How Chinese Characters Work
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- Опубликовано: 7 янв 2024
- In this video, I break down how Chinese characters work, the different types of Chinese character, and how you can use this info to learn Chinese faster. Enjoy!
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When I was a scientist in England, in my department were a Chinese scientist and a Japanese scientist, neither had at that point a strong command of technical English. I watched as they were having a technical discussion in English and both reached the end of their language and were 'stuck', so the Japanese guy grabbed a pen and paper and he wrote out in kanji what he wanted to get across, the Chinese scientist looked at what he'd written and understood immediately and wrote down a reply, which was also understood. If they'd spoken in their respective mother tongues, they'd've got nowhere.
Truly interesting
漢字における高級語彙は日本語も中国語もほぼ同じなので、専門的分野になればなるほど意思疎通が可能となる
it's called 筆談 Brushtalk
As someone who is both learning kanji and improving my mandarin, this is very true, a lot of the kanji and its meaning comes from mandarin but the pronunciation/sound is completely different
Eg: 出口 deguchi is japanese, and in Chinese its chukou, both mean exit
Of course, there are borrowed characters with completely different meaning and pronunciation like
先生 mandarin= xianshen, sir, mister
Jap= sensei, teacher, professor
@@Al-waqwaq Indeed, me a Chinese person, who didn't know Japanese in particular, could understand majority of this sentence lol. So I agree.
As a Chinese (Singaporean) , even ourselves would struggle to pick up the language when we start school, it's all rote learning. The love of the language will make learning much easier. Immersion is the key to learning a difficult language like Chinese. Blend in with Chinese speaking communities will definitely enhance the mastery of the language.
I'm sure you already know this, but you do have one (a Chinese-speaking community), and they're on your doorstep.
Can you help me for learning Chinese
@@revolution1237 in Singapore, it's a unique situation. Mandarin is only taught in schools and is commonly encouraged to use when communicating with teachers or with fellow classmates. You are right to say among those who are Chinese. The best is other racial groups like indians and Malays learned some from the Chinese. My parents are born in the 40s, Mandarin are only taught in Chinese schools but since Singapore education has evolved to have everyone learn English as well, to be proficient in both mother tongue (Chinese, Malay or Tamil) is the main objective. Not sure about other languages, but. Mandarin is quite a tough nut to crack, even as a Chinese, it feels like another language, because we use mainly dialects at home. Our parents learned from us to speak Mandarin, those they have lost touched years ago.
@@peteyhy if you love Xi Jinping or BRICS or have a Mainland Chinese girlfriend, then it'll be easier to learn Chinese
@@Carbuncle0168 there's no need to. Singapore has good Chinese teachers.
I don't know a thing about Chinese characters, but when I was a young guy I asked a friend who spoke and wrote Chinese very well what it was all about. He said, "Imagine that two lines could mean 'some trees, or woods'. Now imagine that 4-5 of the same lines now means 'forest'... it's kinda like that." Thank you, Bing, all these years later. I wish you well!
FYI, it takes four strokes to represent a "tree". Two (or three or five) of those tree pictograms represent a "forest".
木 means tree or wood
林 means forest
森 means big forest
森林 aslo the same meaning as 森
Japanese also simplified their Kanji, called Shinjitai. Their traditional forms are called Kyuujitai.
Japanese you can get away without the writing and it is actually a lot easier to learn.
@@maxheadroom1506 Chinese can too, it's called Pinyin. And trust me Japanese is way harder than Chinese given the culture background.
i tried mandarin could not do it. tried japanese was able to form sentences and distinguish words. sure there is certain endings one must use but one can get their message across. to me japanese is way easier. very simple structure no pronouns just a no bs language.
@@user-gl1vv6cy1q
@@maxheadroom1506It's easier until everything looks like ははははながすきだ. You'll learn to appreciate Kanji as you progress, and I say this as a Chinese speaker who has been learning Japanese for years.
@@user-gl1vv6cy1qChinese characters may be nightmarish, but everything in pinyin would be utter hell. Think about poems, which are meant to be read. The amount of homophones in Chinese already scares me. If they all look the same, that wouldn't be a usable language anymore.
If you are studying Mandarin, learning the traditional form of the most common characters is highly recommended! For example, the character for 'door' is more recognizable in its traditional form than the simplified form. Good luck to all - Chinese language and culture is so much fun to learn and experience!
門 = 门
問 = 问
not really, you learn a language is to use it, simplified chinese is more easy to learn and more wild used.
@@user-xh3eg2tf2y are you recommending people NOT learn more about the intricacies of the Chinese language? 🤔
yes, the purpose of learn a foreign language is to use it, not because those so called intricacies to feel superior than those simplified version. when you master the simplified version like those locals, you will realize from simplified to traditional is very easy@@mianhaeioi
@@user-xh3eg2tf2y Stick to the basics. Got it.
作为一个母语者，我也觉得你的视频挺有意思的，讲的很清楚
i started chinese with duolingo 9 days ago and because of this 15:33 i finally understand why 叫 looks the way it does. this is so helpful for future reference.
i noticed just yesterday, that 她 (she/her) and 妈 (mother) share that symbol on the left and i thought "woah maybe this indicates "female".
and i realized drink and eat also share the mouth symbol on the left.
amazing explanation. thank you so much!
Yes, the left part is “女”, which means female or a woman. Another basic character contains 女 is 好(good). 女(a woman) has a 子(son) means 好(good).
You are most welcome! We are glad we were able to help. Here's a gift from us . Here are a few resources to assist you with your study www.mandarinblueprint.com/resources/
I study Japanese and Cantonese with Duolingo too！I’m Chinese, if you learned Chinese, you’ll find it very simple to learn Japanese.
@@markpalmer8083 you can just remember it as a whole, and no need to think too much about it.
There was no 她 in the history until 20 centuries.
I LOVE this one. I was stuck with the old radical ideas, but this seems so much more ordered.
謝謝你
You gotta post more. I love your content man.
非常有帮助，谢谢
Very Helpful!
Beautiful explanation, very thorough and well-rounded. Thank you!
Thank you for your kind words! We appreciate you supporting the channel
This is the first video i watch and I went to put like but i was surprised by the fact that its just 600 the video is amazing and the delivery of the ideas is clear and amazing it helped me alot to understand the origin of the characters and not just memorizing it blindly plus the man also have calm beautiful voice 😄its a great a channel and am glad that dicovered it
Hey there, Thank you so much for your kind words, we appreciate it. Be sure to subscribe so you don't miss any upcoming videos :)
Thank you for your presentation and this is a wonderful show. Chinese is an integral part of Chinese culture, learning Chinese entails understanding Chinese culture. Have a wonderful journey of learning and appreciating Chinese. Thanks again
Hello your videos are very helpful man
讲的很好很详细。
谢谢
You make it look so easy 💕
很好的视频谢谢指导
You are great, this is something I will watch over and over. The pronounciation and the characters of mandarin Chinese fascinate me. I read somewhere there is actually no limit to the characters in Chinese which I think really sparked my interest to begin with. Thank you so much.
Glad you enjoyed it! Thanks for watching
Thank you for making this content!! This maps the jungle well, making it look less wild and easier to navigate. This helps me to memorize hanzi much easier now!!!
Glad to help!
Fascinating.
👍 Excellent video !
Interesting over view, tks for that
I learn Chinese with a meditative mode. Each character I try to write with a high precision and a focus. I imagine myself as a kunfu master who write characters up in air with my sword. I try to bring a mystic atmospere into the learning process. All characters look cool and are enjoyable to look at. Some chs which are hard to memorize I usually write them down on my skin, hands and feet. It helps a lot )
Love this
Wow you really look like a master. 你的确像一位大师！
That so relieving 😊
Thanks. Wonderful lesson
You are welcome! Glad you enjoyed it :)
I loved this video as you said it yourself it demystified the ideas I had. I hope I have enough time someday to learn chinese.
Thank you.
This has been awesome, thank you. Its espcially helpful for me to learn tje etymology, as I find the wisdom there very great.
Tiur first example waa awesome. Structure is everything. You ened to find the key not memorize characters/alphabet
Learn Chinese by leaning your passions, for me that's lyrics to songs or lines of poetry or even subtitles in dramas, there's no need to force one's self into rote memorization
True! (That goes for every language of course.)
I’m OBSESSED with Chinese web novels at Mtl limits my access so would learning pinyin and the radical for the most common words be good ?
Singing was a great tool for learning Spanish for me.
That and some semesters in college.
And living in California.
@@ananda_miaoyin I wanna learn Spanish too 😫 but I prefer Puerto Rican songs and artist than Mexican like un beso and I want a Mexican dialect
@@Dionn743 Juan Gabriel was my favorite of the Mexican singers. Also, the band, Mana kicks ass. I saw them in concert. So good. Their Mexican Spanish is so clean, you can understand every word.
I don't know any PR groups; DR has some hardcore reggaeton (Lapiz Conciente, Toni Nash, etc.) and a crazy accent!
I always wondered how that worked. Thanks for the explanation!
BTW... You have a great "radio voice". I could listen to you talk all day.
Glad to help! and Thank you for the compliment :)
Thank you so much for your video it's extremely helpful
Glad it was helpful! You are most welcome :)
Love it
Please more of this
I'm learning Japanese instead of Chinese, but this is still helpful as Kanji work similarly :D
Excellent video. Good pints to know. Makes chinese learning so much memorable and easy
Glad it was helpful!
Thanks you have mentioned 4 types!!!
VERY HANDSOME AND INTERESTING, THANK YOU!
Armed with all of this knowledge, I still have no idea what it means lol. I don't have a reason to learn Chinese but this was still fascinating.
Having some experience in writing Chinese characters in a good stroke order also help in reading different fonts or style of writing.
Very informative & interesting.
Glad it was helpful!
This was very helpful, thank you! I'm learning Japanese rather than Chinese, but this is still useful since Kanji are just Chinese characters effectively. Learning how they break down makes the task of learning them much more manageable.
Very much. I got so much better at writing Chinese characters after studying the history and evolution of 1000 Chinese characters from a kid's book (?)
It took me until third grade to accurately pick up English letters ( bs and ds). I relearned Hebrew letters in 2 weeks and assimilated Hebrew script in 3 days. I look at Chinese characters and completely forget them as soon as I look away. At this point I just have to admit it’s in my blood.
The other thing I find so fascinating and aesthetically pleasing about Chinese characters is how different components deform themselves to accommodate the other components when they are used together to produce a new character. Remember: they all are designed to fit inside a square of the same size as all the other characters, no matter how many components are combined. A simple example is the character consisting of two trees side by side: 林. It may look just like two trees, but if you look closely you'll see that the right-hand side of the left-hand tree has its right-hand downward branch stunted to enable the trees to stand close together without bumping into each other or overlapping in any way at all. When two or more components are combined to form a character, they NEVER overlap each other, as far as I can tell. Instead, the components squish together in some fashion, while still making visible what each component is. My favorite is this character: 雀 ("sparrow"). (It's a little hard to see what's what at this font size. If you copy and paste these into a larger font, it becomes much clearer). The two components are 小 ("small") and 隹 ("short-tailed bird"--yes, it's a radical!). The "small" component sits on top of the short-tailed-bird radical, squishing it flat, to form the full character for "sparrow"! It's really interesting and beautiful how the forms of classical Chinese characters of multiple components are formed!
雀 is one of the most commonly used component in Chinese characters I have ever seen. 雙 確 蕉 谁 推 準 應 鹰. Sometimes it gives the meaning, sometimes the sound. It's more apparent in older dialects like Cantonese or Hokkien.
@@bonbonpony And 人 abbreviates itself to 亻 to become the left side of many, many characters, and 肉 shrinks itself to become the left side of 肌, and 入 "opens wide" to admit 肉 in 肏! And no doubt other examples as well.
@@bonbonpony I think it's a matter of two different-looking ancient forms which evolved from their earlier pictographic forms to ultimately look exactly the same, but are otherwise unrelated. There is a very good book that traces the pictographic forms through the "grass style" forms and their history to how they ended up: "Chinese Characters: Their Origin, Etymology, History, Classification, and Signification: A Thorough Study from Chinese Documents". I have a copy at home but I'm traveling now, or else I'd look it up in that book. I think it would almost certainly clarify the evolution of these characters into their modern form.
Thank you very interesting
Glad you enjoyed it
This is an awesome video. I had no idea about the language. Thanks
Glad you liked it!
I can't believe I'm trying to learn this! 😂
Xie xie ni! I have been living 8 years in China, now 3 years in Malaysia, always struggling with structuring the characters. And of course tried many courses like rocket-chinese, chinese 101, others, even tried the teaching by my Chinese wife - but had to learn, Chinese learn by "learning", not by understanding. My German mind always needs to understand. Your explanation is brilliant. Never got so much valid info to the structure and meaning of characters as in this 15 min. You reactivated my desire to learn more and learn writing. And by the way, you are a super positive character, really motivating.
Thank you! We are glad you found our video helpful. Thanks for watching. If you have any questions or need help with anything, definitely let us know.
this video is amazing
Glad you think so! stay tuned for more :)
Wish I had this in high-school, it was one of 3 languages I took. Mandarin was the hardest.
Excellent l think this explanation was very good
Great video! Great pep talk! 😂
Glad you enjoyed!
I applaud your positivity but you can reassure as much as you like. Chinese is waaaaay beyond convoluted. I learned to read, write and speak Dutch, self taught, in 3 months. Chinese will take me 3 centuries.
We beg to differ :) I'd encourage you to check out the following www.mandarinblueprint.com/blog/chinese-fluency-with-mandarin-blueprint/ . Learning Chinese doesn't have to take 3 centuries and you'll see why once you read the above .
It is harder. It is not more convoluted.
Read the story of The Three Little Pigs.
I'll take English as an example. I'll use one of your word as an example.
century
You can learn "century" = 100 years.
Or you can learn it the proper way. From Latin.
cent = 100
century = 100 years
cent = 1 penny. 100 "cents" in a dollar
centimeter = 1/100 th of a meter
percent = per 100
3/4 = three quarters = 75 cents = 75 "percent".
bicentennial
and so on.
Much more useful than learning
century = 100 years
谢谢, 来自中国云南。汉字非常有趣和复杂，们简化了它们，因为写它和学它的好处是写字少费力
thank you for this! - mr hoyack
I have no idea how I stumbled upon this video, but it’s very interesting! I didn’t have anything remotely related to the Chinese language in my history.
Maybe it's a sign that you needed to start learning Chinese!
Enhorabuena por el vídeo.
I loved this video to start with chinese
Glad you enjoyed :)
你很好看 也很有气质 也很耐看，有一股不可抗拒的魅力。才貌双全，文质彬彬，优雅出众。
Woah...
@@MandarinBlueprint您的瞳色也好特别，带美瞳眼镜还是天生的？我从来没见过，像宝石一样~
Comment for the algorithm. Keep up the great videos!
Thanks, will do!
What a craziness!
Thanks mate, I lived in Shanghai for 6 years and probably have 1-2k words in my database in pinyin, but other than ren, yi and zhong, had no clue about Chinese characters and figured the task of learning them was a mountain too high. You've given me hope to tackle it. Each time I've said 'wo bu ming bai' or 'wo bu ji dao' feels like a disconnection, a failure. There's much mutual pleasure in sharing one's understanding of a culture and language with those we're foreign to.
Glad we could help! If you're looking to delve deeper into Mandarin, here's a link to our free webclass www.mandarinblueprint.com/free-webinar
Your Chinese pronounciation is amazingly accurate. Wow..
Thank you :)
Working for a Korean corp, I've strived to learn how to effectively communicate in English. Admiring/respecting my Korean co-workers read, write and speak at least 2 languages. Most able to read Chinese. I regularly butcher my birth tongue English, the only language. This post sheds light and insight I find valuable. Language, both written and spoken are directly correlated to thought process and culture. Thank you.
You are most welcome :)
It is true that many characters are compound charecters.
When I encounter unfamiliar compound charectors, I will try to search by its component.
For example the word 贏, I will search for 亡口月贝凡 and I will be able to find the compound word.
I like your explanation . I love the chinese language ❤
Glad you liked it! Thanks for watching!
In the 昨天 example you gave, 昨 can be used alone in northern dialects and in informal conversations.
"Fascinating.", to quote Mr. Spock. I never had the interest to learn Chinese language, but I did spend time in the orient.
You should first learn English.
"orient" = east
The sun rises in the east, (Beauty and the Beast . . .)
The sun rises in the east. That is how we tell directions.
That is how we "orient" ourselves.
I saw a video of two Japanese guys going around Tokyo challenging people to correctly draw kanji characters. A majority of them couldn't correctly draw characters that 14 year olds were learning in school. They said it's common to see Japanese people looking up characters with their phones when filling out paper forms. I wonder if that's common with Chinese people too.
Yes.
no its not, chinese characters are replacable in japanese but not in chinese@@user-ly5zb2bi9x
不，这不常见，日语的构成与中文完全不同导致了不同的结果。日语中大多数时候只是用一个汉字来代表某些读音，日语并不如中文一样真正理解字的含义。包括日本人取名时，通常也是先选择读音，然后再查找有哪些符合这个读音的汉字，这与中国是完全相反的。
In the old days, when communication in writing was done only through hand writing, most Chinese with high school education rarely need to look up a word. It's not really that hard to memorize Chinese characters once one has learned how those characters are constructed with just a few elements and rules, such as those mentioned in the video.
@@redmondlee9579 That is not correct.
Looking at the Chinese Periodic Table of Elements you'll understand why the semantic-phonetic compounds can be very useful sometimes to identify the properties of the characters.
不仅如此，在有机化学中往往可以根据汉字的结构推测化合物拥有的结构。比如一个化合物的中文名汉字中有“口”这个偏旁，那往往意味着这个化合物有环状结构。例如最简单的含氧五元杂环化合物“furan”，它的中文是“呋喃”。
Yep, at that point they just function to give sound.
This video is awesome. Your explanation of how Chinese characters work makes it easier to learn and understand, it also makes it sound more fun, especially the compound ideographs. Thank you for this.
Glad it was helpful!
Thank you, my kanji studies are easier now.
I've no interest whatsoever in learning Chinese, but I really appreciate understanding there's a system behind these beautiful symbols. I just presumed it was completely random.
Characters like 妈 makes more sense when you understand how these characters are formed. I think the Chinese language is more intimidating than difficult. 谢谢!
You are most welcome! Based on your comment, I think you'd enjoy the following : www.mandarinblueprint.com/blog/is-chinese-hard-to-learn/
I think you would find it helpful to learn an older Chinese like Cantonese. For example, 門 and 問 sounds mun6 and man4. Not sure what happened that made a lot of m sounds into w, happened many times, like 忙望網無晚。
This was such a good overview of Hanji for English speakers. It was a great refresher for me - I learned Kanji when I was stationed in Japan. But I'm confused, is pinyin like hiragana? Did I miss that the Chinese do (or do not have) a phonetic alphabet?
Pinyin/zhuyin/jyutping are for prononciation only, written Chinese will be character-specific (from the perspective of a mainlander speaking mandarin, at least)
13:34 Shang Hai is also quite obvious Above the Sea
Once again, I am very happy I learned Spanish as a second language.
Yeah, it's all very clear now 😳
Well it appears you need a bit more guidance, check this out -> www.mandarinblueprint.com/blog/chinese-characters/ . It will help you with better understanding how characters work
You help me learn Chinese
Glad we were able to help!
The ancient Chinese pronunciation of 海 (sea) was something like "hmər" or "hmrə" and in some way looks pretty similar to European "mar" as in "marine". But in the modern language, only one of these early compound consonants get left in words, so you get h- in 海 and m- in 每. Same for 各, originally kl-, so you have 洛 lak and 各 kak. When you learn similar compounds that have different onsets, this is usually because they descended from clusters.
interesting
That was an interesting and informative video. If I needed to learn Chinese it would have been a good introduction but because I don't need to learn Chinese the video serves as a warning not to even try. :)
Don't let it stop you just because you don't need to learn it! It's a fun language!
@@MandarinBlueprint I learned French at high school in Perth in the 1950s/60s but never used it then Indonesian and Arabic in the 1970s. The latter two I still enjoy and use daily. In the late 90s I learned a little Thai while living in southern Thailand for two years which has the advantage of giving me an understanding and capability for tonal languages. In 1997 I even, messing about with a Thai friend's Apple computer, managed to get its voice simulation to pronounce a Thai sentence with the correct tones! So I think if I wanted to continue learning a tonal language I'd pursue Thai up to conversational level.
they make the best tofu
No doubt. Sorry to say that it was really Chinese to me, in the typical meaning of that expression. Good luck to anyone of age who may be interested in learning the Chinese language which I dearly recommend any youngsters anywhere in the world to familiarize themselves with it. This recommendation is in their best interests.
Thank you this is an awesome video! Super helpful to understand the history and whole process of chinese characters better.
No
Brilliantly summarized, as usual. By the way, Mandarin Blueprint's Hànzì Movie Method really works. And it's fun! (I'm not affiliated with Mandarin Blueprint in any way, by the way, other than being a consumer and student of their courses.)
Glad you are finding the Hanzi Movie Method to work for you! keep up the great work
Hey do you need a video editor to make your content creation process easy?
Hey , please send us an email at contact@mandarinblueprint.com
5:31 all rules of calligraphy and also normal daily writing i know state that strokes have to extend outwards or they are ugly, and the last na-stroke of Ai having a "serif" that goes inward is really japanese-style to me :D ... ill have to ask my ex, but i already can hear her "aiya wode ma ya, zhe shi shane? ... rengui hmph" in my head :D
Another country that uses Chinese Characters is South Korea, where it is known as Hanja. Hanja are almost exclusively traditional characters in addition of few Korean made Hanja.
很棒了❤
谢谢您
河(he) and 可(ke) pronounce so differently in modern Chinese, however, they share same vowels in Tang dinasty 河(gha) and 可(khax) (using middle-ancient Chinese Pinyin，中古汉语拼音).
Very interesting! I am Chinese banana- nearly no knowledge of Mandarin
Glad you found it interesting. That's okay; that's what we're here for. If you're interested in learning more, you can start with our free webclass www.mandarinblueprint.com/free-webinar/
Mmmmmmmmm radicals for japanese makes them far more important via this video lol. Thanks man
Duo Xie Lao shi ❤😊
If you're keen on Chinese culture and literature, consider using effective tools such as DeepL and Immersive Translate to help you grasp the essence.
Man, im a guy but i love your face especially your eyes!😂
1:36 I call them "glyphs". From the movie Blade.