| 大 | dà | big |
| 小 | xiǎo | small |
| 多 | duō | many |
| 少 | shǎo | few |
| 热 | rè | hot |
| 冷 | lěng | cold |
| 漂亮 | piàoliang | pretty |
| 高兴 | gāoxìng | happy |
| 很 | hěn | very |
| 太 | tài | too… |
| 都 | dōu | both or all |
| 不 | bù | not |
| 没 | méi | not |
4 Chinese Particles
Chinese particles are those function words that don’t have a concrete meaning on their own, but are used together with another word, phrase, or sentence to serve a grammatical purpose. To pass HSK 1, you need to know the following four basic particles.
Pay special attention to the question particle 吗 (ma). Don’t think of it as the question mark in Chinese. Use it only for yes-no questions.
| Chinese | Pinyin | English |
| 的 | de | possession particle |
| 了 | le | aspect particle |
| 吗 | ma | question particle |
| 呢 | ne | question particle |
1 Chinese Conjunction
和 (hé) is the only conjunction you need to know for HSK 1. However, be aware of the pitfall! It is much less versatile than the English “and”, and should only be used to connect nouns in Chinese. Never attempt to connect adjectives, verbs, phrases, or sentences with 和 (hé)! (Find out what you should do instead with this article)
| Chinese | Pinyin | English |
| 和 | hé | and |
7 Chinese Expressions
Finally, there are seven basic expressions that you must master for HSK Level 1 test (you’ll most likely hear them in the Listening Section).
Pay attention to the word 请 (qǐng). In Chinese, you can only use the word at the beginning of a sentence to start a request, not at the end. That is, you can say things like “please sit down”, but not “sit down, please”.
| Chinese | Pinyin | English |
| 喂 | wèi | hello (on the phone) |
| 谢谢 | xièxie | thanks |
| 不客气 | bú kèqi | you’re welcome |
| 再见 | zàijiàn | goodbye |
| 请 | qǐng | please… |
| 对不起 | duìbuqǐ | sorry |
| 没关系 | méi guānxi | it’s all right |
HSK 1 Vocabulary Practice: The Best Way to Memorize HSK 1 Words
All right, so now you’ve seen the HSK 1 vocabulary list and know what you should study. But what’s the best way to memorize these words?
The best way to remember HSK 1 vocabulary (or any other level) is to use flashcards and create a maximum number of “exposures” to the new vocabulary in real life. Essentially, you’ll want to surround yourself with the new vocabulary, allowing the words to naturally move from short-term memory into long-term memory.
Step 1. Select and Create a Vocabulary List
Even though the HSK 1 vocabulary list is readily available for you, don’t just sit on it.
Instead, select and craft your own vocabulary list out of it by browsing our list first and then writing down the words you don’t know in a notebook. The objective here is to force yourself to see and write the words for yourself. Make them your Chinese vocabulary words.
Step 2. Use Flashcards
Flashcards are a powerful way to review Chinese words. You could do it old school and make actual, physical flashcards. Simply write down the new words in your list, with Pinyin or characters on one side, and the English definition on the other. This process itself gives you additional exposure to the unfamiliar vocabulary.
If you don’t have that much time to spare, then make use of flashcards apps such as Anki or Memrise. You can use them on desktop as well as on a mobile phone, so you can review the new words while commuting to school or work.
These apps also make use of spaced repetition – a clever algorithm that only shows you the flashcards that you’re about to forget. Sounds awesome, isn’t it?
Step 3. Get Out There and Try New Words
It’s all very well to recognize the words from vocabulary lists or flashcards, but you need to get more exposure to accurately and convincingly be able to use these words, to pass HSK 1, and speak Chinese!
So get out there and speak! Force yourself to use these new words with native Chinese speakers near where you live or online. The way native speakers respond to your shaky, early uses of new vocabulary will reinforce the meaning and usage of these words like nothing else.
If you can’t find anyone to practice with you, look up the words in a dictionary app such as Pleco and read the example sentences. These sentences will provide numerous more exposures to the words in context. You can even use Google or Baidu to identify how these Chinese words are actually used, a method that’s surprisingly effective.
Don’t miss out on our Grammar Channel! It’s a great reference resource you can go to for a quick recap/overview of grammatical structures, covering basic words in Chinese.
Bottom line: it’s important to not simply memorize Chinese words from a word list. Learn how the words are used in context, and they will more easily stick in your long-term memory.
And practice every day! Rinse and repeat until the test!
Frequently Asked Questions
1. To pass the HSK 1 test, do I have to know all the 150 words required?
Technically you don’t have to, since you won’t encounter all the 150 words required in one test, and you only need to score 120/200 to pass the test, meaning you can chance it. However, these 150 words are among the most basic, essential words you’ll need to speak Chinese. You should master them anyway and build your vocabulary from there.
2. Do I need to know how to write these words to pass the HSK?
You don’t have to write anything in the HSK 1 Test. All questions are delivered in the format of True or False, and Multiple Choices. Plus, Pinyin is provided along with Chinese characters for all questions on the test paper, meaning you don’t really need to be able to read characters to pass the test. That said, it’s still a good idea to knock out the basic Chinese characters at an early stage. Characters help you memorize vocabulary better, read with ease (making learning through native resources easier), and have a deeper understanding of how the Chinese language works. You can view the HSK 1 character list here.
What’s Next?
There are endless directions you can take for learning Chinese. Now that you’ve got the HSK 1 vocabulary, you can figure out what’s best for you and start applying it. From here, you can continue to study HSK 2 vocabulary or start learning words more relevant to your daily needs. You could also boost your Chinese by learning about basic Chinese grammar rules, basic phrases and sentences.
Last but not least, don’t forget to check out our Chinese Learning Channel for beginners, where you can find tons of useful resources waiting for you!
For the moth known as «Chinese character», see Cilix glaucata. For the Chinese philosopher often known as «Hanzi», see Han Fei. For the primary literary work attributed to said philosopher, see Han Feizi.
Unless otherwise specified, Chinese text in this article is presented as simplified Chinese or traditional Chinese, pinyin. If the simplified and traditional characters are the same, they are written only once.
| Chinese characters | |
|---|---|
| Script type |
Logographic |
|
Time period |
13th century BC to present |
| Direction | Left-to-right (modern) Top-to-bottom, columns right-to-left (traditional) |
| Languages | Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Ryukyuan, Vietnamese, Zhuang, Miao, etc. |
| Related scripts | |
|
Parent systems |
Oracle bone script
|
| ISO 15924 | |
| ISO 15924 | Hani (500), Han (Hanzi, Kanji, Hanja) |
| Unicode | |
|
Unicode alias |
Han |
| This article contains phonetic transcriptions in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA. For the distinction between [ ], / / and ⟨ ⟩, see IPA § Brackets and transcription delimiters. |
| Chinese characters | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Hanzi (Chinese character) in traditional (left) and simplified form (right) |
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| Chinese name | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Simplified Chinese | 汉字 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Traditional Chinese | 漢字 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Literal meaning | «Han characters» | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Vietnamese name | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Vietnamese alphabet | chữ Hán chữ Nho Hán tự |
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| Hán-Nôm | 𡨸漢 𡨸儒 |
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| Chữ Hán | 漢字 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Thai name | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Thai | อักษรจีน | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Zhuang name | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Zhuang | 𭨡倱[1] Sawgun |
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| Korean name | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Hangul | 한자 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Hanja | 漢字 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Japanese name | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Kanji | 漢字 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Hiragana | かんじ | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Khmer name | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Khmer | តួអក្សរចិន |
Chinese characters[a] are logograms developed for the writing of Chinese.[2][3] Chinese characters are the oldest continuously used system of writing in the world.[4] By virtue of their widespread current use throughout East Asia and Southeast Asia, as well as their profound historic use throughout the Sinosphere, Chinese characters are among the most widely adopted writing systems in the world by number of users.
The total number of Chinese characters ever to appear in a dictionary is in the tens of thousands, though most are graphic variants, were used historically and passed out of use, or are of a specialized nature. A college graduate who is literate in written Chinese knows between three and four thousand characters, though more are required for specialized fields.[5] In Japan, 2,136 are taught through secondary school (the Jōyō kanji); hundreds more are in everyday use. Due to separate simplifications of characters in Japan and in China, the kanji used in Japan today has some differences from Chinese simplified characters in several respects. There are various national standard lists of characters, forms, and pronunciations. Simplified forms of certain characters are used in mainland China, Singapore, and Malaysia; traditional characters are used in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau. In addition, chinese characters have been adapted to write other East Asian languages, and remain a key component of the Japanese writing system where they are known as kanji. Chinese characters in South Korea, which are known as hanja, retain significant use in Korean academia to study its documents, history, literature and records. Vietnam once used the chữ Hán and developed chữ Nôm to write Vietnamese before turning to a romanized alphabet. In Japan, common characters are often written in post-Tōyō kanji simplified forms, while uncommon characters are written in Japanese traditional forms. During the 1970s, Singapore had also briefly enacted its own simplification campaign, but eventually streamlined its simplification to be uniform with mainland China.
In modern Chinese, most words are compounds written with two or more characters.[6] Unlike alphabetic writing systems, in which the unit character roughly corresponds to one phoneme, the Chinese writing system associates each logogram with an entire syllable, and thus may be compared in some aspects to a syllabary. A character almost always corresponds to a single syllable that is also a morpheme.[7] However, there are a few exceptions to this general correspondence, including bisyllabic morphemes (written with two characters), bimorphemic syllables (written with two characters) and cases where a single character represents a polysyllabic word or phrase.[8]
Modern Chinese has many homophones; thus the same spoken syllable may be represented by one of many characters, depending on meaning. A particular character may also have a range of meanings, or sometimes quite distinct meanings, which might have different pronunciations. Cognates in the several varieties of Chinese are generally written with the same character. In other languages, most significantly in modern Japanese and sometimes in Korean, characters are used to represent Chinese loanwords or to represent native words independent of the Chinese pronunciation (e.g., kun’yomi in Japanese). Some characters retained their phonetic elements based on their pronunciation in a historical variety of Chinese from which they were acquired. These foreign adaptations of Chinese pronunciation are known as Sino-Xenic pronunciations and have been useful in the reconstruction of Middle Chinese.
Function[edit]
When the script was first used in the late 2nd millennium BC, words of Old Chinese were generally monosyllabic, and each character denoted a single word.[9] Increasing numbers of polysyllabic words have entered the language from the Western Zhou period to the present day. It is estimated that about 25–30% of the vocabulary of classic texts from the Warring States period was polysyllabic, though these words were used far less commonly than monosyllables, which accounted for 80–90% of occurrences in these texts.[10]
The process has accelerated over the centuries as phonetic change has increased the number of homophones.[11]
It has been estimated that over two thirds of the 3,000 most common words in modern Standard Chinese are polysyllables, the vast majority of those being disyllables.[12]
The most common process has been to form compounds of existing words, written with the characters of the constituent words. Words have also been created by adding affixes, reduplication, and borrowing from other languages.[13]
Polysyllabic words are generally written with one character per syllable.[14][b]
In most cases, the character denotes a morpheme descended from an Old Chinese word.[15]
Many characters have multiple readings, with instances denoting different morphemes, sometimes with different pronunciations. In modern Standard Chinese, one fifth of the 2,400 most common characters have multiple pronunciations.
For the 500 most common characters, the proportion rises to 30%.[16]
Often these readings are similar in sound and related in meaning. In the Old Chinese period, affixes could be added to a word to form a new word, which was often written with the same character. In many cases, the pronunciations diverged due to subsequent sound change. For example, many additional readings have the Middle Chinese departing tone, the major source of the 4th tone in modern Standard Chinese. Scholars now believe that this tone is the reflex of an Old Chinese *-s suffix, with a range of semantic functions.[17]
For example,
- 传/傳 has readings OC *drjon > MC drjwen’ > Mod. chuán ‘to transmit’ and *drjons > drjwenH > zhuàn ‘a record’.[18] (Middle Chinese forms are given in Baxter’s transcription, in which H denotes the departing tone.)
- 磨 has readings *maj > ma > mó ‘to grind’ and *majs > maH > mò ‘grindstone’.[18]
- 宿 has readings *sjuk > sjuwk > sù ‘to stay overnight’ and *sjuks > sjuwH > xiù ‘celestial «mansion»‘.[19]
- 说/説 has readings *hljot > sywet > shuō ‘speak’ and *hljots > sywejH > shuì ‘exhort’.[20]
Another common alternation is between voiced and voiceless initials (though the voicing distinction has disappeared on most modern varieties).
This is believed to reflect an ancient prefix, but scholars disagree on whether the voiced or voiceless form is the original root.
For example,
- 见/見 has readings *kens > kenH > jiàn ‘to see’ and *gens > henH > xiàn ‘to appear’.[21]
- 败/敗 has readings *prats > pæjH > bài ‘to defeat’ and *brats > bæjH > bài ‘to be defeated’.[21] (In this case, the pronunciations have converged in Standard Chinese, but not in some other varieties.)
- 折 has readings *tjat > tsyet > zhé ‘to bend’ and *djat > dzyet > shé ‘to break by bending’.[22]
Principles of formation[edit]
Excerpt from a 1436 primer on Chinese characters
Chinese characters represent words of the language using several strategies. A few characters, including some of the most commonly used, were originally pictograms, which depicted the objects denoted, or ideograms, in which meaning was expressed iconically. The vast majority were written using the rebus principle, in which a character for a similarly sounding word was either borrowed or more commonly extended with a disambiguating semantic marker to form a phono-semantic compound character.[23]
The traditional six-fold classification (liùshū 六书 / 六書 «six writings») was first described by the scholar Xu Shen in the postface of his dictionary Shuowen Jiezi in 100 AD.[24]
While this analysis is sometimes problematic and arguably fails to reflect the complete nature of the Chinese writing system, it has been perpetuated by its long history and pervasive use.
Pictograms[edit]
- 象形字 xiàngxíngzì
Pictograms are highly stylized and simplified pictures of material objects. Examples of pictograms include 日 rì for «sun», 月 yuè for «moon», and 木 mù for «tree» or «wood». Xu Shen placed approximately 4% of characters in this category.
Though few in number and expressing literal objects, pictograms and ideograms are nonetheless the basis on which all the more complex characters such as associative compound characters (会意字/會意字) and phono-semantic characters (形声字/形聲字) are formed.
Over time pictograms were increasingly standardized, simplified, and stylized to make them easier to write. Furthermore, the same Kangxi radical character element can be used to depict different objects.
Thus, the image depicted by most pictograms is not often immediately evident. For example, 口 may indicate the mouth, a window as in 高 which depicts a tall building as a symbol of the idea of «tall» or the lip of a vessel as in 富 a wine jar under a roof as symbol of wealth. That is, pictograms extended from literal objects to take on symbolic or metaphoric meanings; sometimes even displacing the use of the character as a literal term, or creating ambiguity, which was resolved through character determinants, more commonly but less accurately known as «radicals» i.e. concept keys in the phono-semantic characters.
Simple ideograms[edit]
- 指事字 zhǐshìzì
Also called simple indicatives, this small category contains characters that are direct iconic illustrations. Examples include 上 shàng «up» and 下 xià «down», originally a dot above and below a line. Indicative characters are symbols for abstract concepts which could not be depicted literally but nonetheless can be expressed as a visual symbol e.g. convex 凸, concave 凹, flat-and-level 平.
Compound ideographs[edit]
- 会意字 / 會意字 huìyìzì
Also translated as logical aggregates or associative idea characters, these characters have been interpreted as combining two or more pictographic or ideographic characters to suggest a third meaning. The canonical example is 明 bright. 明 is the association of the two brightest objects in the sky the sun 日 and moon 月, brought together to express the idea of «bright». It is canonical because the term 明白 in Chinese (lit. «bright white») means «to understand, understand». Adding the abbreviated radical for grass, cao 艹 above the character, ming, changes it to meng 萌, which means to sprout or bud, alluding to the heliotropic behavior of plant life. Other commonly cited examples include 休 «rest» (composed of the pictograms 人 «person» and 木 «tree») and 好 «good» (composed of 女 «woman» and 子 «child»).
Xu Shen placed approximately 13% of characters in this category, but many of his examples are now believed to be phono-semantic compounds whose origin has been obscured by subsequent changes in their form.[25] Peter Boodberg and William Boltz go so far as to deny that any of the compound characters devised in ancient times were of this type, maintaining that now-lost «secondary readings» are responsible for the apparent absence of phonetic indicators,[26] but their arguments have been rejected by other scholars.[27]
In contrast, associative compound characters are common among characters coined in Japan. Also, a few characters coined in China in modern times, such as 鉑 platinum, «white metal» (see Chemical elements in East Asian languages) belong to this category.
Rebus[edit]
- 假借字 jiǎjièzì
Also called borrowings or phonetic loan characters, the rebus category covers cases where an existing character is used to represent an unrelated word with similar or identical pronunciation; sometimes the old meaning is then lost completely, as with characters such as 自 zì, which has lost its original meaning of «nose» completely and exclusively means «oneself», or 萬 wàn, which originally meant «scorpion» but is now used only in the sense of «ten thousand».
Rebus was pivotal in the history of writing in China insofar as it represented the stage at which logographic writing could become purely phonetic (phonographic). Chinese characters used purely for their sound values are attested in the Spring and Autumn and Warring States period manuscripts, in which zhi 氏 was used to write shi 是 and vice versa, just lines apart; the same happened with shao 勺 for Zhao 趙, with the characters in question being homophonous or nearly homophonous at the time.[28]
Phonetical usage for foreign words[edit]
Chinese characters are used rebus-like and exclusively for their phonetic value when transcribing words of foreign origin, such as ancient Buddhist terms or modern foreign names. For example, the word for the country «Romania» is 罗马尼亚/羅馬尼亞 (Luó Mǎ Ní Yà), in which the Chinese characters are only used for their sounds and do not provide any meaning.[29] This usage is similar to that of the Japanese Katakana and Hiragana, although the Kanas use a special set of simplified forms of Chinese characters, in order to advertise their value as purely phonetic symbols. The same rebus principle for names in particular has also been used in Egyptian hieroglyphs and Maya glyphs.[30] In the Chinese usage, in a few instances, the characters used for pronunciation might be carefully chosen in order to connote a specific meaning, as regularly happens for brand names: Coca-Cola is translated phonetically as 可口可乐/可口可樂 (Kěkǒu Kělè), but the characters were carefully selected so as to have the additional meaning of «Delicious and Enjoyable». A more literal translation would be «the Mouth can be happy», and the phrase in Chinese is technically grammatically sound.[29][30]
Phono-semantic compounds[edit]
- 形声字 / 形聲字 Mandarin: xíngshēngzì
Structures of compounds, with red marked positions of radicals
Semantic-phonetic compounds or pictophonetic compounds are by far the most numerous characters. These characters are composed of at least two parts. The semantic component suggests the general meaning of the compound character. The phonetic component suggests the pronunciation of the compound character. In most cases the semantic indicator is also the 部首 radical under which the character is listed in dictionaries. In some rare examples phono-semantic characters may also convey pictorial content. Each Chinese character is an attempt to combine sound, image, and idea in a mutually reinforcing fashion.
Examples of phono-semantic characters include 河 hé «river», 湖 hú «lake», 流 liú «stream», 沖 chōng «surge», 滑 huá «slippery». All these characters have on the left a radical of three short strokes (氵), which is a reduced form of the character 水 shuǐ meaning «water», indicating that the character has a semantic connection with water. The right-hand side in each case is a phonetic indicator- for instance: 胡 hú has a very similar pronunciation to 湖 and 可 kě has a similar (though somewhat different) pronunciation to 河. For example, in the case of 沖 chōng (Old Chinese *ɡ-ljuŋ[31]) «surge», the phonetic indicator is 中 zhōng (Old Chinese *k-ljuŋ[32]), which by itself means «middle». In this case it can be seen that the pronunciation of the character is slightly different from that of its phonetic indicator; the effect of historical sound change means that the composition of such characters can sometimes seem arbitrary today.
In general, phonetic components do not determine the exact pronunciation of a character, but only give a clue as to its pronunciation. While some characters take the exact pronunciation of their phonetic component, others take only the initial or final sounds.[33] In fact, some characters’ pronunciations may not correspond to the pronunciations of their phonetic parts at all, which is sometimes the case with characters after having undergone simplification. The 8 characters in the following table all take 也 for their phonetic part, however, as it is readily apparent, none of them take the pronunciation of 也, which is yě (Old Chinese *lajʔ). As the table below shows, the sound changes that have taken place since the Shang/Zhou period when most of these characters were created can be dramatic, to the point of not providing any useful hint of the modern pronunciation.
| Character | Semantic part | Phonetic part | Mandarin (pinyin) |
Cantonese (jyutping) |
Japanese (romaji) |
Middle Chinese |
Old Chinese (Baxter–Sagart) |
meaning |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 也 | (originally a pictograph of a vulva)[35] | none | yě | jaa5 | ya | jiaX | *lajʔ | grammatical particle; also |
| 池 | 水（氵）water | 也 | chí | ci4 | chi | ɖje | *Cə.lraj | pool |
| 馳 / 驰 | 马 / 馬 horse | 也 | chí | ci4 | chi | ɖje | *lraj | gallop |
| 弛 | 弓 bow (bend) | 也 | chí (Mainland and Taiwan) shǐ (Taiwan) |
ci4 | chi, shi | ɕjeX | *l̥ajʔ | loosen, relax |
| 施 | 㫃 flag | 也 | shī | si1 | se, shi | ɕje | *l̥aj | spread, set up, use |
| 地 | 土 earth | 也 | dì | dei6 | ji, chi | dijH | *lˤej-s | ground, earth |
| de, di | — | — | — | adverbial particle in Mandarin | ||||
| 他 | 人 （亻）person | 也 | tā | taa1 | ta | tʰa | *l̥ˤaj | he, other |
| 她 | 女 female | 也 | — | — | — | she | ||
| 拖 | 手 （扌）hand | 㐌 | tuō | to1 | ta, da | tʰaH | *l̥ˤaj | drag |
Xu Shen (c. 100 AD) placed approximately 82% of characters into this category, while in the Kangxi Dictionary (1716 AD) the number is closer to 90%, due to the extremely productive use of this technique to extend the Chinese vocabulary.[citation needed] The chữ Nôm characters of Vietnam were created using this principle.
This method is used to form new characters, for example 钚 / 鈈 bù («plutonium») is the metal radical 金 jīn plus the phonetic component 不 bù, described in Chinese as «不 gives sound, 金 gives meaning». Many Chinese names of the chemical elements and many other chemistry-related characters were formed this way. In fact, it is possible to tell from a Chinese periodic table at a glance which elements are metal (金), solid nonmetal (石, «stone»), liquid (氵), or gas (气) at standard temperature and pressure.
Occasionally a bisyllabic word is written with two characters that contain the same radical, as in 蝴蝶 húdié «butterfly», where both characters have the insect radical 虫. A notable example is pipa (a Chinese lute, also a fruit, the loquat, of similar shape) – originally written as 批把 with the hand radical (扌), referring to the down and up strokes when playing this instrument, which was then changed to 枇杷 (tree radical 木), which is still used for the fruit, while the character was changed to 琵琶 when referring to the instrument (radical 玨).[36] In other cases a compound word may coincidentally share a radical without this being meaningful.
Derivative cognates[edit]
- 转注字 / 轉注字 zhuǎnzhùzì
The smallest category of characters is also the least understood.[37] In the postface to the Shuowen Jiezi, Xu Shen gave as an example the characters 考 kǎo «to verify» and 老 lǎo «old», which had similar Old Chinese pronunciations (*khuʔ and *C-ruʔ respectively[38]) and may once have been the same word, meaning «elderly person», but became lexicalized into two separate words. The term does not appear in the body of the dictionary, and is often omitted from modern systems.[39]
History[edit]
Comparative evolution from pictograms to abstract shapes, in cuneiform, Egyptian and Chinese characters
Legendary origins[edit]
According to traditional legend, Chinese characters were invented by Cangjie, a figure said to have been a scribe to the legendary Yellow Emperor during the 27th century BC. Inspired by his study of the animals of the world, the landscape of the earth and the stars in the sky, Cangjie is said to have invented symbols called zì (字) – the first Chinese characters. The legend relates that on the day the characters were created, grain rained down from the sky and that night the people heard ghosts wailing and demons crying because the human beings could no longer be cheated.[40]
Early sign use[edit]
In recent decades, a series of inscribed graphs and pictures have been found at Neolithic sites in China, including Jiahu (c. 6500 BC), Dadiwan and Damaidi from the 6th millennium BC, and Banpo (5th millennium BC). Often these finds are accompanied by media reports that push back the purported beginnings of Chinese writing by thousands of years.[41][42] However, because these marks occur singly without any implied context and are made crudely, Qiu Xigui concluded that «we do not have any basis for stating that these constituted writing nor is there reason to conclude that they were ancestral to Shang dynasty Chinese characters.»[43] They do however demonstrate a history of sign use in the Yellow River valley during the Neolithic through to the Shang period.[42]
Oracle bone script[edit]
Ox scapula with oracle bone inscription
The earliest confirmed evidence of the Chinese script yet discovered is the body of inscriptions carved on bronze vessels and oracle bones from the late Shang dynasty (c. 1250–1050 BC).[44][45] The earliest of these is dated to around 1200 BC.[46][47] In 1899, pieces of these bones were being sold as «dragon bones» for medicinal purposes, when scholars identified the symbols on them as Chinese writing. By 1928, the source of the bones had been traced to a village near Anyang in Henan Province, which was excavated by the Academia Sinica between 1928 and 1937. Over 150,000 fragments have been found.[44]
Oracle bone inscriptions are records of divinations performed in communication with royal ancestral spirits.[44] The shortest are only a few characters long, while the longest are 30 to 40 characters in length. The Shang king would communicate with his ancestors on topics relating to the royal family, military success, weather forecasting, ritual sacrifices, and related topics by means of scapulimancy, and the answers would be recorded on the divination material itself.[44]
The oracle bone script is a well-developed writing system,[48][49] suggesting that the Chinese script’s origins may lie earlier than the late second millennium BC.[50] Although these divinatory inscriptions are the earliest surviving evidence of ancient Chinese writing, it is widely believed that writing was used for many other non-official purposes, but that the materials upon which non-divinatory writing was done – likely wood and bamboo – were less durable than bone and shell and have since decayed away.[50]
Bronze Age: parallel script forms and gradual evolution[edit]
The Shi Qiang pan, a bronze ritual basin dated to around 900 BC. Long inscriptions on the surface describe the deeds and virtues of the first seven Zhou kings.
The traditional picture of an orderly series of scripts, each one invented suddenly and then completely displacing the previous one, has been conclusively demonstrated to be fiction by the archaeological finds and scholarly research of the later 20th and early 21st centuries.[51] Gradual evolution and the coexistence of two or more scripts was more often the case. As early as the Shang dynasty, oracle bone script coexisted as a simplified form alongside the normal script of bamboo books (preserved in typical bronze inscriptions), as well as the extra-elaborate pictorial forms (often clan emblems) found on many bronzes.
Based on studies of these bronze inscriptions, it is clear that, from the Shang dynasty writing to that of the Western Zhou and early Eastern Zhou, the mainstream script evolved in a slow, unbroken fashion, until assuming the form that is now known as seal script in the late Eastern Zhou in the state of Qin, without any clear line of division.[52][53] Meanwhile, other scripts had evolved, especially in the eastern and southern areas during the late Zhou dynasty, including regional forms, such as the gǔwén («ancient forms») of the eastern Warring States preserved as variant forms in the Han dynasty character dictionary Shuowen Jiezi, as well as decorative forms such as bird and insect scripts.
Unification: seal script, vulgar writing, and proto-clerical[edit]
Seal script, which had evolved slowly in the state of Qin during the Eastern Zhou dynasty, became standardized and adopted as the formal script for all of China in the Qin dynasty (leading to a popular misconception that it was invented at that time), and was still widely used for decorative engraving and seals (name chops, or signets) in the Han dynasty period. However, despite the Qin script standardization, more than one script remained in use at the time. For example, a little-known, rectilinear and roughly executed kind of common (vulgar) writing had for centuries coexisted with the more formal seal script in the Qin state, and the popularity of this vulgar writing grew as the use of writing itself became more widespread.[54] By the Warring States period, an immature form of clerical script called «early clerical» or «proto-clerical» had already developed in the state of Qin[55] based upon this vulgar writing, and with influence from seal script as well.[56] The coexistence of the three scripts – small seal, vulgar and proto-clerical, with the latter evolving gradually in the Qin to early Han dynasties into clerical script – runs counter to the traditional belief that the Qin dynasty had one script only, and that clerical script was suddenly invented in the early Han dynasty from the small seal script.
Han dynasty[edit]
Proto-clerical evolving to clerical[edit]
Proto-clerical script, which had emerged by the time of the Warring States period from vulgar Qin writing, matured gradually, and by the early Western Han period, it was little different from that of the Qin.[57] Recently discovered bamboo slips show the script becoming mature clerical script by the middle-to-late reign of Emperor Wu of the Western Han,[58] who ruled from 141 to 87 BC.
Clerical and clerical cursive[edit]
Contrary to the popular belief of there being only one script per period, there were in fact multiple scripts in use during the Han period.[59] Although mature clerical script, also called 八分 (bāfēn)[60] script, was dominant at that time, an early type of cursive script was also in use by the Han by at least as early as 24 BC (during the very late Western Han period),[c] incorporating cursive forms popular at the time, well as many elements from the vulgar writing of the Warring State of Qin.[61] By around the time of the Eastern Jin dynasty, this Han cursive became known as 章草 zhāngcǎo (also known as 隶草 / 隸草 lìcǎo today), or in English sometimes clerical cursive, ancient cursive, or draft cursive. Some believe that the name, based on 章 zhāng meaning «orderly», arose because the script was a more orderly form[62] of cursive than the modern form, which emerged during the Eastern Jin dynasty and is still in use today, called 今草 jīncǎo or «modern cursive».[63]
Neo-clerical[edit]
Around the mid-Eastern Han period,[62] a simplified and easier-to-write form of clerical script appeared, which Qiu terms «neo-clerical» (新隶体 / 新隸體, xīnlìtǐ).[64] By the late Eastern Han, this had become the dominant daily script,[62] although the formal, mature bāfēn (八分) clerical script remained in use for formal works such as engraved stelae.[62] Qiu describes this neo-clerical script as a transition between clerical and regular script,[62] and it remained in use through the Cao Wei and Jin dynasties.[65]
Semi-cursive[edit]
By the late Eastern Han period, an early form of semi-cursive script appeared,[64] developing out of a cursively written form of neo-clerical script[d] and simple cursive.[66] This semi-cursive script was traditionally attributed to Liu Desheng c. 147–188 AD,[65][e] although such attributions refer to early masters of a script rather than to their actual inventors, since the scripts generally evolved into being over time. Qiu gives examples of early semi-cursive script, showing that it had popular origins rather than being purely Liu’s invention.[67]
Wei to Jin period[edit]
Regular script[edit]
Regular script has been attributed to Zhong Yao (c. 151–230 AD), during the period at the end of the Han dynasty in the state of Cao Wei. Zhong Yao has been called the «father of regular script». However, some scholars[68] postulate that one person alone could not have developed a new script which was universally adopted, but could only have been a contributor to its gradual formation. The earliest surviving pieces written in regular script are copies of Zhong Yao’s works, including at least one copied by Wang Xizhi. This new script, which is the dominant modern Chinese script, developed out of a neatly written form of early semi-cursive, with addition of the pause (顿/頓 dùn) technique to end horizontal strokes, plus heavy tails on strokes which are written to the downward-right diagonal.[69] Thus, early regular script emerged from a neat, formal form of semi-cursive, which had itself emerged from neo-clerical (a simplified, convenient form of clerical script). It then matured further in the Eastern Jin dynasty in the hands of the «Sage of Calligraphy», Wang Xizhi, and his son Wang Xianzhi. It was not, however, in widespread use at that time, and most writers continued using neo-clerical, or a somewhat semi-cursive form of it, for daily writing,[69] while the conservative bafen clerical script remained in use on some stelae, alongside some semi-cursive, but primarily neo-clerical.[70]
Modern cursive[edit]
Meanwhile, modern cursive script slowly emerged from the clerical cursive (zhāngcǎo) script during the Cao Wei to Jin period, under the influence of both semi-cursive and the newly emerged regular script.[71] Cursive was formalized in the hands of a few master calligraphers, the most famous and influential of whom was Wang Xizhi.[f]
Dominance and maturation of regular script[edit]
It was not until the Northern and Southern dynasties that regular script rose to dominant status.[72] During that period, regular script continued evolving stylistically, reaching full maturity in the early Tang dynasty. Some call the writing of the early Tang calligrapher Ouyang Xun (557–641) the first mature regular script. After this point, although developments in the art of calligraphy and in character simplification still lay ahead, there were no more major stages of evolution for the mainstream script.
Modern history[edit]
Although most simplified Chinese characters in use today are the result of the works moderated by the government of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in the 1950s and 60s, the use of some of these forms predates the PRC’s formation in 1949. Caoshu, cursive written text, was the inspiration of some simplified characters, and for others, some are attested as early as the Qin dynasty (221–206 BC) as either vulgar variants or original characters.
The first batch of Simplified Characters introduced in 1935 consisted of 324 characters.
One of the earliest proponents of character simplification was Lufei Kui, who proposed in 1909 that simplified characters should be used in education. In the years following the May Fourth Movement in 1919, many anti-imperialist Chinese intellectuals sought ways to modernise China as quickly as possible. Traditional culture and values such as Confucianism were challenged and subsequently blamed for their problems. Soon, people in the Movement started to cite the traditional Chinese writing system as an obstacle in modernising China and therefore proposed that a reform be initiated. It was suggested that the Chinese writing system should be either simplified or completely abolished. Lu Xun, a renowned Chinese author in the 20th century, stated that, «If Chinese characters are not destroyed, then China will die» (漢字不滅，中國必亡). Recent commentators have claimed that Chinese characters were blamed for the economic problems in China during that time.[73]
In the 1930s and 1940s, discussions on character simplification took place within the Kuomintang government, and a large number of the intelligentsia maintained that character simplification would help boost literacy in China.[74] In 1935, 324 simplified characters collected by Qian Xuantong were officially introduced as the table of first batch of simplified characters, but they were suspended in 1936 due to fierce opposition within the party.
The People’s Republic of China issued its first round of official character simplifications in two documents, the first in 1956 and the second in 1964. In the 1950s and 1960s, while confusion about simplified characters was still rampant, transitional characters that mixed simplified parts with yet-to-be simplified parts of characters together appeared briefly, then disappeared.
«Han unification» was an effort by the authors of Unicode and the Universal Character Set to map multiple character sets of the so-called CJK languages (Chinese/Japanese/Korean) into a single set of unified characters and was completed for the purposes of Unicode in 1991 (Unicode 1.0).
Apart from Chinese ones, Korean, Japanese and Vietnamese normative medium of record-keeping, written historical narratives and official communication are in adaptations and variations of Chinese script.[75]
Adaptation to other languages[edit]
Current (dark and medium green) and former extension (light green) of the use of Chinese characters
Countries and regions using Chinese characters as a writing system:
Dark Green: Traditional Chinese used officially (Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau)
Green: Simplified Chinese used officially but traditional form is also used in publishing (Singapore, Malaysia)[76]
Light Green: Simplified Chinese used officially, traditional form in daily use is uncommon (China, Kokang, and Wa State of Myanmar)
Cyan: Chinese characters are used in parallel with other scripts in respective native languages (South Korea, Japan)
Yellow: Chinese characters were once used officially, but this is now obsolete (Mongolia, North Korea, Vietnam)
The Chinese script spread to Korea together with Buddhism from the 2nd century BC to 5th century AD (hanja).[77] This was adopted for recording the Japanese language from the 5th century AD.[g]
Chinese characters were first used in Vietnam during the millennium of Chinese rule starting in 111 BC. They were used to write Classical Chinese and adapted around the 13th century to create the chữ Nôm script to write Vietnamese.
Currently, the only non-Chinese language outside of China that regularly uses the Chinese script is Japanese. Vietnam abandoned its use in the early 20th century in favour of a Latin-based script, and Korea in the late 20th century in favour of its homegrown hangul script. Since the education of Chinese characters is not mandatory in South Korea,[78] the usage of Chinese characters is rapidly disappearing.
Japanese[edit]
Chinese characters adapted to write Japanese words are known as kanji. Chinese words borrowed into Japanese could be written with Chinese characters, while native Japanese words could also be written using the character(s) for a Chinese word of similar meaning. Most kanji have both the native (and often multi-syllabic) Japanese pronunciation, known as kun’yomi, and the (mono-syllabic) Chinese-based pronunciation, known as on’yomi. For example, the native Japanese word katana is written as 刀 in kanji, which uses the native pronunciation since the word is native to Japanese, while the Chinese loanword nihontō (meaning «Japanese sword») is written as 日本刀, which uses the Chinese-based pronunciation. While nowadays loanwords from non-Sinosphere languages are usually just written in katakana, one of the two syllabary systems of Japanese, loanwords that were borrowed into Japanese before the Meiji Period were typically written with Chinese characters whose on’yomi had the same pronunciation as the loanword itself, words like Amerika (kanji: 亜米利加, katakana: アメリカ, meaning: America), karuta (kanji: 歌留多, 加留多, katakana: カルタ, meaning: card, letter), and tenpura (kanji: 天婦羅, 天麩羅, katakana: テンプラ, meaning: tempura), although the meanings of the characters used often had no relation to the words themselves. Only some of the old kanji spellings are in common use, like kan (缶, meaning: can). Kanji that are used to only represent the sounds of a word are called ateji (当て字).
Because Chinese words have been borrowed from varying dialects at different times, a single character may have several on’yomi in Japanese.[79]
Written Japanese also includes a pair of syllabaries known as kana, derived by simplifying Chinese characters selected to represent syllables of Japanese.
The syllabaries differ because they sometimes selected different characters for a syllable, and because they used different strategies to reduce these characters for easy writing: the angular katakana were obtained by selecting a part of each character, while hiragana were derived from the cursive forms of whole characters.[80]
Modern Japanese writing uses a composite system, using kanji for word stems, hiragana for inflectional endings and grammatical words, and katakana to transcribe non-Chinese loanwords as well as serve as a method to emphasize native words (similar to how italics are used in Latin-script languages).[81]
Korean[edit]
Throughout most of Korean history as early as the Gojoseon period up until the Joseon Dynasty, Literary Chinese was the dominant form of written communication. Although the Korean alphabet hangul was created in 1443, it did not come into widespread official use until the late 19th and early 20th century.[82][83]
Even today, much of the vocabulary, especially in the realms of science and sociology, comes directly from Chinese. However, due to the lack of tones in Modern Standard Korean, as the words were imported from Chinese, many dissimilar characters and syllables took on identical pronunciations, and subsequently identical spelling in hangul.[citation needed] Chinese characters are sometimes used to this day for either clarification in a practical manner, or to give a distinguished appearance, as knowledge of Chinese characters is considered by many Koreans a high class attribute and an indispensable part of a classical education. It is also observed that the preference for Chinese characters is treated as being culturally Confucian.[83]
In Korea, hanja have become a politically contentious issue, with some Koreans urging a «purification» of the national language and culture by totally abandoning their use. These individuals encourage the exclusive use of the native hangul alphabet throughout Korean society and the end to Hanja education in public schools. Other Koreans support the revival of Hanja in everyday usage, like in the 1970s and 80s.[84] In South Korea, educational policy on characters has swung back and forth, often swayed by education ministers’ personal opinions. At present, middle and high school students (grades 7 to 12) are taught 1,800 characters,[84] albeit with the principal focus on recognition, with the aim of achieving newspaper literacy.[83] Hanja retains its prominence, especially in Korean academia, as the vast majority of Korean documents, history, literature and records (such as the Veritable Records of the Joseon Dynasty, among others) were written in Literary Chinese using Hanja as its primary script. Therefore, a good working knowledge of Chinese characters is still important for anyone who wishes to interpret and study older texts from Korea, or anyone who wishes to read scholarly texts in the humanities. Hanja is also useful for understanding the etymology of Sino-Korean vocabulary.[85]
There is a clear trend toward the exclusive use of hangul in day-to-day South Korean society. Hanja are still used to some extent, particularly in newspapers, weddings, place names and calligraphy (although it is nowhere near the extent of kanji use in day-to-day Japanese society). Hanja is also extensively used in situations where ambiguity must be avoided, such as academic papers, high-level corporate reports, government documents, and newspapers; this is due to the large number of homonyms that have resulted from extensive borrowing of Chinese words.[86] Characters convey meaning visually, while alphabets convey guidance to pronunciation, which in turn hints at meaning. As an example, in Korean dictionaries, the phonetic entry for 기사 gisa yields more than 30 different entries. In the past, this ambiguity had been efficiently resolved by parenthetically displaying the associated hanja. While hanja is sometimes used for Sino-Korean vocabulary, native Korean words are rarely, if ever, written in hanja.
When learning how to write hanja, students are taught to memorize the native Korean pronunciation for the hanja’s meaning and the Sino-Korean pronunciations (the pronunciation based on the Chinese pronunciation of the characters) for each hanja respectively so that students know what the syllable and meaning is for a particular hanja. For example, the name for the hanja 水 is 물 수 (mul-su) in which 물 (mul) is the native Korean pronunciation for «water», while 수 (su) is the Sino-Korean pronunciation of the character. The naming of hanja is similar to if «water» were named «water-aqua», «horse-equus», or «gold-aurum» based on a hybridization of both the English and the Latin names. Other examples include 사람 인 (saram-in) for 人 «person/people», 큰 대 (keun-dae) for 大 «big/large//great», 작을 소 (jakeul-so) for 小 «small/little», 아래 하 (arae-ha) for 下 «underneath/below/low», 아비 부 (abi-bu) for 父 «father», and 나라이름 한 (naraireum-han) for 韓 «Han/Korea».[87]
North Korea[edit]
In North Korea, the hanja system was once completely banned since June 1949 due to fears of collapsed containment of the country; during the 1950s, Kim Il Sung had condemned all sorts of foreign languages (even the then-newly proposed New Korean Orthography). The ban continued into the 21st century. However, a textbook for university history departments containing 3,323 distinct characters was published in 1971. In the 1990s, school children were still expected to learn 2,000 characters (more than in South Korea or Japan).[88]
After Kim Jong Il, the second ruler of North Korea, died in December 2011, his successor Kim Jong Un began mandating the use of Hanja as a source of definition for the Korean language. Currently, it is said that North Korea teaches around 3,000 Hanja characters to North Korean students, and in some cases, the characters appear within advertisements and newspapers. However, it is also said that the authorities implore students not to use the characters in public.[89] Due to North Korea’s strict isolationism, accurate reports about hanja use in North Korea are hard to obtain.
Okinawan[edit]
Chinese characters are thought to have been first introduced to the Ryukyu Islands in 1265 by a Japanese Buddhist monk.[90] After the Okinawan kingdoms became tributaries of Ming China, especially the Ryukyu Kingdom, Classical Chinese was used in court documents, but hiragana was mostly used for popular writing and poetry. After Ryukyu became a vassal of Japan’s Satsuma Domain, Chinese characters became more popular, as well as the use of Kanbun. In modern Okinawan, which is labeled as a Japanese dialect by the Japanese government, katakana and hiragana are mostly used to write Okinawan, but Chinese characters are still used.
Vietnamese[edit]
The first two lines of the classic Vietnamese epic poem The Tale of Kieu, written in the Nôm script and the modern Vietnamese alphabet. Chinese characters representing Sino-Vietnamese words are shown in green, characters borrowed for similar-sounding native Vietnamese words in purple, and invented characters in brown.
In Vietnam, Chinese characters (called Chữ Hán, chữ Nho, or Hán tự in Vietnamese) are now limited to ceremonial uses, but they were once in widespread use. Until the early 20th century, Literary Chinese was used in Vietnam for all official and scholarly writing.
The oldest writing Chinese materials found in Vietnam is an epigraphy dated 618, erected by local Sui dynasty officials in Thanh Hoa.[91] Around the 13th century, a script called chữ Nôm was developed to record folk literature in the Vietnamese language. Similar to Zhuang Sawndip, the Nom script (demotic script) and its characters formed by fusing phonetic and semantic values of Chinese characters that resemble Vietnamese syllables.[92] This process resulted in a highly complex system that was never mastered by more than 5% of the population.[93] The oldest writing Vietnamese chữ Nôm script written along with Chinese is a Buddhist inscription, dated 1209.[92] In total, about 20,000 Chinese and Vietnamese epigraphy rubbings throughout Indochina were collected by the École française d’Extrême-Orient (EFEO) library in Hanoi before 1945.[94]
The oldest surviving extant manuscript in Vietnam is a late 15th-century bilingual Buddhist sutra Phật thuyết đại báo phụ mẫu ân trọng kinh, which is currently kept by the EFEO. The manuscript features Chinese texts in larger characters, and Vietnamese translation in smaller characters in Old Vietnamese.[95] Every Sino-Vietnamese book in Vietnam after the Phật thuyết are dated either from 17th century to 20th century, and most are hand-written/copied works, only few are printed texts. The Institute of Hán-Nôm Studies’s library in Hanoi had collected and kept 4,808 Sino-Vietnamese manuscripts in total by 1987.[96]
During French colonization in the late 19th and early 20th century, Literary Chinese fell out of use and chữ Nôm was gradually replaced with the Latin-based Vietnamese alphabet.[97][98] Currently this alphabet is the main script in Vietnam, but Chinese characters and chữ Nôm are still used in some activities connected with Vietnamese traditional culture (e.g. calligraphy).
Other languages[edit]
Several minority languages of south and southwest China were formerly written with scripts based on Hanzi but also including many locally created characters.
The most extensive is the sawndip script for the Zhuang language of Guangxi which is still used to this day.
Other languages written with such scripts include Miao, Yao, Bouyei, Mulam, Kam, Bai, and Hani.[99] All these languages are now officially written using Latin-based scripts, while Chinese characters are still used for the Mulam language.[citation needed] Even today for Zhuang, according to survey, the traditional sawndip script has twice as many users as the official Latin script.[100]
The foreign dynasties that ruled northern China between the 10th and 13th centuries developed scripts that were inspired by Hanzi but did not use them directly: the Khitan large script, Khitan small script, Tangut script, and Jurchen script.
Other scripts in China that borrowed or adapted a few Chinese characters but are otherwise distinct include Geba script, Sui script, Yi script, and the Lisu syllabary.[99]
Transcription of foreign languages[edit]
Along with Persian and Arabic, Chinese characters were also used as a foreign script to write the Mongolian language, where characters were used to phonetically transcribe Mongolian sounds. Most notably, the only surviving copies of The Secret History of the Mongols were written in such a manner; the Chinese characters 忙豁侖紐察 脫[卜]察安 (nowadays pronounced «Mánghuōlún niǔchá tuō[bo]chá’ān» in Chinese) is the rendering of Mongγol-un niγuca tobčiyan, the title in Mongolian.
Hanzi was also used to phonetically transcribe the Manchu language in the Qing dynasty.
According to the Rev. John Gulick: «The inhabitants of other Asiatic nations, who have had occasion to represent the words of their several languages by Chinese characters, have as a rule used unaspirated characters for the sounds, g, d, b. The Muslims from Arabia and Persia have followed this method … The Mongols, Manchu, and Japanese also constantly select unaspirated characters to represent the sounds g, d, b, and j of their languages. These surrounding Asiatic nations, in writing Chinese words in their own alphabets, have uniformly used g, d, b, etc., to represent the unaspirated sounds.»[101]
Simplification[edit]
Chinese character simplification is the overall reduction of the number of strokes in the regular script of a set of Chinese characters.
Asia[edit]
China[edit]
The use of traditional Chinese characters versus simplified Chinese characters varies greatly, and can depend on both the local customs and the medium. Before the official reform, character simplifications were not officially sanctioned and generally adopted vulgar variants and idiosyncratic substitutions. Orthodox variants were mandatory in printed works, while the (unofficial) simplified characters would be used in everyday writing or quick notes. Since the 1950s, and especially with the publication of the 1964 list, the People’s Republic of China has officially adopted simplified Chinese characters for use in mainland China, while Hong Kong, Macau, and the Republic of China (Taiwan) were not affected by the reform. There is no absolute rule for using either system, and often it is determined by what the target audience understands, as well as the upbringing of the writer.
Although most often associated with the People’s Republic of China, character simplification predates the 1949 communist victory. Caoshu, cursive written text, are what inspired some simplified characters, and for others, some were already in use in print text, albeit not for most formal works. In the period of Republican China, discussions on character simplification took place within the Kuomintang government and the intelligentsia, in an effort to greatly reduce functional illiteracy among adults, which was a major concern at the time. Indeed, this desire by the Kuomintang to simplify the Chinese writing system (inherited and implemented by the Chinese Communist Party after its subsequent abandonment) also nursed aspirations of some for the adoption of a phonetic script based on the Latin script, and spawned such inventions as the Gwoyeu Romatzyh.
The People’s Republic of China issued its first round of official character simplifications in two documents, the first in 1956 and the second in 1964. A second round of character simplifications (known as erjian, or «second-round simplified characters») was promulgated in 1977. It was poorly received, and in 1986 the authorities rescinded the second round completely, while making six revisions to the 1964 list, including the restoration of three traditional characters that had been simplified: 叠 dié, 覆 fù, 像 xiàng.
As opposed to the second round, a majority of simplified characters in the first round were drawn from conventional abbreviated forms, or ancient forms.[102] For example, the orthodox character 來 lái («come») was written as 来 in the clerical script (隶书 / 隸書, lìshū) of the Han dynasty. This clerical form uses one fewer stroke, and was thus adopted as a simplified form. The character 雲 yún («cloud») was written with the structure 云 in the oracle bone script of the Shang dynasty, and had remained in use later as a phonetic loan in the meaning of «to say» while the 雨 radical was added a semantic indicator to disambiguate the two. Simplified Chinese merges them instead.
Japan[edit]
In the years after World War II, the Japanese government also instituted a series of orthographic reforms. Some characters were given simplified forms called shinjitai (新字体, lit. «new character forms»); the older forms were then labelled the kyūjitai (旧字体, lit. «old character forms»). The number of characters in common use was restricted, and formal lists of characters to be learned during each grade of school were established, first the 1850-character tōyō kanji (当用漢字) list in 1945, the 1945-character jōyō kanji (常用漢字) list in 1981, and a 2136-character reformed version of the jōyō kanji in 2010. Many variant forms of characters and obscure alternatives for common characters were officially discouraged. This was done with the goal of facilitating learning for children and simplifying kanji use in literature and periodicals. These are common guidelines, hence many characters outside these standards are still widely known and commonly used, especially those used for personal and place names (for the latter, see jinmeiyō kanji),[citation needed] as well as for some common words such as «dragon» (竜/龍, tatsu) in which both old and new forms of the character are both acceptable and widely known amongst native Japanese speakers.
Singapore[edit]
Singapore underwent three successive rounds of character simplification. These resulted in some simplifications that differed from those used in mainland China.
The first round, consisting of 498 Simplified characters from 502 Traditional characters, was promulgated by the Ministry of Education in 1969. The second round, consisting of 2287 Simplified characters, was promulgated in 1974. The second set contained 49 differences from the Mainland China system; those were removed in the final round in 1976.
In 1993, Singapore adopted the six revisions made by Mainland China in 1986. However, unlike in mainland China where personal names may only be registered using simplified characters, parents have the option of registering their children’s names in traditional characters in Singapore.[103]
It ultimately adopted the reforms of the People’s Republic of China in their entirety as official, and has implemented them in the educational system. However, unlike in China, personal names may still be registered in traditional characters.
Malaysia[edit]
Malaysia started teaching a set of simplified characters at schools in 1981, which were also completely identical to the Mainland China simplifications. Chinese newspapers in Malaysia are published in either set of characters, typically with the headlines in traditional Chinese while the body is in simplified Chinese.
Although in both countries the use of simplified characters is universal among the younger Chinese generation, a large majority of the older Chinese literate generation still use the traditional characters. Chinese shop signs are also generally written in traditional characters.
Philippines[edit]
In the Philippines, most Chinese schools and businesses still use the traditional characters and bopomofo, owing from influence from the Republic of China (Taiwan) due to the shared Hokkien heritage. Recently, however, more Chinese schools now use both simplified characters and pinyin. Since most readers of Chinese newspapers in the Philippines belong to the older generation, they are still published largely using traditional characters.
North America[edit]
Canada & United States[edit]
Public and private Chinese signage in the United States and Canada most often use traditional characters.[104] There is some effort to get municipal governments to implement more simplified character signage due to recent immigration from mainland China.[105] Most community newspapers printed in North America are also printed in traditional characters.
Comparisons of traditional Chinese, simplified Chinese, and Japanese[edit]
The following is a comparison of Chinese characters in the Standard Form of National Characters, a common traditional Chinese standard used in Taiwan; the Table of General Standard Chinese Characters, the standard for Mainland Chinese jiantizi (simplified); and the jōyō kanji, the standard for Japanese kanji. Generally, the jōyō kanji are more similar to fantizi (traditional) than jiantizi are to fantizi. «Simplified» refers to having significant differences from the Taiwan standard, not necessarily being a newly created character or a newly performed substitution. The characters in the Hong Kong standard and the Kangxi Dictionary are also known as «Traditional», but are not shown.
| Chinese | Japanese | Meaning | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Traditional | Simplified | ||
| Simplified in mainland China only, not Japan (Some radicals were simplified) |
|||
| 電 | 电 | 電 | electricity |
| 買 | 买 | 買 | buy |
| 車 | 车 | 車 | car, vehicle |
| 紅 | 红 | 紅 | red |
| 無 | 无 | 無 | nothing |
| 東 | 东 | 東 | east |
| 馬 | 马 | 馬 | horse |
| 風 | 风 | 風 | wind |
| 愛 | 爱 | 愛 | love |
| 時 | 时 | 時 | time |
| 鳥 | 鸟 | 鳥 | bird |
| 島 | 岛 | 島 | island |
| 語 | 语 | 語 | language, word |
| 頭 | 头 | 頭 | head |
| 魚 | 鱼 | 魚 | fish |
| 園 | 园 | 園 | garden |
| 長 | 长 | 長 | long, grow |
| 紙 | 纸 | 紙 | paper |
| 書 | 书 | 書 | book, document |
| 見 | 见 | 見 | watch, see |
| 響 | 响 | 響 | echo, sound |
| Simplified in Japan, not Mainland China (In some cases this represents the adoption of different variants as standard) |
|||
| 假 | 假 | 仮 | false, day off, borrow |
| 佛 | 佛 | 仏 | Buddha |
| 德 | 德 | 徳 | moral, virtue |
| 拜 | 拜 | 拝 | kowtow, pray to, worship |
| 黑 | 黑 | 黒 | black |
| 冰 | 冰 | 氷 | ice |
| 兔 | 兔 | 兎 | rabbit |
| 妒 | 妒 | 妬 | jealousy |
| 每 | 每 | 毎 | every |
| 壤 | 壤 | 壌 | soil |
| 步 | 步 | 歩 | step |
| 巢 | 巢 | 巣 | nest |
| 惠 | 惠 | 恵 | grace |
| 莓 | 莓 | 苺 | strawberry |
| Simplified differently in Mainland China and Japan | |||
| 圓 | 圆 | 円 | circle |
| 聽 | 听 | 聴 | listen |
| 實 | 实 | 実 | real |
| 證 | 证 | 証 | certificate, proof |
| 龍 | 龙 | 竜 | dragon |
| 賣 | 卖 | 売 | sell |
| 龜 | 龟 | 亀 | turtle, tortoise |
| 藝 | 艺 | 芸 | art, arts |
| 戰 | 战 | 戦 | fight, war |
| 繩 | 绳 | 縄 | rope, criterion |
| 繪 | 绘 | 絵 | picture, painting |
| 鐵 | 铁 | 鉄 | iron, metal |
| 圖 | 图 | 図 | picture, diagram |
| 團 | 团 | 団 | group, regiment |
| 圍 | 围 | 囲 | to surround |
| 轉 | 转 | 転 | turn |
| 廣 | 广 | 広 | wide, broad |
| 惡 | 恶 | 悪 | bad, evil, hate |
| 豐 | 丰 | 豊 | abundant |
| 腦 | 脑 | 脳 | brain |
| 雜 | 杂 | 雑 | miscellaneous |
| 壓 | 压 | 圧 | pressure, compression |
| 雞/鷄 | 鸡 | 鶏 | chicken |
| 總 | 总 | 総 | overall |
| 價 | 价 | 価 | price |
| 樂 | 乐 | 楽 | fun, music |
| 歸 | 归 | 帰 | return, revert |
| 氣 | 气 | 気 | air |
| 廳 | 厅 | 庁 | hall, office |
| 發 | 发 | 発 | emit, send |
| 澀 | 涩 | 渋 | astringent |
| 勞 | 劳 | 労 | labour |
| 劍 | 剑 | 剣 | sword |
| 歲 | 岁 | 歳 | age, years |
| 權 | 权 | 権 | authority, right |
| 燒 | 烧 | 焼 | burn |
| 贊 | 赞 | 賛 | praise |
| 兩 | 两 | 両 | two, both |
| 譯 | 译 | 訳 | translate |
| 觀 | 观 | 観 | look, watch |
| 營 | 营 | 営 | camp, battalion |
| 處 | 处 | 処 | processing |
| 齒 | 齿 | 歯 | teeth |
| 驛 | 驿 | 駅 | station |
| 櫻 | 樱 | 桜 | cherry |
| 產 | 产 | 産 | production |
| 藥 | 药 | 薬 | medicine |
| 嚴 | 严 | 厳 | strict, severe |
| 讀 | 读 | 読 | read |
| 顏 | 颜 | 顔 | face |
| 關 | 关 | 関 | concern, involve, relation |
| 顯 | 显 | 顕 | prominent, to show |
| Simplified (almost) identically in Mainland China and Japan | |||
| 畫 | 画 | 画 | picture |
| 聲 | 声 | 声 | sound, voice |
| 學 | 学 | 学 | learn |
| 體 | 体 | 体 | body |
| 點 | 点 | 点 | dot, point |
| 麥 | 麦 | 麦 | wheat |
| 蟲 | 虫 | 虫 | insect |
| 舊 | 旧 | 旧 | old, bygone, past |
| 會 | 会 | 会 | be able to, meeting |
| 萬 | 万 | 万 | ten-thousand |
| 盜 | 盗 | 盗 | thief, steal |
| 寶 | 宝 | 宝 | treasure |
| 國 | 国 | 国 | country |
| 醫 | 医 | 医 | medicine |
| 雙 | 双 | 双 | pair |
| 晝 | 昼 | 昼 | noon, day |
| 觸 | 触 | 触 | contact |
| 來 | 来 | 来 | come |
| 黃 | 黄 | 黄 | yellow |
| 區 | 区 | 区 | ward, district |
Written styles[edit]
There are numerous styles, or scripts, in which Chinese characters can be written, deriving from various calligraphic and historical models. Most of these originated in China and are now common, with minor variations, in all countries where Chinese characters are used.
The Shang dynasty oracle bone script and the Zhou dynasty scripts found on Chinese bronze inscriptions are no longer used; the oldest script that is still in use today is the seal script (篆書(篆书), zhuànshū). It evolved organically out of the Spring and Autumn period Zhou script, and was adopted in a standardized form under the first emperor of China, Qin Shi Huang. The seal script, as the name suggests, is now used only in artistic seals. Few people are still able to read it effortlessly today, although the art of carving a traditional seal in the script remains alive; some calligraphers also work in this style.
Scripts that are still used regularly are the «clerical script» (隸書(隶书), lìshū) of the Qin dynasty to the Han dynasty, the weibei (魏碑, wèibēi), the «regular script» (楷書(楷书), kǎishū), which is used mostly for printing, and the «semi-cursive script» (行書(行书), xíngshū), used mostly for handwriting.
The cursive script (草書(草书), cǎoshū, literally «grass script») is used informally. The basic character shapes are suggested, rather than explicitly realized, and the abbreviations are sometimes extreme. Despite being cursive to the point where individual strokes are no longer differentiable and the characters often illegible to the untrained eye, this script (also known as draft) is highly revered for the beauty and freedom that it embodies. Some of the simplified Chinese characters adopted by the People’s Republic of China, and some simplified characters used in Japan, are derived from the cursive script. The Japanese hiragana script is also derived from this script.
There also exist scripts created outside China, such as the Japanese Edomoji styles; these have tended to remain restricted to their countries of origin, rather than spreading to other countries like the Chinese scripts.
Calligraphy[edit]
Chinese calligraphy of mixed styles written by Song dynasty (1051–1108 AD) poet Mifu. For centuries, the Chinese literati were expected to master the art of calligraphy.
The art of writing Chinese characters is called Chinese calligraphy. It is usually done with ink brushes. In ancient China, Chinese calligraphy is one of the Four Arts of the Chinese Scholars. There is a minimalist set of rules of Chinese calligraphy. Every character from the Chinese scripts is built into a uniform shape by means of assigning it a geometric area in which the character must occur. Each character has a set number of brushstrokes; none must be added or taken away from the character to enhance it visually, lest the meaning be lost. Finally, strict regularity is not required, meaning the strokes may be accentuated for dramatic effect of individual style. Calligraphy was the means by which scholars could mark their thoughts and teachings for immortality, and as such, represent some of the most precious treasures that can be found from ancient China.
Typography and design[edit]
Three major families of typefaces are used in Chinese typography:
- Ming or Song
- Sans-serif
- Regular script
Ming and sans-serif are the most popular in body text and are based on regular script for Chinese characters akin to Western serif and sans-serif typefaces, respectively. Regular script typefaces emulate regular script.
The Song typeface (宋体 / 宋體, sòngtǐ) is known as the Ming typeface (明朝, minchō) in Japan, and it is also somewhat more commonly known as the Ming typeface (明体 / 明體, míngtǐ) than the Song typeface in Taiwan and Hong Kong. The names of these styles come from the Song and Ming dynasties, when block printing flourished in China.
Sans-serif typefaces, called black typeface (黑体 / 黑體, hēitǐ) in Chinese and Gothic typeface (ゴシック体) in Japanese, are characterized by simple lines of even thickness for each stroke, akin to sans-serif styles such as Arial and Helvetica in Western typography.
Regular script typefaces are also commonly used, but not as common as Ming or sans-serif typefaces for body text. Regular script typefaces are often used to teach students Chinese characters, and often aim to match the standard forms of the region where they are meant to be used. Most typefaces in the Song dynasty were regular script typefaces which resembled a particular person’s handwriting (e.g. the handwriting of Ouyang Xun, Yan Zhenqing, or Liu Gongquan), while most modern regular script typefaces tend toward anonymity and regularity.
Variants[edit]
Variants of the Chinese character for guī ‘turtle’, collected c. 1800 from printed sources. The one at left is the traditional form used today in Taiwan and Hong Kong, 龜, though 龜 may look slightly different, or even like the second variant from the left, depending on your font (see Wiktionary). The modern simplified forms used in China, 龟, and in Japan, 亀, are most similar to the variant in the middle of the bottom row, though neither is identical. A few more closely resemble the modern simplified form of the character for diàn ‘lightning’, 电.
Five of the 30 variant characters found in the preface of the Imperial (Kangxi) Dictionary which are not found in the dictionary itself. They are 為 (爲) wèi «due to», 此 cǐ «this», 所 suǒ «place», 能 néng «be able to», 兼 jiān «concurrently». (Although the form of 為 is not very different, and in fact is used today in Japan, the radical 爪 has been obliterated.) Another variant from the preface, 来 for 來 lái «to come», also not listed in the dictionary, has been adopted as the standard in Mainland China and Japan.
The character 次 in Simplified and Traditional Chinese, Japanese, and Korean. If you have an appropriate font installed, you can see the corresponding character in Vietnamese:
次
.
Just as Roman letters have a characteristic shape (lower-case letters mostly occupying the x-height, with ascenders or descenders on some letters), Chinese characters occupy a more or less square area in which the components of every character are written to fit in order to maintain a uniform size and shape, especially with small printed characters in Ming and sans-serif styles. Because of this, beginners often practise writing on squared graph paper, and the Chinese sometimes use the term «Square-Block Characters» (方块字 / 方塊字, fāngkuàizì), sometimes translated as tetragraph,[106] in reference to Chinese characters.
Despite standardization, some nonstandard forms are commonly used, especially in handwriting. In older sources, even authoritative ones, variant characters are commonplace. For example, in the preface to the Imperial Dictionary, there are 30 variant characters which are not found in the dictionary itself.[107] A few of these are reproduced at right.
Regional standards[edit]
The nature of Chinese characters makes it very easy to produce allographs (variants) for many characters, and there have been many efforts at orthographical standardization throughout history. In recent times, the widespread usage of the characters in several nations has prevented any particular system becoming universally adopted and the standard form of many Chinese characters thus varies in different regions.
Mainland China adopted simplified Chinese characters in 1956. They are also used in Singapore and Malaysia. Traditional Chinese characters are used in Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan. Postwar Japan has used its own less drastically simplified characters, Shinjitai, since 1946, while South Korea has limited its use of Chinese characters, and Vietnam and North Korea have completely abolished their use in favour of Vietnamese alphabet and Hangul, respectively.
The standard character forms of each region are described in:
- The List of Commonly Used Characters in Modern Chinese for Mainland China.
- The List of Graphemes of Commonly-Used Chinese Characters for Hong Kong.
- The three lists of the Standard Form of National Characters for Taiwan.
- The list of Jōyō kanji for Japan.
- The Han-Han Dae Sajeon (de facto) for Korea.
In addition to strictness in character size and shape, Chinese characters are written with very precise rules. The most important rules regard the strokes employed, stroke placement, and stroke order. Just as each region that uses Chinese characters has standardized character forms, each also has standardized stroke orders, with each standard being different. Most characters can be written with just one correct stroke order, though some words also have many valid stroke orders, which may occasionally result in different stroke counts. Some characters are also written with different stroke orders due to character simplification.
Polysyllabic morphemes[edit]
Chinese characters are primarily morphosyllabic, meaning that most Chinese morphemes are monosyllabic and are written with a single character, though in modern Chinese most words are disyllabic and dimorphemic, consisting of two syllables, each of which is a morpheme. In modern Chinese 10% of morphemes only occur as part of a given compound. However, a few morphemes are disyllabic, some of them dating back to Classical Chinese.[108] Excluding foreign loan words, these are typically words for plants and small animals. They are usually written with a pair of phono-semantic compound characters sharing a common radical. Examples are 蝴蝶 húdié «butterfly» and 珊瑚 shānhú «coral». Note that the 蝴 hú of húdié and the 瑚 hú of shānhú have the same phonetic, 胡, but different radicals («insect» and «jade», respectively). Neither exists as an independent morpheme except as a poetic abbreviation of the disyllabic word.
Polysyllabic characters[edit]
In certain cases compound words and set phrases may be contracted into single characters. Some of these can be considered logograms, where characters represent whole words rather than syllable-morphemes, though these are generally instead considered ligatures or abbreviations (similar to scribal abbreviations, such as & for «et»), and as non-standard. These do see use, particularly in handwriting or decoration, but also in some cases in print. In Chinese, these ligatures are called héwén (合文), héshū (合书, 合書) or hétǐzì (合体字, 合體字), and in the special case of combining two characters, these are known as «two-syllable Chinese characters» (双音节汉字, 雙音節漢字).
A commonly seen example is the Double Happiness symbol 囍, formed as a ligature of 喜喜 and referred to by its disyllabic name (simplified Chinese: 双喜; traditional Chinese: 雙喜; pinyin: shuāngxǐ). In handwriting, numbers are very frequently squeezed into one space or combined – common ligatures include 廿 niàn, «twenty», normally read as 二十 èrshí, 卅 sà, «thirty», normally read as 三十 sānshí, and 卌 xì «forty», normally read as 四十 «sìshí». Calendars often use numeral ligatures in order to save space; for example, the «21st of March» can be written as 三月廿一.[8]
Modern examples particularly include Chinese characters for SI units. In Chinese these units are disyllabic and standardly written with two characters, as 厘米 límǐ «centimeter» (厘 centi-, 米 meter) or 千瓦 qiānwǎ «kilowatt». However, in the 19th century these were often written via compound characters, pronounced disyllabically, such as 瓩 for 千瓦 or 糎 for 厘米 – some of these characters were also used in Japan, where they were pronounced with borrowed European readings instead. These have now fallen out of general use, but are occasionally seen. Less systematic examples include 圕 túshūguǎn «library», a contraction of 圖書館 (simplified: 图书馆).[109][110] Since polysyllabic characters are often non-standard, they are often excluded in character dictionaries.
The use of such contractions is as old as Chinese characters themselves, and they have frequently been found in religious or ritual use. In the Oracle Bone script, personal names, ritual items, and even phrases such as 受又(祐) shòu yòu «receive blessings» are commonly contracted into single characters. A dramatic example is that in medieval manuscripts 菩薩 púsà «bodhisattva» (simplified: 菩萨) is sometimes written with a single character formed of a 2×2 grid of four 十 (derived from the grass radical over two 十).[8] However, for the sake of consistency and standardization, the CCP seeks to limit the use of such polysyllabic characters in public writing to ensure that every character only has one syllable.[111]
Conversely, with the fusion of the diminutive -er suffix in Mandarin, some monosyllabic words may even be written with two characters, as in 花儿, 花兒 huār «flower», which was formerly disyllabic.
In most other languages that use the Chinese family of scripts, notably Korean, Vietnamese, and Zhuang, Chinese characters are typically monosyllabic, but in Japanese a single character is generally used to represent a borrowed monosyllabic Chinese morpheme (the on’yomi), a polysyllabic native Japanese morpheme (the kun’yomi), or even (in rare cases) a foreign loanword. These uses are completely standard and unexceptional.
Rare and complex characters[edit]
Often a character not commonly used (a «rare» or «variant» character) will appear in a personal or place name in Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese (see Chinese name, Japanese name, Korean name, and Vietnamese name, respectively). This has caused problems as many computer encoding systems include only the most common characters and exclude the less often used characters. This is especially a problem for personal names which often contain rare or classical, antiquated characters.
One man who has encountered this problem is Taiwanese politician Yu Shyi-kun, due to the rarity of the last character (堃; pinyin: kūn) in his name. Newspapers have dealt with this problem in varying ways, including using software to combine two existing, similar characters, including a picture of the character, or, especially as is the case with Yu Shyi-kun, substituting a homophone for the rare character in the hope that the reader would be able to make the correct inference. Taiwanese political posters, movie posters etc. will often add the bopomofo phonetic symbols next to such a character. Japanese newspapers may render such names and words in katakana instead, and it is accepted practice for people to write names for which they are unsure of the correct kanji in katakana instead.[citation needed]
There are also some extremely complex characters which have understandably become rather rare. According to Joël Bellassen (1989), the most complex Chinese character is 
/𪚥 (U+2A6A5) zhé 
listen (help·info), meaning «verbose» and containing 64 strokes; this character fell from use around the 5th century. It might be argued, however, that while containing the most strokes, it is not necessarily the most complex character (in terms of difficulty), as it requires writing the same 16-stroke character 龍 lóng (lit. «dragon») four times in the space for one. Another 64-stroke character is 
/𠔻 (U+2053B) zhèng composed of 興 xīng/xìng (lit. «flourish») four times.
One of the most complex characters found in modern Chinese dictionaries[h] is 齉 (U+9F49) (nàng, listen (help·info), pictured below, middle image), meaning «snuffle» (that is, a pronunciation marred by a blocked nose), with «just» thirty-six strokes. Other stroke-rich characters include 靐 (bìng), with 39 strokes and 䨻 (bèng), with 52 strokes, meaning the loud noise of thunder. However, these are not in common use. The most complex character that can be input using the Microsoft New Phonetic IME 2002a for traditional Chinese is 龘 (dá, «the appearance of a dragon flying»). It is composed of the dragon radical represented three times, for a total of 16 × 3 = 48 strokes. Among the most complex characters in modern dictionaries and also in frequent modern use are 籲 (yù, «to implore»), with 32 strokes; 鬱 (yù, «luxuriant, lush; gloomy»), with 29 strokes, as in 憂鬱 (yōuyù, «depressed»); 豔 (yàn, «colorful»), with 28 strokes; and 釁 (xìn, «quarrel»), with 25 strokes, as in 挑釁 (tiǎoxìn, «to pick a fight»). Also in occasional modern use is 鱻 (xiān «fresh»; variant of 鮮 xiān) with 33 strokes.
In Japanese, an 84-stroke kokuji exists: 
, normally read taito. It is composed of triple «cloud» character (䨺) on top of the abovementioned triple «dragon» character (龘). Also meaning «the appearance of a dragon in flight», it has been pronounced おとど otodo, たいと taito, and だいと daito.[112] The most elaborate character in the jōyō kanji list is the 29-stroke 鬱, meaning «depression» or «melancholy».
The most complex Chinese character still in use may be[according to whom?] 
/𰻞 (U+30EDE) (biáng, pictured right, bottom), with 58 strokes, which refers to biangbiang noodles, a type of noodle from China’s Shaanxi province. This character along with the syllable biáng cannot be found in dictionaries. The fact that it represents a syllable that does not exist in any Standard Chinese word means that it could be classified as a dialectal character.
-
Zhèng (unknown meaning)
-
Nàng, «poor enunciation due to snuffle»
-
Taito, «the appearance of a dragon in flight»
-
alternative form of Taito
Number of characters[edit]
The total number of Chinese characters from past to present remains unknowable because new ones are being developed all the time – for instance, brands may create new characters when none of the existing ones allow for the intended meaning – or they have been invented by whoever wrote them and have never been adopted as official characters. Chinese characters are theoretically an open set and anyone can create new characters, though such inventions are rarely included in official character sets.[113] The number of entries in major Chinese dictionaries is the best means of estimating the historical growth of character inventory.
| Year | Name of dictionary | Number of characters |
|---|---|---|
| 100 | Shuowen Jiezi (說文解字) | 9,353[114] |
| 230 | Shenglei (聲類) | 11,520[114] |
| 350 | Zilin (字林) | 12,824[114] |
| 543 | Yupian (玉篇) | 16,917[115][116] |
| 601 | Qieyun (切韻) | 12,158[117] |
| 732 | Tangyun (唐韻) | 15,000[114] |
| 753 | Yunhai jingyuan (韻海鏡源) | 26,911[118] |
| 997 | Longkan Shoujian (龍龕手鑒) | 26,430[119] |
| 1011 | Guangyun (廣韻) | 26,194[116][120] |
| 1066 | Leipian (類篇) | 31,319[118] |
| 1039 | Jiyun (集韻) | 53,525[121] |
| 1615 | Zihui (字彙) | 33,179[116][122] |
| 1675 | Zhengzitong (正字通) | 33,440[123] |
| 1716 | Kangxi Zidian (康熙字典) | 47,035[116][124] |
| 1915 | Zhonghua Da Zidian (中華大字典) | 48,000[116] |
| 1989 | Hanyu Da Zidian (漢語大字典) | 54,678[114] |
| 1994 | Zhonghua Zihai (中华字海) | 85,568[125] |
| 2004 | Yitizi Zidian (異體字字典) | 106,230[126] |
| Year | Country | Name of dictionary | Number of characters |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2003 | Japan | Dai Kan-Wa Jiten (大漢和辞典) | 50,305 |
| 2008 | South Korea | Han-Han Dae Sajeon (漢韓大辭典) | 53,667 |
Even the Zhonghua Zihai does not include characters in the Chinese family of scripts created to represent non-Chinese languages, except the unique characters in use in Japan and Korea. Characters formed by Chinese principles in other languages include the roughly 1,500 Japanese-made kokuji given in the Kokuji no Jiten,[127] the Korean-made gukja, the over 10,000 Sawndip characters still in use in Guangxi, and the almost 20,000 Nôm characters formerly used in Vietnam.[citation needed] More divergent descendants of Chinese script include Tangut script, which created over 5,000 characters with similar strokes but different formation principles to Chinese characters.
Modified radicals and new variants are two common reasons for the ever-increasing number of characters. There are about 300 radicals and 100 are in common use. Creating a new character by modifying the radical is an easy way to disambiguate homographs among xíngshēngzì pictophonetic compounds. This practice began long before the standardization of Chinese script by Qin Shi Huang and continues to the present day. The traditional 3rd-person pronoun tā (他 «he, she, it»), which is written with the «person radical», illustrates modifying significs to form new characters. In modern usage, there is a graphic distinction between tā (她 «she») with the «woman radical», tā (牠 «it») with the «animal radical», tā (它 «it») with the «roof radical», and tā (祂 «He») with the «deity radical», One consequence of modifying radicals is the fossilization of rare and obscure variant logographs, some of which are not even used in Classical Chinese. For instance, he 和 «harmony, peace», which combines the «grain radical» with the «mouth radical», has infrequent variants 咊 with the radicals reversed and 龢 with the «flute radical».
Chinese[edit]
Cumulative frequency of simplified Chinese characters in Modern Chinese text[128]
Chinese Wikisource has original text related to this article:
Chinese Wikisource has original text related to this article:
Chinese Wikisource has original text related to this article:
Chinese characters (Chinese: 字; pinyin: zì, meaning the semiotic sign, symbol, or glyph part) should not be confused with Chinese words (Chinese: 詞; pinyin: cí, meaning phrases or vocabulary words, consisting from a group of characters or possibly a single character), as the majority of modern Chinese words, unlike their Old Chinese and Middle Chinese counterparts, are more frequently written with two or more characters, each character representing one syllable and/or morpheme. Knowing the meanings of the individual characters of a word will often allow the general meaning of the word to be inferred, but this is not always the case.
Studies in China have shown that literate individuals know and use between 3,000 and 4,000 characters. Specialists in classical literature or history, who would often encounter characters no longer in use, are estimated to have a working vocabulary of between 5,000 and 6,000 characters.[5]
In China, which uses simplified Chinese characters, the Xiàndài Hànyǔ Chángyòng Zìbiǎo (现代汉语常用字表, List of Commonly Used Characters in Modern Chinese) lists 2,500 common characters and 1,000 less-than-common characters, while the Xiàndài Hànyǔ Tōngyòng Zìbiǎo (现代汉语通用字表, Chart of Generally Utilized Characters of Modern Chinese) lists 7,000 characters, including the 3,500 characters already listed above. In June 2013, the Tōngyòng Guīfàn Hànzì Biǎo (通用规范汉字表, Table of General Standard Chinese Characters) became the current standard, replacing the previous two lists. It includes 8,105 characters, 3,500 as primary, 3,000 as secondary, and 1,605 as tertiary. GB 2312, an early version of the national encoding standard used in the People’s Republic of China, has 6,763 code points. GB 18030, the modern, mandatory standard, has a much higher number. The Hànyǔ Shuǐpíng Kǎoshì (汉语水平考试, Chinese Proficiency Test) cover 2,663 characters and 5,000 words at its highest level (level six), while the Guójì Zhōngwén Jiàoyù Zhōngwén Shuǐpíng Děngjí Biāozhǔn (国际中文教育中文水平等级标准, Chinese Proficiency Grading Standards for International Chinese Language Education) would cover 3,000 characters and 11,092 words at its highest level (level nine).[129][130][131]
In Taiwan, which uses traditional Chinese characters, the Ministry of Education’s Chángyòng Guózì Biāozhǔn Zìtǐ Biǎo (常用國字標準字體表, Chart of Standard Forms of Common National Characters) lists 4,808 characters; the Cì Chángyòng Guózì Biāozhǔn Zìtǐ Biǎo (次常用國字標準字體表, Chart of Standard Forms of Less-Than-Common National Characters) lists another 6,341 characters. The Chinese Standard Interchange Code (CNS11643)—the official national encoding standard—supports 48,027 characters in its 1992 version (currently over 96,000 characters),[132] while the most widely used encoding scheme, BIG-5, supports only 13,053. The Test of Chinese as a Foreign Language (華語文能力測驗, TOCFL) covers 8,000 words at its highest level (level six). The Taiwan Benchmarks for the Chinese Language (臺灣華語文能力基準, TBCL), a guideline developed to describe levels of Chinese language proficiency, covers 3,100 characters and 14,425 words at its highest level (level seven).[133][134]
In Hong Kong, which uses traditional Chinese characters, the Education and Manpower Bureau’s Soengjung Zi Zijing Biu (Chinese: 常用字字形表; Jyutping: soeng4jung6zi6 zi6jing4 biu2), intended for use in elementary and junior secondary education, lists a total of 4,759 characters.
In addition, there are a number of dialect characters (方言字) that are not generally used in formal written Chinese but represent colloquial terms in nonstandard varieties of Chinese. In general, it is common practice to use standard characters to transcribe Chinese dialects when obvious cognates with words in Standard Mandarin exist. However, when no obvious cognate could be found for a word, due to factors like irregular sound change or semantic drift in the meanings of characters, or the word originates from a non-Chinese source like a substratum from an earlier displaced language or a later borrowing from another language family, then characters are borrowed and used according to the rebus principle or invented in an ad hoc manner to transcribe it. These new characters are generally phonosemantic compounds (e.g., 侬, ‘person’ in Min), although a few are compound ideographs (e.g., 孬, ‘bad’, in Northeast Mandarin). Except in the case of written Cantonese, there is no official orthography, and there may be several ways to write a dialectal word, often one that is etymologically correct and one or several that are based on the current pronunciation (e.g., 觸祭 (etymological) vs. 戳鸡/戳雞 (phonetic), ‘eat’ (low-register) in Shanghainese). Speakers of a dialect will generally recognize a dialectal word if it is transcribed according to phonetic considerations, while the etymologically correct form may be more difficult or impossible to recognize. For example, few Gan speakers would recognize the character meaning ‘to lean’ in their dialect, because this character (隑) has become archaic in Standard Mandarin. The historically «correct» transcription is often so obscure that it is uncovered only after considerable scholarly research into philology and historical phonology and may be disputed by other researchers.
As an exception, written Cantonese is in widespread use in Hong Kong, even for certain formal documents, due to the former British colonial administration’s recognition of Cantonese for use for official purposes. In Taiwan, there is also a body of semi-official characters used to represent Taiwanese Hokkien and Hakka. For example, the vernacular character 㓾, pronounced cii11 in Hakka, means «to kill».[135] Other varieties of Chinese with a significant number of speakers, like Shanghainese Wu, Gan Chinese, and Sichuanese, also have their own series of characters, but these are not often seen, except on advertising billboards directed toward locals and are not used in formal settings except to give precise transcriptions of witness statements in legal proceedings. Written Standard Mandarin is the preference for all mainland regions.
Japanese[edit]
Kanji for 剣道 (Kendo), pronounced differently from the Korean term 劍道 (Kumdo), or the Chinese words 劍道 (jiàndào;[i] it is more common to use the expressions 劍術 jiànshù or 劍法 jiànfǎ in Chinese).
In Japanese, there are 2,136 jōyō kanji (常用漢字, lit. «frequently used Chinese characters») designated by the Japanese Ministry of Education; these are taught during primary and secondary school. The list is a recommendation, not a restriction, and many characters missing from it are still in common use.[146]
One area where character usage is officially restricted is in names, which may contain only government-approved characters. Since the jōyō kanji list excludes many characters that have been used in personal and place names for generations, an additional list, referred to as the jinmeiyō kanji (人名用漢字, lit. «kanji for use in personal names»), is published.[147] It currently contains 983 characters.[148]
Today, a well-educated Japanese person may know upwards of 3,500 characters.[149] The kanji kentei (日本漢字能力検定試験, Nihon Kanji Nōryoku Kentei Shiken or Test of Japanese Kanji Aptitude) tests a speaker’s ability to read and write kanji. The highest level of the kanji kentei tests on approximately 6,000 kanji (corresponding to the kanji characters list of the JIS X 0208).[150][151]
Korean[edit]
Basic Hanja for educational use (漢文敎育用基礎漢字) are a subset of 1,800 Hanja defined in 1972 by a South Korea education standard. 900 characters are expected to be learnt by middle school students and a further 900 at high school.[152]
In March 1991, the Supreme Court of Korea published the Table of Hanja for Personal Name Use (人名用追加漢字表), which allowed a total of 2,854 hanja in South Korean given names.[153] The list expanded gradually, and until 2015 there are 8,142 hanja (including the set of basic hanja) permitted using in Korean names.[154]
Modern creation[edit]
New characters can in principle be coined at any time, just as new words can be, but they may not be adopted. Significant historically recent coinages date to scientific terms of the 19th century. Specifically, Chinese coined new characters for chemical elements – see Chemical elements in East Asian languages – which continue to be used and taught in schools in China and Taiwan. In Japan, in the Meiji era (specifically, late 19th century), new characters were coined for some (but not all) SI units, such as 粁 (米 «meter» + 千 «thousand, kilo-«) for kilometer. These kokuji (Japanese-coinages) have found use in China as well – see Chinese characters for SI units for details.
While new characters can be easily coined by writing on paper, they are difficult to represent on a computer – they must generally be represented as a picture, rather than as text – which presents a significant barrier to their use or widespread adoption. Compare this with the use of symbols as names in 20th century musical albums such as Led Zeppelin IV (1971) and Love Symbol Album (1993); an album cover may potentially contain any graphics, but in writing and other computation these symbols are difficult to use.
Indexing[edit]
Dozens of indexing schemes have been created for arranging Chinese characters in Chinese dictionaries. The great majority of these schemes have appeared in only a single dictionary; only one such system has achieved truly widespread use. This is the system of radicals (see for example, the 214 so-called Kangxi radicals).
Chinese character dictionaries often allow users to locate entries in several ways. Many Chinese, Japanese, and Korean dictionaries of Chinese characters list characters in radical order: characters are grouped together by radical, and radicals containing fewer strokes come before radicals containing more strokes (radical-and-stroke sorting). Under each radical, characters are listed by their total number of strokes. It is often also possible to search for characters by sound, using pinyin (in Chinese dictionaries), zhuyin (in Taiwanese dictionaries), kana (in Japanese dictionaries) or hangul (in Korean dictionaries). Most dictionaries also allow searches by total number of strokes, and individual dictionaries often allow other search methods as well.
For instance, to look up the character where the sound is not known, e.g., 松 (pine tree), the user first determines which part of the character is the radical (here 木), then counts the number of strokes in the radical (four), and turns to the radical index (usually located on the inside front or back cover of the dictionary). Under the number «4» for radical stroke count, the user locates 木, then turns to the page number listed, which is the start of the listing of all the characters containing this radical. This page will have a sub-index giving remainder stroke numbers (for the non-radical portions of characters) and page numbers. The right half of the character also contains four strokes, so the user locates the number 4, and turns to the page number given. From there, the user must scan the entries to locate the character he or she is seeking. Some dictionaries have a sub-index which lists every character containing each radical, and if the user knows the number of strokes in the non-radical portion of the character, he or she can locate the correct page directly.
Another dictionary system is the Four-Corner Method, in which characters are classified according to the shape of each of the four corners.
Most modern Chinese dictionaries and Chinese dictionaries sold to English speakers use the traditional radical-based character index in a section at the front, while the main body of the dictionary arranges the main character entries alphabetically according to their pinyin spelling.[citation needed] To find a character with unknown sound using one of these dictionaries, the reader finds the radical and stroke number of the character, as before, and locates the character in the radical index. The character’s entry will have the character’s pronunciation in pinyin written down; the reader then turns to the main dictionary section and looks up the pinyin spelling alphabetically.
See also[edit]
- Chinese calligraphy
- Eight Principles of Yong
- Stroke order
- Transcription into Chinese characters
- Romanization of Chinese
- Adoption of Chinese literary culture
- Character amnesia
- Chinese family of scripts
- Chinese character encoding
- Chinese input methods for computers
- Chinese numerals, how numbers are written with Chinese characters
- Chinese punctuation
- Digraph
- Horizontal and vertical writing in East Asian scripts
- List of languages written in Chinese characters and derivatives of Chinese characters
Notes[edit]
- ^ traditional Chinese: 漢字; simplified Chinese: 汉字; pinyin: hànzì; Wade–Giles: han4 tzŭ4; Jyutping: hon3 zi6; lit. ‘Han characters’
- ^ Abbreviations are occasionally used – see § Polysyllabic characters.
- ^ Qiu 2000, pp. 132–133 provides archaeological evidence for this dating, in contrast to unsubstantiated claims dating the beginning of cursive anywhere from the Qin to the Eastern Han.
- ^ Qiu 2000, pp. 140–141 mentions examples of neo-clerical with «strong overtones of cursive script» from the late Eastern Han.
- ^ Liu is said to have taught Zhong Yao and Wang Xizhi.
- ^ Wáng Xīzhī is so credited in essays by other calligraphers in the 6th to early 7th centuries, and most of his extant pieces are in modern cursive script.[71]
- ^ cf. Inariyama Sword
- ^
(U+9F49) nàng is found, for instance, on p. 707 of 漢英辭典(修訂版) A Chinese–English Dictionary, (Revised Edition) Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press, Beijing, 1995. ISBN 978-7-5600-0739-7.
- ^ Jiàndào is the pronunciation of the Modern Standard Chinese, deriving from the Beijing Mandarin. There are other pronunciations of the varieties of Chinese, deriving its pronunciation from the Middle Chinese, as like:
- Southern Min (Taiwan): kiàm-tō (Pe̍h-ōe-jī / kiàm-tō (Tâi-uân Lô-má-jī Phing-im Hong-àn)[136][137]
- Hakka Chinese (Sixian dialect): kiam-tho (Pha̍k-fa-sṳ) / giam-to (Taiwanese Hakka Romanization System)[138][139]
- Yue Chinese (Hong Kong): gim3-dou6 (Jyutping)[140][141]
- Wu Chinese (Shanghainese): cie3-dau2 (Romanization of Wu Chinese)[142][143]
- Wu Chinese (Suzhou dialect): cie523-dau231 (Romanization of Wu Chinese)[144][145]
(U+9F49) nàng is found, for instance, on p. 707 of References[edit]
Citations[edit]
- ^ Guǎngxī Zhuàngzú zìzhìqū shǎoshù mínzú gǔjí zhěnglǐ chūbǎn guīhuà lǐngdǎo xiǎozǔ 广西壮族自治区少数民族古籍整理出版规划领导小组, ed. (1989). Sawndip Sawdenj – Gǔ Zhuàng zì zìdiǎn 古壮字字典 [Dictionary of the Old Zhuang Script] (2nd ed.). Nanning: Guangxi minzu chubanshe. ISBN 978-7-5363-0614-1.
- ^ World Health Organization (2007). WHO International Standard Terminologies on Traditional Medicine in the Western Pacific Region. Manila: WHO Regional Office for the Western Pacific. hdl:10665/206952. Retrieved 29 January 2020.
- ^ Potowski, Kim (2010). Language Diversity in the USA. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 82. ISBN 978-0-521-74533-8.
- ^ CCTV.com (18 November 2009). «History of Chinese Writing Shown in the Museums». Artintern.net. Archived from the original on 21 November 2009. Retrieved 20 March 2010.
- ^ a b Norman 1988, p. 73.
- ^ Wood, Clare Patricia; Connelly, Vincent (2009). Contemporary Perspectives on Reading and Spelling. New York: Routledge. p. 203. ISBN 978-0-415-49716-9.
Often, the Chinese character can function as an independent unit in sentences, but sometimes it must be paired with another character or more to form a word. […] Most words consist of two or more characters, and more than 80 per cent make use of lexical compounding of morphemes (Packard, 2000).
- ^ «East Asian Languages and Chinese Characters». Pinyin.info. Retrieved 28 February 2018.
- ^ a b c Mair, Victor (2 August 2011). «Polysyllabic Characters in Chinese Writing». Language Log.
- ^ Norman 1988, p. 58.
- ^ Wilkinson 2012, p. 22.
- ^ Norman 1988, p. 112.
- ^ Yip 2000, p. 18.
- ^ Norman 1988, pp. 155–156.
- ^ Norman 1988, p. 74.
- ^ Norman 1988, pp. 74–75.
- ^ Swofford, Mark (2010). «Chinese Characters with Multiple Pronunciations». Pinyin.info. Retrieved 4 July 2016.
- ^ Baxter (1992), pp. 315–317.
- ^ a b Baxter (1992), p. 315.
- ^ Baxter (1992), p. 316.
- ^ Baxter (1992), pp. 197, 305.
- ^ a b Baxter (1992), p. 218.
- ^ Baxter (1992), p. 219.
- ^ Norman 1988, pp. 58–61.
- ^ Norman 1988, pp. 67–69.
- ^ Sampson & Chen 2013, p. 261.
- ^ Boltz 1994, pp. 104–110.
- ^ Sampson & Chen 2013, pp. 265–268.
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- ^ Norman 1988, pp. 8–9.
- ^ ««Tú» zì zěnme niàn? Shénme yìsi? Shéi zào de?» «圕»字怎么念？什么意思？谁造的？. Singtao Net (in Chinese). 21 April 2006. Archived from the original on 3 October 2011.
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- ^ «Creating New Chinese Characters». pages.ucsd.edu.
- ^ a b c d e Zhou 2003, p. 72.
- ^ Qiu 2000, p. 48.
- ^ a b c d e Yip 2000, p. 19.
- ^ Pulleyblank 1984, p. 139.
- ^ a b Zhou 2003, p. 73.
- ^ Yong & Peng 2008, pp. 198–199.
- ^ Yong & Peng 2008, p. 199.
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- ^ Wilkinson 2012, p. 46.
- ^ ««Yìtǐzì zìdiǎn» wǎng lù bǎn shuōmíng» 《異體字字典》網路版說明. dict.variants.moe.edu.tw (in Chinese). Archived from the original on 17 March 2009. Official website for «The Dictionary of Chinese Variant Form», Introductory page
- ^ Hida & Sugawara, 1990, Tokyodo Shuppan.
- ^ «Jun Da: Chinese Text Computing». lingua.mtsu.edu.
- ^ «China’s HSK Language Test to be Overhauled for the First 11 years». 3 April 2021.
- ^ «《国际中文教育中文水平等级标准》来了 汉语水平考试会有啥变化». 人民网-人民日报海外版. 9 April 2021.
日前，《国际中文教育中文水平等级标准》（GF0025-2021）（下称《标准》）由教育部、国家语言文字工作委员会发布，作为国家语委语言文字规范自2021年7月1日起正式实施。……汉语水平考试（HSK）自1984年开创以来已走过37年，经历了基础、初中等、高等»3等11级»的HSK1.0和»一级到六级»6个级别的HSK2.0两个阶段，即将迎来»三等九级»的HSK3.0新阶段。
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The TBCL sets out seven levels of Chinese language proficiency in the five skills: listening, speaking, reading, writing and translating. It also includes lists which contains 3,100 Chinese characters, 14,425 words, and 496 grammar points for leaners of level 1 to 5.
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本字表各級收錄字數：第1級246個字、第2級258個字、第3級297個字；第4級499個字、第5級600個字；第6級600個字、第7級600個字，共計3,100個字。
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- ^ «臺灣閩南語常用詞辭典 — 劍».
- ^ «臺灣閩南語常用詞辭典 — 道».
- ^ «臺灣客家語常用詞辭典 — 劍».
- ^ «臺灣客家語常用詞辭典 — 道».
- ^ «香港小學習字表 — 劍».
- ^ «香港小學習字表 — 道».
- ^ «吴音小字典·吴语小词典 — 劍 (上海話)».
- ^ «吴音小字典·吴语小词典 — 道 (上海話)».
- ^ «吴音小字典·吴语小词典 — 劍 (蘇州話)».
- ^ «吴音小字典·吴语小词典 — 道 (蘇州話)».
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Works cited[edit]
This article incorporates text from The Chinese recorder and missionary journal, Volume 3, a publication from 1871, now in the public domain in the United States.
- Baxter, William H. (1992). A Handbook of Old Chinese Phonology. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. ISBN 978-3-11-012324-1.
- Boltz, William G. (1986). «Early Chinese Writing». World Archaeology. 17 (3): 420–436. doi:10.1080/00438243.1986.9979980. JSTOR 124705.
- ——— (1994). The origin and early development of the Chinese writing system. New Haven: American Oriental Society. ISBN 978-0-940490-78-9.
- Coulmas, Florian (1991). The writing systems of the world. Blackwell. ISBN 978-0-631-18028-9.
- Hannas, Wm. C. (1997). Asia’s Orthographic Dilemma. University of Hawaii Press. ISBN 978-0-8248-1892-0.
- Keightley, David (1978). Sources of Shang history: the oracle-bone inscriptions of bronze-age China. Berkeley: University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-02969-9.
- ——— (1996). «Art, Ancestors, and the Origins of Writing in China». Representations. 56 (56): 68–95. doi:10.1525/rep.1996.56.1.99p0343q. JSTOR 2928708.
- Kern, Martin (2010). «Early Chinese literature, beginnings through Western Han». In Owen, Stephen (ed.). The Cambridge History of Chinese Literature, vol. 1: To 1375. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 1–115. ISBN 978-0-521-85558-7.
- Norman, Jerry (1988). Chinese. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-29653-3.
- Pulleyblank, Edwin G. (1984). Middle Chinese: a study in historical phonology. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press. ISBN 978-0-7748-0192-8.
- Qiu, Xigui (2000). Chinese writing. Translated by Gilbert L. Mattos; Jerry Norman. Berkeley: Society for the Study of Early China and The Institute of East Asian Studies, University of California. ISBN 978-1-55729-071-7. (English translation of Wénzìxué Gàiyào 文字學概要, Shangwu, 1988.)
- Ramsey, S. Robert (1987). The Languages of China. Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-0-691-01468-5.
- Sampson, Geoffrey; Chen, Zhiqun (2013). «The reality of compound ideographs». Journal of Chinese Linguistics. 41 (2): 255–272. JSTOR 23754815. (preprint)
- Wilkinson, Endymion (2012). Chinese History: A New Manual. Harvard-Yenching Institute Monograph Series 84. Cambridge, MA: Harvard-Yenching Institute; Harvard University Asia Center. ISBN 978-0-674-06715-8.
- Williams, C. H. Semantic vs. phonetic decoding strategies in non-native readers of Chinese (PDF) (Ph.D. thesis). Archived (PDF) from the original on 9 October 2022.
- Yip, Po-ching (2000). The Chinese Lexicon: A Comprehensive Survey. Psychology Press. ISBN 978-0-415-15174-0.
- Yong, Heming; Peng, Jing (2008). Chinese Lexicography: A History from 1046 BC to AD 1911. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-156167-2.
- Zhou, Youguang (2003). The Historical Evolution of Chinese Languages and Scripts. Translated by Zhang Liqing. Columbus: National East Asian Languages Resource Center, Ohio State University. ISBN 978-0-87415-349-1.
Further reading[edit]
- Galambos, Imre (2006). Orthography of Early Chinese Writing: Evidence from Newly Excavated Manuscripts (PDF). Budapest: Eötvös Loránd University. ISBN 978-963-463-811-7. Archived (PDF) from the original on 15 May 2012.
- Early works of historical interest
- Samuel Wells Williams (1842). Easy lessons in Chinese: or progressive exercises to facilitate the study of that language. Printed at the Office of the Chinese Repository.
- Herbert Allen Giles (1892). A Chinese-English dictionary, Volume 1. B. Quaritch. p. 1415.
- P. Poletti (1896). A Chinese and English dictionary, arranged according to radicals and sub-radicals. Printed at the American Presbyterian mission press.
- William Edward Soothill (1900). The student’s four thousand [characters] and general pocket dictionary (2 ed.). American Presbyterian Mission Press.
- John Chalmers (1882). An account of the structure of Chinese characters under 300 primary forms: after the Shwoh-wan, 100 A.D., and the phonetic Shwoh-wan, 1833. Trübner & co.
- Chinese and English dictionary: compiled from reliable authors. American Tract Society. 1893.
- Joseph Edkins (1876). Introduction to the study of the Chinese characters. Trübner & co. p. 314.
- Walter Henry Medhurst (1842). Chinese and English dictionary: containing all the words in the Chinese imperial dictionary; arranged according to the radicals. 2 volumes. Parapattan: Walter Henry Medhurst.
- Tai Tung (Dai Tong 戴侗) (1954). The Six Scripts Or the Principles of Chinese Writing. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1-107-60515-2. Translated by L.C. Hopkins with a Memoir of the Translator by W. Perceval Yetts
External links[edit]
History and construction of Chinese characters[edit]
- Excerpt from Visible Speech: The Diverse Oneness of Writing Systems by John DeFrancis, 1989 by the University of Hawai’i Press. Used by permission of the University of Hawai’i Press.
Online dictionaries and character reference[edit]
- Chinese Text Project Dictionary Comprehensive character dictionary including data for all Chinese characters in Unicode, and exemplary usage from early Chinese texts.
- Evolution of Chinese Characters
- Richard Sears, Chinese Etymology
- Da, Jun, Chinese text computing – statistics on use of Chinese characters
Chinese characters in computing[edit]
- Unihan Database: Chinese, Japanese, and Korean references, readings, and meanings for all the Chinese and Chinese-derived characters in the Unicode character set
- Daoulagad Han – Mobile OCR hanzi dictionary, OCR interface to the UniHan database
Early works of historical interest[edit]
- Chinese and English dictionary: compiled from reliable authors. American Tract Society. 1893. Retrieved 15 May 2011.
- Kangxi (Emperor of China) (1842). Chinese and English dictionary: containing all the words in the Chinese imperial dictionary; arranged according to the radicals, Volume 1. Printed at Parapattan. Retrieved 15 May 2011.