Chin Ease

chinEASE
Start Reading Chinese Characters TODAY!
Aaron Posehn
Oak House
Vancouver, Canada
-2- chinEASE Start reading Chinese characters TODAY!
Copyright Aaron Posehn, 2014

All Rights Reserved
chinEASE
First edition released January 2013 from Vancouver, Canada
Second edition released February 2014 from Vancouver, Canada
Web: www.chinease-ebook.com
Email: contact@chinease-ebook.com
Cover art by Frank Fradella

Austin, Texas
www.chinease-ebook.com
A SPECIAL THANKS to the people who helped make this book

appreciably better with their editing, research, suggestions,
criticisms, and enthusiasm.
If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to

his head. If you talk to him in his own language, that goes to his
heart.
Nelson Mandela
To have another language is to possess a second soul.

Charlemagne

The journey of a thousand miles starts from beneath ones feet.
Laozi

Is it not a pleasure after all to put into practice in due time what
one has learned?
Confucius
Table of Contents
A Note About Character Pronunciation 10
About the Author 11
Introduction 12
Chapter 1: Your First Twelve Chinese Characters 14
Chapter 2: The Origins of Chinese Characters 21

Mythical Beginnings 22
The Actual Formation of the First Characters 23
Chapter 3: Modern Characters 26

How Basic Chinese Characters are Formed 27
What About Even More Complicated Characters? 29
Chinese Radicals 34
Chapter 4: The Six Character Structure Types 38
Chapter 5: The Five Major Chinese Scripts 42
Chapter 6: Character Simplification 46

Traditional vs. Simplified Characters 47
Second-Round Simplified Characters 50
Chapter 7: Character Spacing and Stroke Order 52

Character Stroke Order 54
Names of Individual Strokes 55
Chapter 8: Outside Influences and Influencers 60

Using Chinese Characters to Translate Foreign Ideas 61
Substituting in English Vocabulary 65
Using Characters to Write Other Asian Languages 69
i. Japanese 69
ii. Korean 73
Chapter 9: Other Types of Markings 75

Chinese Punctuation 76
Numbers 82
Chapter 10: Learn to Read a Chinese Menu 88

Common Meats 89
Intestines, Brains, and Tongues 94
Fruits and Vegetables 96
Other Common Foods and Spices 98
Methods of Preparation 99
Methods of Cooking 100
Chinese Dishes: Characters in Context 102
Drinks 109
Chapter 11: Learn to Read a Chinese Business Card 112

Names 114
Contact Numbers and Addresses 116
Common Chinese Surnames 120
Positions within a Company 123
Chapter 12: Take the Long Road to Learning Chinese 127
Chapter 13: How to Get Good at Mandarin in 4 Steps 133

Step 1 Repetition 132
Step 2 Utilize Your Time 136
Step 3 Dont Stress! 138
Step 4 Read as Much as You Can 139
Afterword 141
Appendix A: An Introduction to Pinyin 146
Appendix B: A Chart of All Sounds in Mandarin 148
Appendix C: How to type in Chinese 149
Appendix D: Chinese Character Practice Grids 150
Bonus!: 36 Resources for Further Study 153
- 10 - chinEASE Start reading Chinese characters TODAY!
A Note About Character Pronunciation
This book makes use of the pinyin romanization system that is

used to read the Mandarin Chinese pronunciation of Chinese
characters. Other romanization and pronunciation methods for
Mandarin have been devised in the past, such as the Wade-Giles,
Zhuyin, Yale, or Legge romanization systems. There have even
been those devised so as to write Mandarin with the Cyrillic
(Russian) or Arabic alphabets (see picture below).
Additional systems also exist for other Chinese languages such as

Jyutping for Cantonese or the long-short romanization system for
Shanghainese. However, pinyin is the most widely used at present
for transcribing Mandarin and has been fully utilized in this book.
For more on pinyin, please see Appendices A and B.
An entry from an old Chinese-Arabic-Xiaoerjing dictionary.

Xiaoerjing script is written with Arabic letters in order to transcribe Mandarin Chinese sounds.
Chinese is on the first row, then Arabic, then Xiaoerjing.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Xiao-Er-Jin.jpg
About the Author
Aaron Posehn is a graduate of the

University of British Columbia in
Vancouver, Canada, majoring in
Asian Area Studies and specializing in
China, Taiwan, and India. He
additionally has an Associate of Arts
degree from Capilano University,
having studied philosophy, history,
English, and mathematics.
Aaron has had an interest in Asian cultures and languages since in

his early teens, first learning Mandarin and Chinese characters
through self-study and then continuing formally in extra-curricular
classes and at university.
In addition to Mandarin, he has a love for foreign languages and

cultures in general and is keen to spend the rest of his life
bridging cultures so as to better understand the world in which he
lives.
(Aaron Posehn)
Introduction
Learning how to write Chinese characters is not difficult. Really!

Although they may appear daunting at first, this is just because
you probably dont have enough experience with them yet.
However, by reading this eBook, you will see that not only are
Chinese characters very accessible, but that they are also very
systematic in their formations. You could liken this to how you
may be able to understand individual root words making up a
larger word in English, even if the new word itself is as yet
unfamiliar to you. You just have to take the smaller parts and put
them together to make the larger whole more meaningful.
As an added bonus, Chinese characters are used across all of the

many languages and dialects that comprise the umbrella-term
Chinese (Mandarin, Cantonese, Shanghainese, Hokkien, Hakka,
Teochew, etc.). Therefore, if you are studying Mandarin, for
example, you will already have a hand up when it comes to
understanding the written thoughts of Chinese speakers from
different parts of China and the Chinese-speaking world.
Essentially, this book has been specifically created to explore the

above topics and those apparent complexities of Chinese writing
to the beginning and/or struggling student, and ultimately
attempts to get you started on your road to gaining an impressive
understanding of Chinese characters.
After reading, you will understand in much greater depth how to

read, write, and recognize this language, as well as how to space
characters properly, how new characters can be created, and why
unknown words in Chinese might even be simpler to understand
at first glance than unknown vocabulary in English.
To teach these things successfully, the author demonstrates how

characters can often be broken down into smaller components
that are more manageable and provide for methods of easy
recognition. He shows how many of the original characters
actually once looked like pictures of what they were supposed to
represent, today just having been adapted over time into more
abstract formations. An introduction to the history and evolution
of Chinese characters is also included so as to shed light on how
they have formed over time, and thereby an attempt is made to
explain the straightforward nature in which Chinese writing has
evolved and can be learned today.
Towards the end of this book, you will use all of the knowledge
you have gained so far to understand some of the most
widespread and useful characters used on Chinese menus and
business cards, some of the everyday things that youll be
required to read when in China on business or for travel.
It is recommended that you have a good Chinese-English

dictionary by your side while reading this eBook. Although much
effort has been made to explain in detail the individual Chinese
characters that you will encounter, some are covered in more
detail than others. However, most characters in this book are
paired with their pinyin (see Appendix A) equivalents and it is by
using this pronunciation system that you should be able to find in
a dictionary any character written within this book. If you prefer
using online dictionaries, I suggest www.nciku.com or a wonderful
dictionary app downloadable at www.pleco.com.
Hopefully you enjoy this eBook. But remember, it has been

written specifically with the goal to provide its readers with the
understanding that Chinese characters are more than simply just
too hard to learn. So lets start!
Chapter 1:
Your First 12 Characters
As stated in the Introduction, I claimed that Chinese characters

are fairly straightforward. Still dont believe me yet? Then here is
your first example:
What does this look like to you? The top of an arrow? A circumflex
like the kind found on the top of some letters in French ()?
Obviously, its neither of these.
It is in fact the Chinese character for person.
How you might ask? Well, you can think of it like this:
The character for person
Can you see it now? Just by adding a little improvised head to the
top of the character, you can see how it transforms into a
representation of two legs and a torso.
With this in mind, try to figure out what the next two characters
might mean:
The character for big
The character for small
By adding one more horizontal stroke on the character for person,

you can see that this guy now has outstretched arms, and from
this, you may be able to guess that this Chinese character means
big.
If you think about the next character in a similar way, you might
see how this man is crouching with his legs together and covering
his body with his hands. He is certainly not big, but small.
How about the next three characters?

One obviously has one line, the next one has two lines, and the
last one has three lines. Simply, these characters are the way to
write one, two, and three in Chinese. Easy, right? What about
these next three?

If you think about the first as a flower sprouting up and out of the
horizontal ground, you might wonder if this character could mean
up or on.
The character for up
Similarly, if you think of the second one as a root reaching down

below the horizontal ground, you might think that this character
means down or under. And in fact it does!
The character for down

The third character above is similar to the first, except for the
addition of another horizontal line segment. You can continue to
think of this third character as a flower sprouting up and out of
the horizontal ground, but this time, try and remember that this
one means earth or ground instead of up.
The character for ground
How about this next one? What does it look like to you?
The character for rain
As you can see from the drawing on the right, this character
suggests rainfall from a cloud and means rain.
Now that you have a basic understanding of how Chinese

characters can look like those items or ideas that they are trying
to represent, what do you think this next one could be?
Heres a hint its an abstract representation of an open cavity on

the human body. By looking at the picture below, you are sure to
know immediately what it is.
The character for mouth
Lastly, we have another body part, the ear.
However, it may not appear like much until we give it some

context with a picture:
The character for ear
Just from this short introduction, you have already learned twelve
Chinese characters that you can remember by thinking back to
how they relate to the pictures that they are supposed to
represent. Although the forms of these characters at present are
somewhat abstract representations of what they are intended to
mean, you are still easily able to understand why they are formed
the way they are.
So, that wasnt so hard! Next, lets look at some history behind
how Chinese characters formed over time, as well as a few more
characters in general.
Chapter 2:
The Origins of
Chinese Characters
Mythical Beginnings
The Chinese writing system has been around for over five
thousand years. Although its various forms have evolved greatly
through time, Chinese continues to hold its place in the world as
the only pictorial writing system to still be in common use today.
One ancient legend tells of a time before written history when

people used ropes and knots to record daily events a big event
deserved a big knot and a small event deserved a small knot.
However, it is easy to guess that this might not have been the
best method for remembering specific activities and a better
system was badly needed.
This story goes on to tell of a man

named Cang Jie ( Cng Ji), a
minister during reign of the Yellow
Emperor ( Hung D ). He had the
attentive habit of noticing various
shapes that were formed in nature by
the animals and objects around him
the footprints of birds, the form of the
human body, the shapes of tree
branches and he started to draw
pictures of these things.
Noticing the roundness of the sun in

the sky, Cang Jie drew a round circle
with a line in the middle. This
eventually came to form the modern Cang Jie, the fabled inventor of Chinese characters
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Cangjie2.jpg
character for sun ( r ). He then saw
{{PD-1923}}
the pointing mountains that stood
around him and drew three mountain
peaks.
This picture eventually came to form the modern character for

mountain ( shn). Then Cang Jie saw the form of the crescent
moon in the night sky with wisps of clouds passing by; this also
contributed to the modern form of the character for moon (
yu).
Cang Jies sun, mountain, and moon drawings
The Actual Formation of the First Characters
Being that the Yellow Emperor and Cang Jie are only fictional
actors in ancient Chinese mythology, a much more plausible
explanation for the creation of Chinese characters is that of the
ancient carvings on oracle bones ( ji g wn).
During Chinas second dynasty, the Shang Dynasty (c. 1600 BCE-
1046 BCE), emperors would consult shamans for a forecast of
their kingdoms future. The shaman would engrave small pictorial
symbols into animal bones or tortoise shells and then place them
in fire, basing his predictions on the ways in which the bones
cracked and split from being given to the heat.
These cracks were regarded as answers from the gods and the
shaman would then tell the emperor of, for example, the
inevitable drought in store for the nation or of the coming victory
in battle.
Over thousands of years, these symbols were used more and

more frequently and their original forms were altered many times.
This was the beginning of the long process that brought the
Chinese script to where it is today.
The images below, from left to right, illustrate some of the oracle
bone writings that would have been used during ancient times.
Look specifically at the characters for rat, horse, tiger, and
elephant, and especially at the character for turtle. You are sure
to see the direct resemblances.
Horse Tiger Pig Dog Rat Elephant Beast Turtle Bed To be like Illness
Oracle bone characters

Source: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Oracle_bone_graphs_rotated_90_degrees.gif
On the next page is a fragment of a real oracle bone on which

Chinese characters have been inscribed. These inscriptions would
have been read from top to bottom and from right to left.
Oracle bone inscription on an ox bone.

Source: Aaron Posehn
Chapter 3:
Modern Characters
How Basic Chinese Characters are Formed
Although Cang Jie, the fabled inventor of writing, was not a real
person, Chinese characters were still created originally by the
observations that people made in everyday life, and many of
these earliest symbols looked very much like the objects that they
are meant to represent.
We have already seen most of the characters immediately below,

but here are a few more. Can you imagine how they represent the
forms of what they are supposed to mean? For example, the
character for field is a partitioned acreage and the character for
eye is an (admittedly rectangular) eyeball inset with a pupil.

y r sn shng xi ku r yu shn chun
one two three up down mouth sun moon mountain river

m t o d xio rn m tin
tree convex concave big small person eye field
Chinese characters evolved alongside Chinese culture, which was

of much benefit for the development of writing since cultural
thoughts and ideas could be used to influence and create more
complex characters. For example, by looking to the characters
listed above, you can see the symbols for sun and moon, or the
two brightest objects in the sky. By putting them side by side, we
obtain a new character meaning bright.
+ = (m
ng)
Another example would be the character for forest that we get by

combining twice the character for tree. Alternatively, we can add
another tree to the duo and get a third character which also
means forest.
+ = (l
n) + = (sn)
If you are having difficulty seeing a tree in (m), then try to

think of a vertical tree trunk with four branches coming off its
sides.
A third example would be the character for man. In the ancient

Chinese mind, a person had to be strong to work the various
fields that were kept; this person was often the man, and by
combining the character for field on top of the character for
strength, we get the following result:
(field; tin) + (strength; l) = (man; nn)

Following are several more examples of these compounded
Chinese characters. Can you see how they are composed?
(rain; y) + (field; tin) = (thunder; li)
(thunder; li) + (bolt of lightning) = (electricity; din)
(roof; min) + (pig; sh) = (family/home; ji)
(woman; n) + (child; z) = (good; ho)

Taking a look at the first line above, thunder () is composed of
the two characters for rain () and field () (remember the
acreage split into four sections), as thunder is something that
often happens over a field when it is raining.
Electricity () logically follows from it when adding a bolt of

lightning () to the thunder () (think of Benjamin Franklin and
his famous kite-flying experiment during a thunderstorm to prove
that lightning is actually electricity).
The character for home or family () is made up of a roof-like

covering () at the top with the character for pig () underneath
(try to see in the character an animal with four legs, a tail, and a
head). This symbolizes the fact that if a household had enough
food under its roof, a family could flourish.
Good () is composed of the characters for woman () and child

(), usually a joyful occasion for a society when reproduction can
successfully take place. You can imagine the woman kneeling with
outstretched hands and the child swaddled in a blanket, also with
outstretched hands and an open mouth.
What about even more complicated characters?
However, many (if not most) other Chinese characters can be a

great deal more complicated than the ones shown above and do
not necessarily display such obvious meanings. These characters
instead consist of two parts: one gives a clue as to the meaning of
the word (this part is called the radical), and the other part often
gives a clue as to the pronunciation of the character.
For example, take the following character:

The on the left-hand side is the radical, representing three
droplets of water (note that this is an abbreviated form of the
regular character for water, which is normally written as when
by itself).
is our second, separate character with a different meaning from

, though this is irrelevant for us here. However, will take on
the pronunciation of due to this shared component between the
two and this pronunciation is yu.
From this given information, you can deduce that this character
has something to do with a water-like substance, or a liquid. In
fact, this character means oil, and is pronounced yu in Mandarin.
Note that although it is not evident from first glance that it means
specifically the liquid known as oil, for someone who has not seen
this character before, he or she could still take a guess as to what
the meaning might entail due to the presence of the water radical.
Next, lets look at the word for chow mein, or the stir-fried
noodles that are often found at Chinese restaurants. Taking the
chow part as our example and seeing that it is written as
(cho), we can deconstruct this character and see that it itself
consists of two parts (hu) and (sho).
(hu) means fire, and you can imagine this character

representing the flames of a fire shooting out in all directions. By
extension, the action of cooking (stir-frying) requires a heat
source, which for most people in history was a fire.
The other part, , is pronounced sho. Put together, the two form
the new character (cho), meaning to stir-fry. Add a separate
character afterward meaning noodles to make a new two-
character word and you have (cho min), or stir-fried
noodles (chow mein).
Although the character here () that offers an indication about

the pronunciation is itself pronounced sho and not like the cho
that we end up with, it is still similar and provides at least a hint
as to how the character might be pronounced. Its not a fool-proof
system, but one more of estimation for when you come across a
new character.
That being said, you may have noticed that part of the
pronunciation does in fact stay the same, and this part is the
pinyin final. This is the -ao part in our example above, as
compared to pinyin initial, or the sh- and ch- parts. The finals of
both characters will usually be the same even if the initials are not,
and this is why cho and sho end up being so similar (ie, both
containing -ao). For more information on initials and finals, please
see Appendices A and B.
Going back to radicals now, there are 214 of them that can be
combined with other characters in order to create new formations.
Some of the most common are those that we have already seen
above, such as (person), (mouth), (woman),
(mountain), (water), (rain), (ear), (heart), (sun),
(eye), and (tree).
However, just as with the water radical in our character for oil (),
these radicals may sometimes also slightly change their shape
when combined with other characters, thereby turning (person)
into , (hand; shu) into , and (grass; co) into (notice
that itself uses the radical at its top so as to hint at its leafy
meaning).
On the next page are some more examples that use the radicals
from above. In each instance, the specific radical can be found in
parentheses, as well as the other half of the character suggesting
pronunciation. Can you see where the radicals are located when
combined to create these new characters?
(ch) = to eat ( mouth radical; q)
(cho) = to argue ( mouth radical; sho)
(cho) = to copy ( [] hand radical; sho)
(d) = to hit ( [] hand radical; dng)
(xing) = to look like ( [] person radical; xing)
(hu) = partner ( [] person radical; hu)
(m) = mother ( woman radical; m)
(q) = to marry a woman ( woman radical; q)
(hu) = flower ( [] grass radical; hu)
(b) = spinach ( [] grass radical; b)
(qio) = steep ( mountain radical; xio)
(xi) = gorge ( mountain radical; ji)
(k) = withered ( tree radical; g)
(gn) = stick ( tree radical; kn)
(dng) = to stare ( eye radical; dng)
(pn) = to long for ( eye radical; fn)
(shung) = frost ( rain radical; xing)
(bo) = hail ( rain radical; bo)
(lng) = deaf ( ear radical; lng)
(l
ng) = to listen ( ear radical; l
ng)
(zh) = aspiration ( heart radical; sh

)
(n) = kindness ( heart radical; yn)
(mi) = to conceal ( sun radical; wi)
(chn) = dawn ( sun radical; chn)
If you have gotten this far, you are doing very well! Remember,
even though Chinese characters may represent the abstract forms
of things in real life, they still represent things in real life.
Keep this in mind when you come across a new character with
several different parts and you are sure to spot the individual
sections right away, often leading you to be able to guess
immediately at the possible meanings of a character.
Chinese Radicals
Below is a listing of 88 common radicals you will find in Chinese,

as well as examples of characters that use them.
You can additionally print out this chart from the chinEASE
website here for future reference.
Character Abbr. Pronunciation Meaning Examples

rn Person
ku Mouth
t Ground
n Woman
xn Heart
shu Hand
r Sun
yu Moon
m Tree
shu Water
hu Fire
m Silk
() co Grass
yn Speech
chu Walk
jn Gold
do Knife
bi Shell
y One
l Strength
yu Right hand
qun Dog
h Grain
zh Bamboo
y Fish
l Stand
yng Sheep

chng Insect
(on left) f Mound
(on y City
right)
d Big
gung House on cliff
tin Field
m Eye
sh Rock
m Horse
y Leaf
jn Scarf
m Rice
ch Vehicle
b Division
sh Corpse
h House
shn Mountain
p Knock
ch Step
sh Ten
gng Work
fng Square
mn Door
sh Eat
qin Yawn
yng Useful
bng Ice
zi Child
n Sickness
zhu Bird
jn Axe
tu Lid
y Jade
bi White
min Roof

chng Cliff
mn Dish
sh Spirit
wng Net
xu Cave
zu Walk
y Rain
wi Enclosure
shn Markings
g Halberd
j Table
sh Tongue
x Sunset
ni Cow
r Ear
xn Bitter
z Foot
y Clothing
yu Wine
nio Bird
gng Bow
zhu Boat
shn Body
bo Wrap
q Gas
di Evil
For reference, on the next page is a listing of all 214 radicals. The
first grouping are the entire set, while the second grouping are
the abbreviations that are found for some characters. See if you
can recognize the ones we have met with so far.
You may also like to check out this clickable radical chart to
explore which characters are made up of which radicals.
Listing of the 214 radicals used to write Chinese characters (above) and their variations (below).
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:List_of_Unicode_radicals.png
Chapter 4:
The Six Character
Structure Types
As explained in Chapter 3, Chinese characters are often composed

of multiple, smaller characters that, when placed together, can
create new ones with new meanings based on their individual
parts.
Additionally, Chinese characters can also be divided up into six

specific categories, some of which we have already seen though
have yet to specifically identify.
These six formal categories are below with explanations as follow:
1. (xing x
ng) Pictographs
2. (zh sh
) Ideographs
3. (huy
) Logical aggregates
4. (x
ng shng) Phonetic complexes
5. (zhun zh) Transference
6. (ji ji) Borrowing
Pictographs () are characters that we have already seen

above in Chapters 1 and 2. They are based on some of the
earliest characters and tend to look like the objects whose
meanings they are supposed to represent. For example, sun (
r
), moon ( yu), person ( rn), tree ( m), and eye ( m).
Ideographs (), as we saw in Chapters 1 and 3, are

characters that represent abstract ideas (as opposed to concrete
objects) such as up ( shng), down ( xi), two ( r), big (
d), and small ( xio).
Logical aggregates () are characters formed by splicing

two or more separate characters together in order to form a brand
new character. An example would be (dng), meaning the
cardinal point East. This one takes the two pictographs for sun (
r
) and tree ( m) and lays one over top of the other. You might
be able to remember this new character by thinking of the
morning sun rising up over the trees in the East.
Phonetic characters () are another type that we have seen

above with our examples of (yu) and (cho), or oil and to
stir-fry respectively. One part of the character, usually the right-
hand side or the bottom portion, gives a clue as to the phonetic
value of the character, with the radical giving a clue as to its
meaning. An example would be the character for chain ( lin) in
which the left-hand side radical ( jn) means gold or metal, and
where the right-hand side is pronounced lin, thereby creating
our new character, , with the pronunciation of lin as well. You
should note that the tones on the two lians do not necessarily
remain the same even though the pronunciation may. To
remember these minute differences in tones, it just takes practice
(and for more information on tones, see Appendix A).
Transferred characters () are characters that at one time

meant one thing, but today have been extended to include
additional ideas as well. One such example would be (wng),
with the original meaning of net. Today, however, it has been
extended to mean things like network or the internet. If you place
this character beside the character we have already learned in
Chapter 1 for up or on ( shng), then you can form the word for
online, or (wng shng), as in Im browsing online for a new
eBook to learn about Chinese characters!
This category also applies to two characters that at one time may
have meant the same thing, but which are understood
differently today. For example, the modern meaning of (ko)

and (lo) are to verify and old respectively. However, both of
these characters were interpreted as having the same meaning by
people in the past, that meaning being an elderly person.
Borrowed characters () are those that at one time meant

one thing, but today tend to mean something completely different.
Such an example would be (wn). Today, this character means
the number ten-thousand (10,000), but in centuries past it meant
scorpion. Though this may seem initially confusing, when first
learning a new character of this type, you would never be
introduced to it with its original meaning. You would probably only
ever come in contact with this character as scorpion, for example,
upon further advanced study, by which time your comprehension
of characters will be good enough so as not to cause any
unnecessary confusion. To learn a character of this type is
essentially an exercise in Chinese history.
A scorpion beside the character for

10,000, itself originally being an
abstract depiction of this animal.
Chapter 5:
The Five Major Types of
Chinese Calligraphy
Chinese writing can be grouped into five major styles of

calligraphy, these forms being linked to the history and evolution
of Chinese writing itself. They are named below, each picture
showing both the style in question (on the right) as well as the
same characters written in the modern form (on the left).
(zhun sh) seal script
This script is one of the most ancient forms of

written Chinese. It originates from the state of
Qin and was imposed as the standard during the
Qin Dynasty ( q n cho) (221 BCE-206 BCE).
Except for those interested in calligraphy, the

majority of people today are not necessarily able to clearly make
out this script. However, it is still used for name chops, or seals
(hence the name), which are stamps bearing a persons name. To
this day, these stamps are sometimes used in place of a signature.
Source: Gsklee, http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File%3ASeal_Eg.png
(l sh) clerical script
The clerical script is an offshoot of the original

seal script and was widely used in the Western
Han Dynasty ( x hn) (206 BCE-9 CE). It is
generally readable today, though usually only
used for stylistic or advertising purposes.
Source: Vberger, http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Clerical_Eg.png
(x
ng sh) semi-cursive script
Also called running script, this style is similar to

English handwriting in that characters are not as
carefully constructed, but are allowed to have
their strokes run into and combine with each
other.
Source: Gsklee, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Semi-Cur_Eg.png
(co sh) cursive script
Also called grass script ( means grass), this

script can be highly illegible to those not trained
in its form. It is even more cursive than the
running script above, whole characters
sometimes being drawn without taking ones
brush or pen off the paper before starting a new
stroke or character. This scripts form is therefore more rounded
than its counterparts in other scripts, some strokes even being
left out so as to increase the ease of writing or to enhance the
overall appearance and beauty of the character.
Source: Gsklee, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Cur_Eg.png
(ki sh) regular script
Kaishu is the modern form of writing that you will see

most Chinese written in today. Because of this, only one
example can be shown here unlike the above four
examples that have pictures of both this modern script
and its ancient form.
Source: Gaklee, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Regular_Eg.png

The regular script (kaishu) is written decisively and carefully, not

usually allowing strokes to cross into and blend with others (as is
the case with the running and grass scripts above). This is also
the script that Chinese children (and you!) will learn when first
practicing how to write.
Now that you have learned some of the forms that Chinese
characters have taken over the centuries, lets take a look at the
campaign imposed in the 1950s by the current Chinese
government to further simplify characters in order to make them
more accessable for the average person.
Chapter 6:
Character Simplification
Traditional vs. Simplified Characters
Beginning in the 1950s, the Chinese government started the

process of simplifying a large portion of Chinese characters due to
the fact that many people in the past did not have a good grasp of
how to read and write. In order to increase the countrys level of
literacy, the current government, who came to power in 1949,
went to work on a national project of simplifying many hundreds
of characters so that they would be structurally simpler and
presumably easier for the general population to learn. In addition,
various forms of already existing shorthand also became
standardized, and it is these simplified characters that have been
used to write the majority of this book.
Because of this process of simplification, almost everybody in

China can read today. On the negative side, however, many of the
characters have lost their original elegant shapes and many do
not look anything like their traditionally written counterparts.
Consider our example of the scorpion from Chapter 4. It was
introduced to you as (wn), but today, its form has changed to
become after being simplified. It looks nothing like its original!
Countries such as China and Singapore have made use of these

simplified characters for daily use, whereas other regions like
Taiwan and Hong Kong continue to use the more complicated
traditional forms. Most overseas Chinese communities still use this
traditional form as well, so if you are currently living outside of
China in Canada or in the United States, there is a good chance
that many Chinese signs you might see in your citys Chinatown
or in other areas with a high density of Chinese people will be
written with traditional Chinese characters.
However, if you are learning Chinese in North America or in other

western countries, it is more likely that you are actually being
taught the simplified form due to the growing influence that China
has in the world today.
As time has passed though, these two types of writing can now
sometimes even be seen intermingled with one another. This is
done for speed while writing, especially when traditional
characters are composed of too many strokes, or conversely,
when someone just prefers to use the traditional form instead.
It should be noted that these two systems of writing do not really

oppose each other, but are rather just two different ways to
indicate the same ideas.
Several examples of simplified characters (left ) and their

traditional character equivalents (right) are as follow:
= (electricity; din) = (a dot; din)
= (a machine; j) = (to remember; j

)
= (doctor; y) = (to come; li)
= (a pen; b) = (to advance; j

n)
= (to mark; bio) = (to hear; tng)
= (to return; gu) = (to ask; wn)
= (man; hn) = (country; gu)
= (phoenix; fng) = (body; t)
= (abundant; fng) = (wind; fng)
= (East; dng) = (to grow; zhng)
= (platform; ti) = (dragon; lng)
= (fish; y) = (poor; qing)
= (red; hng) = (insect; chng)
= (to learn; xu) = (village; xing)
= (to write; xi) = (to speak; jing)
= (to speak; shu) = (rice; fn)
= (horse; m) = (a light; dng)
= (to report; bo) = (time; sh

)
= (happy; hun) = (current; xin)
= (to repeat; f) = (clock; zhng)
= (to fly; fi) = (mirror; j

ng)
= (to examine; yn) = (salt; yn)
= (chain; lin) = (speech; hu)
= (door; mn) = (melancholy; mn)
Second-Round Simplified Characters
Interestingly, there was also an attempt by the Chinese

government to implement a second-round of character
simplification in the late 1970s. However, this program was
cancelled in the mid-1980s due to general confusion and
opposition as many of the characters, being further simplified,
were becoming more difficult to differentiate.
For example, the characters and mean egg and dawn

respectively, and are both pronounced dn (if you recognized the
on top of the second character, its because we have already
seen it many times now. It is the character for sun and rightly fits
within a character meaning dawn).
It was proposed that these characters ( and ) be merged and

both written as the simpler . As you can guess, this would have
the ability to confuse readers about the exact idea being referred
to in a sentence and the precise meaning would have to be taken
from context.
Nevertheless, some of these proposed second-round

simplifications are still in current used today, though mostly found
only in informal contexts. For example, it would not be impossible
to see a small bar (the drinking establishment) with the
characters on the sign above its entrance. (ji b) is the
correct way of writing this, but the first character here has been
changed based on the similarity between pronunciations.
The first character, , is pronounced ji and means alcohol. If we

think back to Chapter 3 about how characters are often formed by
joining a radical to a phonetic component, we can see that the
informal character combines (three droplets of water) with
(the character for the number nine). is also pronounced ji,
adding the water radical to indicate something in liquid form

alcohol.
Similarly, the character in (cn ting), meaning restaurant,

was simplified to during the second round of simplifications and
can still occasionally be seen on restaurant signs today, though by
no means on a majority of them.
Although these second-round characters are still used

intermittently, you would by no means be required to learn them
during your formal Chinese study. Chinese teachers would
probably even deduct marks on classroom assignments if their
students wrote in such a form due to these characters being
unofficial and even wrong today.
Chapter 7:
Character Spacing and
Stroke Order
As you may be able to already tell from the previous few chapters,
Chinese characters have certain spacing properties to them.
Regardless of how many components each may have, every
character should be able to be fitted into an imaginary square box
of the same size, occupying the same amount of space regardless
of how many strokes it may have or how complicated it may be.
For example, the character for bright, (m ng), is made up of

two individual components the character for sun, (r ), beside
the character for moon, (yu). Although these two characters
would separately take up their own individual box, when placed
together to form a new character, they must now be fitted inside
a single spacing unit (see the next page for more details).
Additionally, radicals can usually be found on the top portion of

the character (such as in grass, [co], or flower, [hu]) or
else on the left-hand side (such as in hit, [d], or in
mother, [m]).
Occasionally, the radical might be on the right-hand side, such as

the in chicken, (j), or on the bottom half of the character,
such as in to marry, (q), where the radical is the lower half.
If this seems a bit confusing and hard to keep track of, I

absolutely guarantee that it will become second nature through
increased practice and exposure to Chinese writing. You will likely
be comfortable with it even by the time you finish reading this
book!
Character Stroke Order
Every character must be written in a particular order. Now, you

may be thinking, there are 3,000-5,000 characters that one needs
to know just to function comfortably in Chinese. Do you really
have to remember an order for each one?!
The answer: yes and no.
Yes, because each character does indeed have a certain way that
it needs to be written in order for it not to look sloppy or lopsided.
No, because all characters are generally written with the same
stroke pattern in mind, that is, top to bottom, left to right.
Recall the imaginary square box that we just discussed above in

which every character must fit. This will generally have you
starting your characters at the upper left-hand corner of the box
and ending in the lower right-hand corner.
For example, the following two characters, (zhng wn),

mean Chinese (the language, not the people), and the boxes
below are a writing tool that all children are given when learning
to write characters in order to practice their forms and spacing.
Take a look at my writing on the grids below that show the

individual strokes making up our two characters. Remember,
always do your pen strokes from top to bottom, left to right.
Below you can also find an example of our character from above
bright, or (m ng). Notice how the sun, (r ) and the moon,
(yu) both fit inside a single spacing unit when coming together to
form this new character.
Next is the character for mother ( m). Notice the woman

radical () combined with the character , pronounced m,
which provides for the pronunciation of our new character. Note
that itself is the character for horse, but has nothing to do with
our new character below.
Skip to Appendix D to find three full pages of the above grids that
you can print off and use to practice writing your Chinese
characters. Alternatively, you can go online and find more here.
Names of Individual Strokes
Yes, there are indeed names for all of the individual strokes in
Chinese, but you can rest assured that they are only a handful
and, in my opinion, really not that important to know by heart
(this section is more for interests sake than anything else). After
reading this part of the book, the fact that you are aware of their
existence as a part of the written Chinese language is more than
sufficient.
The basic strokes found within Chinese characters are as follow:
(din) Dot () (hng) Horizontal line ()
(sh) Vertical downwards line () (t) Upward rising ()
(n) Rightwards falling () (pi) Leftwards falling ()
(zh) - 90 turn (see below) (gu) Hook (see below)
(wn) Bending (see below) (xi) Slanted (see below)
The character below is (yng) and means eternal. It contains

most of the strokes used to write Chinese characters, and so is
often utilized for illustrative purposes. Notice the numbered
arrows indicating the proper stoke order and direction for which to
move your pen.
The order and direction of strokes used when writing the Chinese character for eternal.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:8_strokes_of_%E6%B0%B8.png
You can probably see the relevant strokes here. However, a few
may need more explanation.
The (zh) - 90 turn stroke can be seen as an intermediary

step between (hng) horizontal line and (sh) vertical
downwards line. This is because when writing these strokes, your
pen does not come off the page, and therefore, after writing the
horizontal stroke, you need to change direction and continue
downwards.
Similarly, the (gu) hook stroke can be seen as a tiny hook at

the bottom of the (sh) vertical downwards line stroke, again
both written without taking your pen off the page.
The (wn) bending stroke is essentially a stroke running

downwards left and slightly concave, whereas the (xi)
slanted stroke would look like and would be running downwards
right and also slightly concave.
However, to be completely precise, the above example should

more accurately be called , or hng xi horizontal
downwards slanted right because it incorporates two different
(compound) strokes before you can take your pen off the page.
As you might be able to see, this is where stroke order starts to

get important, as well as the direction and form of how you write
your characters. However, this just comes with dedicated practice.
For extra points, see if you can identify on the next page why
each stroke combination is given the name to its right.
Dont worry these are not some kind of set stroke combinations
that you need to memorize, but just simply different types of
arrangements that can be and are often found together.
Look to the three actual Chinese characters at the far right of

each example and try to see if you can figure out where the given
stroke combination is located.
1.
hng pi Ex.
2.
pi zh Ex.
3.
hng xi gu Ex.
4.
xi gu Ex.
5.
sh wn gu Ex.
6.
hng zh zh zh gu Ex.
7.
hng pi wn gu Ex.
8.
sh gu Ex:
9.
pi din Ex:
10.
shpi Ex.
Chapter 8:
Outside Influences and
Influencers
Using Chinese Characters to Translate Foreign Ideas
One way to translate foreign ideas into Chinese is by using

characters that approximate an English sound. For example, the
word for sofa in English is transliterated as sh f in Mandarin.
Sh means sand and f means to distribute, but these individual
meanings have no relation to this new words combined meaning.
The characters are simply being used to approximate foreign
sounds as well as possible.
Similarly, words like salad, nylon, salon, and Mexico are formed in
a similar fashion.
(sh) + (f) = sofa (sand + to distribute)
(sh) + (l) = salad (sand + to pull)
(n
) + (lng) = nylon (Buddhist nun + dragon)
(sh) + (lng) = salon (sand + dragon)
(m) + (x) + (g) = Mexico

(ink stick + West + older brother)
A second way of translating foreign ideas into Chinese is to simply

combine the meanings of individual characters (instead of just
their pronunciations) in order to make a new word that describes
the object.
For example, the characters for electricity and brain can be placed
side by side in order to create the new word (din no), or
computer. Similarly, the characters for electricity and speech form
the word (din hu), or telephone, and the characters for
electricity and vision form the word (din sh ), or television.
Following are several more examples of things that were once

foreign in China. These have since been translated using
characters that approximately describe the thing in question:
(fi j) = airplane (to fly + machine)
(bn m) = zebra (stripe + horse)
(f yn j) = photocopier (to repeat + to engrave + machine)
(yn j
ng) = glasses (eye + mirror)
(z xng ch) = bicycle (self + to travel + vehicle)
(bng lin zh) = confederation (nation + to unite + system)
A more complicated English word might be streptococcus, or a

kind of bacteria that is made up of balls which are attached
together in a chain-like form. The Chinese translation of this word
is surprisingly quite elegant and describes the object very well:
(lin) + (qi) + (jn) = (lin qijn)

chain ball bacterium streptococcus
From this, you might be able to guess that unfamiliar words in

Chinese are occasionally easier to decode than unfamiliar words in
English, especially if those words in English have their roots in
Latin or Greek or some other foreign language. Chinese has the
advantage that it can simply use its own characters to describe
objects and ideas.
There have even been times when Ive been reading something
that was available in both English and Chinese and didnt
understand the English so I had to look to the Chinese for hints. I
might not have immediately pieced together the entire meaning,
but if we took the above example, at least I would have known
that it was a type of bacteria that was being referenced.
The word streptococcus itself comes from the Greek

(streptos), meaning easily twisted or bent, like a twisted chain.
(kokkos) means granule or berry. The meaning of this
word in English is not clear upon first glance (assuming that you
didnt already know what it meant, but I suppose it is fairly
common today). If you did know, then try decoding something
like histology instead, this word coming from the Greek
(istos/tissue) and - (-logia/-ology).
Several other examples of English words derived from a foreign

language would be a priori and ad hominem (from Latin). A
priori (from the former) indicates knowledge or judgement that
is independent of experience, for example, that all bachelors are
single. You would not need to see any one specific bachelor and
first check whether he is indeed single; you know from the
definition of the word itself that he must be single.
The Chinese term for a priori is very simple and explains the
concept very well:
(xin) + (yn) = (xin yn)

before examination a priori
Similarly, ad hominem, short for argumentum ad hominem

(argument against the man), is an effort to invalidate the truth
of a claim by drawing attention to a negative characteristic or
belief of the individual supporting it. Essentially, it is an attack on
the person him or herself instead of on the argument in question.
For example, a claim like you cant believe John when he says
that the proposed government policy will help the economy
because he doesnt even have a job is one that attacks his lack of
having a job and not the merit of the policy itself.
All of this has to be explained in English, but if you know

Chinese, ad hominem is easily understood as:
(rn shn) + (gng j) = (rn shn gng j)

personal attack ad hominem
Sweet and simple.
In this way, some words in English, especially many scientific and

legal terms, are often bewildering until the reader looks them up
and can see from which language(s) their respective root words
originate. This is not necessarily the case in Chinese if you can
already understand the individual characters that comprise a word.
Below are several more examples of words that are used in

English in their original Latin forms, though in Chinese are
arguably easier to understand upon first glance.
(gkzshn) = caveat emptor (Latin: buyer beware)

+ +
customer self cautious
(di bio zu) = magnum opus (Latin: great work)

+
representative work
(yu dng) = cum laude (Latin: with honour)

+
excellent rank
(j yu dng) = magna cum laude (Latin: with great honour)

+ +
extremely excellent rank
(zu yu dng) = summa cum laude (Latin: with highest

honour)
+ +
most excellent rank
A third method of translating foreign ideas into Chinese is a

combination of the two processes above, that is, by using the
sounds of characters as well as the meanings of characters to
create new words.
For example, the Chinese character for alcohol combined with a

Chinese character that is pronounced b forms the Chinese
translation for bar, or the place where wine/beer/alcohol is
served. B is a sound in Mandarin that approximates the English
sound of bar; however, the actual meaning of b is irrelevant to
this new word.
(ji) + (b) = (ji b)

alcohol bar
Similarly, the word for America is written . The first character

is pronounced mi, similar to the accented second syllable in
the English word a-MER-i-ca. is the word for country and is
itself pronounced gu.
Interestingly, the Chinese word for Germany takes the first part of
the German equivalent Deutschland and uses a character with
an approximate sound: (d). As you might guess from the
pattern above, all we need to do is add (gu) to the end and
we have the Chinese word for Germany, or (dgu).
Substituting in English Vocabulary
English, one of the greatest modern influences for new Chinese

words as shown above, can also often be seen these days
intermingled with Chinese writing (and speaking as well).
The following are several sentences that I have taken from within
various messages sent to me by friends in which a mish-mash of
Chinese and English abounds.
1. native speakers
W y xing zhdo fwn yo znme shudo gn native
speakers yyng.
I also want to know how to speak French as well as native

speakers do.
(w) - I
(y) - also
(xing) - would like to
(zh do) - to know
(f wn) - French
(yo) - to want/to be able to
(zn me) - how
(shu do) - speak to the point of
(gn) - with
(y yng) - the same
2. focus
Bguw xinzi bnng focus q
t de le.
However, I cant focus right now on the others.
(bgu) - however
(w) - I
(xin zi) - now
(bnng) - cannot
(qt) - other
(de) - particle indicating possession
(le) - particle indicating completion of situation or action
3. well-paid
W xwng n ky hnkui zhodo n xhuan de, b
ngqi
well-paid de gngzu.
I hope that you can quickly find a job that you like, but also
one thats well-paid.
(w) - I
(x wng) - hope
(n) - you
(k y) - can
(hn) - very
(kui) - fast
(zho do) - to have found
(x huan) - like
(b ng qi) - additionally
(gong zu) - a job
4. hospital appointments
W m
ngtin yo qhospital, jntin miyu appointments le.
Im going to go to the hospital tomorrow since they didnt

have any appointments today.
(w) - I
(m ng tin) - tomorrow
(yo) - to want/be going to
(q) - to go
(jn tin) - today
(mi yu) - do not have
5. The Japanese video made me

The Japanese video made me pnfn.
The Japanese video made me laugh so hard.
(pn fn) - split ones sides with laughter
6. which was two and a half years ago

Facebook
Xingxing w gng li Jindde sh hou, which was two
and a half years ago, w Facebook ygpngyu du
miyu ne.
Thinking back to when I just came to Canada, which was

two and a half years ago, my Facebook didnt even have
one friend on it.
(xing xing) - to think

(w) I/my
(gng) - just
(li) - to come
(Ji nd) - Canada
(de shhou) when
(y g) - one
(png yu) - friend
(du) - all
(mi yu) - do not have
(ne) - sentence particle
As you can see, its mostly nouns (and occasionally verbs) that
are switched into English, though the fifth example was an entire
sentence in English supplemented with a phrase in Chinese that
the speaker didnt know how to translate.
This is a more than acceptable way of speaking to your friends

and colleagues, especially if they know some English themselves.
It will also be quite useful for you because you will not be
prevented from being understood simply due to not knowing how
to say one or two key words or phrases. Just say them in English!
Using Characters to Write Other Asian Languages
Since China has over 5000 years of written history in one form or
another, you can imagine that it has had time to greatly influence
many of the areas in its immediate vicinity, areas such as Vietnam
and Korea, as well as some of the Northern Barbarians such as
the Khitan and the Jurchen who lived in what is now Mongolia,
Northeastern China, and Southern Siberia.
Japanese
Japan, another of these influenced areas, especially admired the

Chinese empire at one point in time and attempted to copy many
of its customs. One of these was the total duplication of Chinese
characters for writing the Japanese language, these characters
then being used for hundreds of years thereafter.
However, they were often extremely tedious and took a long time
to write out; Japanese monks had to spend many hours copying
documents using this Chinese import. Eventually, because of their
complexity, the monks often wrote the characters very quickly or
only wrote a part of a character as this decreased the copying
time immensely.
In time, this resulted in the two new writing systems that the
Japanese have come to use today called hiragana and katakana,
as well as the continued use of much of the original Chinese script,
called kanji in Japanese (hn z/ in Mandarin).
In a modern Japanese sentence, most nouns and verbs are

written in kanji, whereas parts of speech such as verb endings
and various sentence particles are written in hiragana. A major
use of katakana is to transliterate foreign words, such as America,
radio, and hamburger.
For example, America is written as in katakana and

pronounced like A-meh-ri-ka. Similarly, it can also be written with
Chinese characters, or kanji, as and has the same
pronunciation in Japanese. Technically, it could also be written as
in hiragana, but is usually not since, as mentioned above,
the word America is a foreign import.
For a quick and dirty guide on how to tell the difference between
hiragana and katakana writing at first glance (and without having
really studied it), the former usually has lines that are more
curved and flowing and the latter is usually more sharp, jagged,
and simple. Compare the syllables su, written as in hiragana
and in katakana, or a (pronounced ah), written as in the
former and in the latter.
On the next page you will find a paragraph from the Japanese
writer Rynosuke Akutagawas (1892-1927) famous short story
Rashmon . If you look closely, you will notice that
above many of the kanji (the Chinese characters), there are
additional markings. These are in fact hiragana, called furigana
under these circumstances.
Source: : http://www.aozora.gr.jp/cards/000879/files/127_15260.html
Katakana and hiragana are syllabic, meaning that each symbol

represents a sound, such as su, ri, ji, te, and usually consist of a
consonant and a vowel, though do not necessarily have any
meaning in and of themselves (although many times they do).
Chinese characters on the other hand have lots of meaning, but

not necessarily an accurate way of knowing how to pronounce
them.
This is where the smaller hiragana writing (furigana) above the

kanji comes in. In many books written for children who are just
starting to learn kanji, the pronunciation is written above the
characters in this script so that they can know how to pronounce
them properly, essentially being like a Japanese version of pinyin.
Interestingly, modern Japanese also uses a few variations when it

comes to writing kanji; these characters may have been slightly
changed over time or may even show drastic modification in
relation to the same characters used in modern Chinese writing.
Several examples are shown below of how Traditional Characters,
Simplified Characters, and Kanji compare, respectively.
Traditional Simplified Kanji Meaning

Electricity
To buy
Bird
Buddha
To pray
Ice
To listen
Dragon
Art
Picture
Price
Brain
Fun
Pressure
Broad
To close
To open
Horse
Age
War
Iron
10,000
As you can see, sometimes the kanji are the same as the
Simplified Characters, sometimes the same as the Traditional
Characters, and sometimes different from both.
If you can even slightly recognize these Japanese modifications,

you might actually be able to get the gist of some written
Japanese sentences since, as mentioned above, it is usually the
nouns and verbs (the major parts of sentences with the most
meaning per unit) that are written with Chinese characters/kanji.
Korean
Modern Korean also makes use of Chinese characters, known as

hanja / , though to a much lesser extent than in Japanese.
They are used very infrequently in the written language today and
usually only in formal settings and by more educated people.
However, in the past, and like in Japan, Chinese characters were

used widely in official documents, though soon became a mixture
of characters and the Korean alphabet, or hangul / , once it
was invented in the fifteenth century.
The following page contains an excerpt from the Korean book

Hunminjeongeum Haerye ( / ), an old
document also written in the fifteenth century that uses both
Chinese characters and Korean hangul. See if you can recognize
which one is which.
As you will see in the vertical column on the far right-hand side,
the larger writing is in Chinese characters and the smaller writing
is in hangul. The use of hangul here is similar to the use of
furigana (hiragana) as seen above when placed above Japanese
kanji for the purpose of indicating pronunciation.
For example, the fifth Chinese character down in the far right-
hand column is (xn) and is pronounced hun in Korean and
written as with the Korean alphabet. Similarly, the very last
character, (yn) is pronounced eum in Korean and written as .
A page from the Hunminjeongeum Haerye ( / )

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Hunmin_jeong-eum.jpg ({{PD-1923}})
Since the Japanese and Korean languages specifically are largely

outside the scope of this book, if you would like more detail, try
looking up hiragana, katakana, kanji, hanja, or hangul as
keywords online; you are sure to find more than enough
information on these highly interesting writing systems.
Chapter 9:
Other Types of Markings
Punctuation
Traditionally, punctuation was not considered to be a crucial

element necessary for clear writing. For an example of this, see
the following image of a page from the Book of Rights, one of the
five Confucian classics, to see for yourself that there is indeed no
punctuation to be found.
A page from the Confucian Book of Rights ()

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Annotated_Classic_of_Rites_59.jpg ({{PD-1923}})
Today, however, punctuation is a fundamental aspect of Chinese

writing just as it is in English, French, or Russian.
However, it is important to know that Chinese punctuation can

differ from that of English in several ways. One difference is that
just as every Chinese character is given its own block of space to
exist within a sentence, each punctuation marker is given this too.
As well, when typing, you never hit the spacebar between

characters or after punctuation such as commas, periods, or
question marks. The appropriate spacing is calculated for you by

the computer itself.
Some of the most common punctuation markers are listed below

with examples in both Chinese and English, as well as word-by-
word translations.
Period:
CH:
Pinyin: Yng'r zuzhe kn dinshne.
EN: The baby is sitting and watching the TV.
(yng'r) - baby
(zuzhe) - to be sitting
(kn) - to watch
(din sh ) - television
(ne) - particle indicating continuation of an action
Question mark:
CH:
Pinyin: B
yhu n hi xing qlx ng ma?
EN: Are you still going to go traveling after graduating?
(by) - to graduate
(hu) - after
(n) - you
(hi) - still
(xing) - would like to
(q) - to go
(l x ng) - to travel
(ma) - particle at end of sentence making it a question
Exclamation mark:
CH:
Pinyin: N zhng de hn pioliang a!
EN: Youre so pretty!
(n) - you
(zhng de) - to have grown up (in a certain way)
(hn) - very
(pio liang) - pretty
(a) - particle indicating an exclamation
Comma:
CH: 1881
Pinyin: L Xn shngyybby nin, dngsh zhnggu
rngshdqng hungcho de tinxi.
EN: Lu Xun was born in 1881, and at that time China was
still ruled under the Qing Dynasty.
(L Xn) - Lu Xun
(sheng y) - to be born at/in
1881 / (y b b y) - 1881
(nin) - year
(dng sh) - at that time
(zhng gu) - China
(rng sh ) - still, to remain
(dqng) - the Qing (dynasty)
(hung cho) - dynasty
(tin xi) - the territory and lands ruled by China
Middle dot:
This marker is used to separate names of foreign origin, placing

the dot where a space would normally go between a persons first
and last names in English.
CH1: -
Pinyin1: ndngndShng-ixibl
EN1: Antoine de Saint-Exupy
CH2:
Pinyin2: LiondudFnq
EN2: Leonardo da Vinci
Colon:
Besides being used as it is in English, the colon is additionally

utilized in Chinese in place of a comma before quotation marks.
CH:
Pinyin: T du w shu: N znme lide zhme kui a?
EN: He said to me, How did you get here so quickly?
(t) - he
(du ) - towards
(w) - I
(shu) - to say
(n) - you
(zn me) - how
(li de) - to come
(zhme) - so
(kui) - fast
(a) - particle indicating an exclamation
Wavy dash:
Used to denote elongated vowels:
CH:
Pinyin: W
EN: Waaaah (think of a baby crying)
Also often used as a dash on a sign to help indicate duration:
CH: 9001900
Pinyin: Jidin do sh
jidin ()
EN: 9:00am 7:00pm
Note that the in this case can be read as the character (do),
which means to.
(ji) - nine
(din) - oclock, point, dot
(do) - to
(shji) - nineteen
Quotation marks: or
CH: or
Pinyin: T shu: W bxing q le.
EN: He said, Im not going.
(t) - he
(shu) - to say
(w) - I
(bxing) - do not want to/would not like to
(q) - to go
Enumeration comma:
When listing several items while speaking, Chinese uses a

different type of comma than is seen in English, essentially a
marking that indicates a slight pause.
CH:
Pinyin: W jntin mile p
nggu, jzi, l
zi, pto h
hlubo.
EN: Today I bought apples, oranges, pears, grapes, and
carrots.
(w) - I
(jn tin) - today
(mi) - to buy
(p ng gu) - apple
(jzi) - orange
(lzi) - pear
(pto) - grape
(h) - and
(hlubo) - carrot
Note that the character for and, (h), found between the last
two items in the list does not require an enumeration comma to
be placed before it.
Currency symbols: or / (yun)
CH:

Pinyin: P
nggu - y jn ling yun
EN: Apples - 2 yuan/jin
(p ng gu) - apple
(ling) - two
(y) - one
(jn) - jin
Note that a (jn) is equal to about half a kilogram.
Numbers
Numbers in Chinese are fairly straightforward. The Arabic

numerals that you and I use on a daily basis are also used by
Chinese people, and you can see an example of this in several of
the examples above.
However, there is also a way to write numbers with Chinese

characters just as there is a way to write them with the English
alphabet.
If you think back to Chapter 1, you may remember that we have

already seen the characters for one, two, and three and that they
look very much like the concepts they are supposed to represent.
(y) - one
(r) - two
(sn) - three
However, there is also another way to write the number two and
this is (ling). Refer back to the currency symbol section on the
previous page for an example of this.
The difference in use between the two is that the former, (r),
is primarily used when counting small number less than 100,
while the latter, (ling), is used for everything else, including
when speaking about the number of objects in question. In the
currency symbol example above, the two-yuan price was
specifying a specific amount and so (ling) is used.
The rest of the numbers from 4-10 are as follows:
(s
) - four
(w) - five
(li) - six
(q) - seven
(b) - eight
(ji) - nine
(sh
) - ten
From this, you can probably immediately see why the following
numbers are written as they are:
(sh y) - eleven [ten + one]
(shr) - twelve [ten + two]
(sh sn) - thirteen [ten + three]
(shs
) - fourteen [ten + four]
and it goes along like this until you hit 20.
(r sh
) - twenty [two + ten]
(r sh y) - twenty-one [two + ten + one]
(r shr) - twenty-two [two + ten + two]
Similarly, the numbers before 100 follow the same pattern:
(sn sh) - thirty [three + ten]
(sn sh s) - thirty-four [three + ten + four]
(s sh b) - fourty-eight [four + ten + eight]
(w shji) - fifty-nine [five + ten + nine]
(lishli) - sixty-six [six + ten + six]
(q sh sn) - seventy-three [seven + ten + three]
(b sh y) - eighty-one [eight + ten + one]
(ji shji) - ninety-nine [nine + ten + nine]
Numbers after one hundred are also similar except for the
addition of the character for one hundred:
(bi) - hundred
Another good character to introduce at this time is the one for

zero, which is written as (lng). Notice the radical for rain,
(y), on top with an indication of the characters pronunciation at
the bottom, (l ng).
Subsequent numbers go like this:
(y bi lng y) - one hundred one (101)

[one + hundred + zero + one]
(y bi lng q) - one hundred seven (107)

[one + hundred + zero + seven]
(y bi r sh) - one hundred twenty (120)

[one + hundred + two + ten]
(b sh sn) - one hundred eighty-three (183)

[one + hundred + eight + ten + three]
(ling bi sshs ) - two hundred fourty-four (244)

[two + hundred + four + ten +four]
(w bi lish q) - five hundred sixty-seven (567)

[five + hundred + six + ten + seven]
(ji bi ji shji) - nine hundred ninety-nine (999)

[nine + hundred + nine + ten + nine]
The next character that you should know for counting is the one
for one thousand:
(qin) - thousand
Numbers with this character are again similarly formed:
(y qin b bi sn sh y)
one thousand eight hundred thirty-one (1831)
[one + thousand + eight + hundred + three + ten +one]
(w qin q bi ji shli)
five thousand seven hundred ninety-six
[five + thousand + seven + hundred + nine + ten + six]
You might be surprised to see that there is actually a specific

character in Chinese for the next decimal place, that is, the ten-
thousands, as we do not have such an exclusive word for this in
English.
(wn) - ten-thousand
(q wn w qin sn bi sh y)
seventy-five thousand three hundred eleven (75,311)
[seven + ten-thousand + five + thousand + three + hundred +
ten + one]
However, there is no specific character for the hundred thousands

decimal place, so this is just indicated by writing:
(shwn) - one hundred thousand [ten + ten thousand]
One million is similarly composed:
(y bi wn) - one million

[one + hundred + ten-thousand]
Therefore, a number like 3,449,563 would be as follows:
(sn bi sshswn ji qin w bi lishsn)

[three + hundred + four + ten + four + ten-thousand + nine +
thousand + five + hundred + six + ten + three]
You might be interested to know that there is also another set of

characters from one to ten that are used primarily on bank notes
for the purpose of preventing mistakes and protecting against
forgery. After all, you can probably see how the character for one
() could easily have an extra stroke added to it and suddenly
become the character for ten ().
These anti-counterfeiting characters are as follows with the

regular versions of the characters in the second row.

y r sn sw li q b ji sh bi qin

Below is a photo of a Chinese one-yuan bill. Right in the middle

you can see the characters (y yun), or one yuan.
A one-yuan Chinese note (front)

Chapter 10:
Learn to Read a
Chinese Menu
I hope that you are feeling good about what you have
accomplished up to this point. You are making great progress so
far, but lets not stop moving now that you have a good
fundamental understanding of Chinese characters under your belt!
Its time to put your new skills to practical use and learn some of
the most common and helpful Chinese characters found on a
menu.
Before we continue, I want to let you know that Chinese menus

frequently use notoriously colourful language to describe what you
may be ordering, oftentimes not employing very straightforward
terms to describe the dish that is clearly listed under the pork
category, and perhaps not even including the word for pork in the
actual name of the dish itself!
But fear not! You can easily know what you are about to eat just
by having a handful of simple Chinese characters at your disposal.
Well learn them here.
Lets start off with a few simple names for some of the most
common types of animals found on a menu.
Common Meats
(ni) - cow (xi) - crab

(j) - chicken (yng) - sheep
(zh) - pig (y) - duck
(y) - fish (xi) - prawn
Think back to Chapter 3 where we looked at how a Chinese

character often uses one of its parts to suggest the meaning (the
radical) and the other part to suggest the pronunciation.
If you take a look at both chicken and duck above, you will see
that both employ a (nio) character on their right-hand sides.
Appropriately, this character means bird and is found in many of
the words for different types of birds, for example, (swan),
(pigeon), (quail), and (hawk). Notice that the radical is
located on the right-hand side of the first three characters, but on
the bottom of the fourth character.
From this, you can remember that whenever you see the
radical as part of a larger character on a menu, it is most likely
referring to some type of bird dish.
Both shrimp, (xi), and crab, (xi), from above also share a
similarity in that they both employ the radical, one on the left
and one on the bottom of their respective characters. Recall that
we have seen the other half of (xi) in Chapter 1, or (xi),
meaning down. Notice the resulting similarity in pronunciation
between the two characters; only the tone differs.
is the other half of our second character above and is

pronounced ji. This is not exactly like xi, but similar in that the
final is the same (i.e., the -ie portion).
When used as a character by itself, means insect and is

pronounced chng, but used here it refers to something small like
an insect, such as any number of shellfish like oysters ( ho) or
mussels ( bng).
As with our bird example above, if you see a character on a menu

employing the use of a radical in its parts, it is most likely
referring to a type of shellfish or other seafood. Be careful though.
In some of the more authentic restaurants in China, these could
just as easily refer to actual dishes made with insects, such as
scorpions ( xi), dragonflies ( t ng), or locusts ( hung). Not
bad if youre adventurous though!
By this point, you may be wondering what the appropriate terms

are for the actual types of meat found in a restaurant. After all,
you would never see cow or pig on a menu, but rather beef and
pork.
Very simply, in order to change some of the above types of

animals into terms used on a menu, all you usually need to do is
add one more character to create a new, two-character word. The
character to add is (ru) and means meat (perhaps you can
remember this character by thinking of a slab of meat with muscle
fibers running through the middle).
For example, if you take the character for cow, (ni), and add
to the end, you create the new word for beef, or (niru).
Similarly, pork combines the two characters for pig and meat to
form (zh ru), chicken is formed with (j) and (ru) to
make (j ru), and mutton is comprised of sheep, (yng),
and (ru), to make (yng ru).
Note that not all types of meat employ this character. Its
usually only used for larger mammals like cows, chickens, pigs,
sheep, dogs ( gu ru), horses ( m ru), deer ( l
ru), or rabbits ( tru), and is generally not used for things
like seafood.
One more important thing to be aware of is that if you see the

character for meat () by itself (in that it does not have a
character before it indicating a specific type of animal), then
usually takes on the general meaning of pork. This is important
because pork is the most commonly eaten type of meat in China,
and useful to remember if you do not eat it or if you do not eat
meat at all.
An example of this would be the dish (y xing ru s),

which is a type of shredded pork with chili and garlic sauce.
Breaking down the whole name, we have the following, somewhat
cryptic, characters:
- fish
- fragrant
- meat
- shredded
As you can see, there is not actually any mention of a pig in the
name of this dish. A fish is the only animal present, though this
indicates the fish sauce that is used in the dish. As stated above
though, pork is implied here by the inclusion of (ru).
Another famous dish would be (hng sho ru). This is also

a pork dish, though again, only the character appears. This
red-cooked-pork is made up of the following characters:
- red
- to cook; to stew
- meat
Notice the fire radical on the second character . We learned

this one back in Chapter 3 when we discussed the character for
the chow in chow mien (cho). If you remember, it often
appears in characters related to cooking or heat.
One last example is (g l ru), or sweet and sour pork, a

dish you are surely familiar with. As you can see in the Chinese
version, there is still no actual mention of pork, but is implied by
the presence of the character (just for reference, [g l] is
a term for sweet and sour).
It should additionally be noted that on most Chinese menus, meat

dishes are divided into separate categories, meaning that all
dishes containing pork will be listed separately from those
containing beef, which will be separate from those made of
seafood or chicken.
An important character to know then is (li), meaning kind, and

is usually found as a part of the header indicating what type of
meat dishes will be immediately listed.
For example, (niru li) would be translated into English

simply as beef, but it is good to realize that this extra character is
also hidden in there. Similarly, chicken would be (j ru li)
and pork would be (zh ru li).
Another word to add now to your vocabulary is the word for

seafood, or (hi xin). Using the above structure, seafood as
a menu heading would be written (hi xin li). (hi)
means sea and (xin) indicates different types of aquatic foods.
Notice the water radical () on (hi) and the fish radical ()

on (xin), both helping to indicate that these characters have
something to do with the ocean and aquatic animals respectively.
Intestines, Brains, and Tongues
You are probably used to eating many different types of meat

such as those listed above, but in China, a whole new selection
may be available to you, from dog to goose gizzards to beef
tongue, depending on which restaurants you choose to dine at.
We will discuss some of these possible delicacies here.
(y gn) - duck liver (y bng) - duck wings

(nish) - beef tongue (fi) - lung
(nijin) - beef intestine (yo) - kidney
(ni jn) - beef tendon (zh no) - pork brain
(zh zhu) - pork knuckle (zh r) - pig ear
(y zhng) - duck feet (chng) - intestine
(b zhu y) - octopus (nid) - tripe
Again, some of the most useful parts of these characters to look
at are their radicals. As a review from the previous section, you
should be able to spot the various fowl dishes by the characters
consisting of a (nio) radical (y gn), (y zhng),
and (y bng), or duck liver, duck feet, and duck wings,
respectively.
Next, think back to the extended discussion we just had on the

character (ru), or meat. Although this is a character often
used on its own, it can also be slightly varied and used to become
a radical itself.
This process is similar to the one we discussed in Chapter 3,

where we deconstructed the character (yu), or oil. If you can
remember, this character is made up of two other characters, that
of (shu), water, and (yu), the part of the character

providing a hint for the pronunciation of . As often occurs when
characters are employed as radicals, their shapes alter slightly; in
this case, becomes , or three droplets of water.
Similarly, (ru) also follows in kind. However, its shortened

form is , and indicates that the new character has something to
do with flesh, organs, or other types of body parts.
You can see that in both of the words (y gn) and (y

bng), both gn and bng contain the radical on their left-hand
sides, and these characters, not surprisingly, respectively mean
liver and wing, both animal body parts. As you might also guess,
the characters making up the right side of both larger characters
also have similar pronunciations: (gn) and (png).
Similarly, several other of the characters from the foods above

also contain this meat radical, for example, (fi), lung; (yo),
kidney; (chng), intestine; (nid), tripe; and (zh
no), pig brain.
Last in this section, there is one more radical that you should be
aware of, and this radical is (qun). This character by itself
means dog, but is not really used alone anymore.
However, it is used extensively as a radical, its form also

becoming altered to now look like . This radical usually indicates
characters that represent animals, and often the kinds with fur.
You will notice that the more commonly used word today for dog
itself also uses this radical (gu). Several of the other animals
that we have looked at such as pig, (zh), also employ this
radical, as well as various others such as lion, (sh); monkey,
(hu); wolf, (lng); and orangutan, (xng).
Fruits and Vegetables
Fruits and vegetables are interesting because there are many

different types in China that you have probably never heard of.
However, many are also the more familiar leafy variants of lettuce,
bok choy, and oranges and should not appear too foreign.
Some common terms for fruits and vegetables that you may find
listed on a Chinese menu are as follow:
(ci) - vegetable/dish (b lu) - pineapple

(mgu) - mushroom (b ci) - spinach
(qizi) - eggplant (lubo) - radish
(du y) - beansprout (sun) - garlic
(hlubo) - carrot (qn ci) - celery
(chng) - orange (bi ci) - bok choy
In almost every example, you will see that at least one of the
characters has the grass radical () at its head (recall that we
came across this already in Chapter 3). You may remember that
we said characters with this radical are usually related to plants,
and indeed all of the above do have something to do with words
for types of vegetation.
If you look at the word above for orange, you may notice that its
a bit different in that it employs a , or the tree radical. We have
met with this one several times before too; it is also often seen in
characters that have to do with plants, such as persimmon,
(sh), and pepper, (jio).
If you think back to Chapter 8 where we discussed the outside

influences used when translating foreign ideas into Chinese, you
may remember some of the following examples:
(sh) + (f) = (sofa)

(sh) + (l) = (salad)
(m) + (x) + (g) = (Mexico)
Similarly, there are some foods in Chinese that are transliterated

in a similar fashion, one of these being broccoli, or (bi ji
l
).
You will note that this sounds approximately like the

corresponding word in English even though it literally translates as
hundred add benefit, something that has no actual meaning. Only
the sounds of the individual characters have been used to propose
a new Chinese word for a foreign item.
This is similar to the formation of the word for bok choy in English.
There are neither the words bok nor choy in the English language
that have any discernible meaning in and of themselves, but are
simply created with sounds we can put together from English to
approximate the original Chinese version (here, Cantonese).
Many types of vegetation in Chinese are also named for what they
look like or how they are perceived. For example, a potato is a
ground bean, or (t du). Think back to when we learned the
word for ground in Chapter 1, as well as the word for beansprout
that we just saw above. Characters from both of these words are
found in the Chinese word for potato.
Many types of Chinese melons are also described by the

characteristics they hold; melon is written as (gu). Therefore,
we can form words like:
(hung gu) - cucumber

(x gu) - watermelon
(k gu) - bitter melon
(dng gu) - winter melon
(hung) means yellow and describes the colour of the inside of
the cucumber. (x) means West and describes the region where
watermelons came from in relation to China (ie, the West). (k)
is the word for bitter, and (dng) is the word for winter.
Similarly, one of the words for tomato in Chinese is (x

hng sh ). Again, you will see that there is the character at the
beginning, indicating that this fruit was not a native-Chinese food.
For reference, (hng) means red and (sh ) means
persimmon, the closest thing that can be related to a tomato.
Other Common Foods and Spices
Below is a list of some other types of foods that you might see on
a Chinese menu, such as tofu, bamboo shoots, and mushrooms,
as well as spices and different types of common flavorings.
(zhsn) - bamboo shoots (du) - bean

(chn p) - dried orange peel (du fu) - tofu
(m r) - lit. wooden ear; a type of edible tree fungus
(yn w) - birds nest (min) - noodles
(fn) - rice (tng) - soup
(p) - skin (jio) - pepper
(sun l) - hot and sour (ml) - spicy

(tng) - sugar; sweet (yn) - salt; salted
(jing yu) - soy sauce (dn) - egg
(jim) - mustard seed (c) - vinegar
Notice again the radical on the character for pepper to indicate
that it is a type of plant.
Although not mentioned until this point, take a look as well at the
character for sugar, or (tng). Its radical is (m), and
indicates rice or grains or other types of plants that are grown on
stalks. Similarly, the characters for glutinous rice and grain also
employ this radical, or (nu) and (l ) respectively.
Other than being different kinds of edible foods and spices, the
above do not have very much in common in terms of radicals or
meaning. It would be best to simply apply what you have learned
thus far and see if you can spot any other familiar parts in these
characters, as well as to simply memorize this vocabulary.
Methods of Preparation
Just like any type of cuisine, the various kinds of Chinese food
that you will see on a menu have different ways in which they are
commonly prepared, such as marinating, salting, and cutting into
strips, pieces, or thin slices.
There are specific characters for some of these methods of

preparation and can be found below.
(l) - marinated (xin) - salted

(pin) - thin slices (s) - shredded
(tio) - strips (dng) - cubes
(jun) - rolled, rolls (po) - pickled
Again, these characters have nothing in common in terms of their
structural make-up, so memorization is best here. However, there
will be a section shortly on how all of the characters relating to
foods that you have seen thus far actually appear in the names of
dishes on a menu. This will put the characters into more of a
meaningful context and will hopefully be easier to remember.
Methods of Cooking
Many of the characters used in Chinese menus for the names of

dishes include words for how the dish was cooked, such as boiled,
barbequed, baked, fried, stir-fried, and satayed, just to mention a
few.
(ko) - roasted (zh) - fried

(hu) - braised (sho) - stewed
(sh di) - satayed (zhng) - steamed
(zh) - boiled (jin) - pan-fried
(cho) - stir-fried (j) - baked
If you notice, many of these have the fire () radical to their left.
As mentioned before, a character with this radical often indicates
something to do with cooking.
Another thing that you should be aware of at this point is that the
fire radical is also sometimes found as four dots at the bottom of
a character:
You can think of these as embers below a character, and in this

way, you will still be able to recognize the make-up for a
character of this type.
As discussed in Chapter 3, you can also guess the pronunciation

of some of these characters if you are able to recognize a little bit
more about their make-up. For example, our first character,
(ko) consists of (hu) and (ko). Notice the pronunciation
of and see that its actually the same as the Chinese character
for roasted (). However, as expected, the second character
means to verify or to test and does not contribute to the meaning
of our new character once being combined with (hu).
Similarly, (jin) consists of both () and . is

pronounced qin and means before or formerly, and is one of the
characters in the word for the day before yesterday (qin
tin) which itself literally translates as former day. As you can
see, the pronunciation of (qin) is similar to that of (jin),
just with a different initial (q- vs. j-) and tone, which you would
know simply through more exposure to Chinese characters.
(hu ), or braised, also has the fire radical to its left, though on
its right there is the character (hu ), meaning can or to be able
to, indeed a very useful word to have as part of your vocabulary.
As expected, also takes on the pronunciation of .
Interestingly, the word (sh di) is formed just like the word
for broccoli that we saw above, and you have probably realized by
now that it sounds somewhat similar to the English word for satay.
(sh) literally means sand and (di) is an informal word for

father, but together only the respective sounds are being used in
order to form this new term. Be aware however that although this
word is informally used to describe a method of preparing foods
(especially in South-East Asia), it is more formally the name of
the sauce used in the preparation of foods (ie, satay sauce).
Chinese Dishes: Characters in Context
Now that you have a large amount of characters under your belt
that you can use, its time that you saw them in context as they
would appear in the names of specific dishes on a menu.
It is important to remember that Chinese menus can sometimes

employ very colourful terminology, and this might occasionally
cause some confusion as to what is actually being offered. But
with a little practice, you are sure to spot these types of
ambiguities. As we saw above, for example, a meat item may only
have one character in its name to indicate that it is indeed meat-
based, this character often being (ru), itself meaning meat,
though usually implying pork.
Additional confusion may arise when certain terminology is used

to describe the contents of a dish, even if what is actually inside
may be completely different. For example, traditional Chinese
culture employs a host of mythical creatures such as dragons,
phoenixes, and various gods, and these beings can occasionally
find their way into the names of Chinese dishes.
This can be confusing due to the fact that these creatures are not
actually real, but should be interpreted as an elegant name for an
existing creature. For example, a phoenix might take the place of
a bird on a menu, and especially a chicken. Such a dish might be
(po jio fng zhu), which means chicken feet with

pickled chili peppers. The character breakdown is as follows:
(po) - pickled (notice the radical)

(jio) - chili pepper (notice the radical)
(fng) - phoenix
(zhu) - claw
Once you translate the actual characters, you might start to feel
some confusion if you didnt know this little tactic that some
Chinese restaurants use in order to make their dishes sound more
refined. This is especially prevalent at more upscale restaurants
and at wedding banquets where menus will often utilize double
meanings and plays on words in order to appeal to the higher
senses of the clientele.
Another confusing item might be the Chinese word for frog legs:
(tin) - field (recall this character from Chapter 3)

(j) - chicken
(tu) - leg (notice the [] radical indicating a body part)
Although you shouldnt run into a situation like this very often, if
you see the two characters (field) and (chicken) together,
and you do not feel inclined to eat frog legs, remember that this is
one of those rare times that chicken might not mean chicken.
Dont feel too alarmed by these types of examples though, as

most of the food you will likely be eating at first will be regular
Chinese food with more straightforward names.
However, if you do happen to see any of these interesting new

terms in something that you order, just have fun with it and know
that you now have an increased understanding of Chinese culture
and of how its people see the world.
Getting back to more common foods, well continue with

something youre probably already familiar with kung pao
chicken, or (gng bo j dng).
If you think back to what you have just learned from this chapter,
you should at least be able to recognize the and the parts at
this point. Recall that (j) is the character for chicken (notice
the radical) and that (dng) indicates food that has been
diced or cut into cubes.
Upon seeing this menu item, it would be enough that you

understand these two characters; whether or not you could
recognize the characters (gng bo) at this point would be
unimportant. Knowing that this dish is made of chicken that is
prepared and served by having been cut into cubes is enough for
you to get by.
Next up, (mlds), or shredded pork tripe in chili

sauce. Again, take a look at the third and fourth characters first.
These are often the most important parts of a dishs name in that
they indicate from what it is made; the first few characters usually
indicate how it was cooked or what it was cooked with.
Recall that (d) is the character for tripe (stomach). You will
notice from the Engilsh translation that this is pork tripe, though
this time there isnt even any kind of indication of a pig (or the
character for meat ) in the Chinese name. However, this dish
would most likely be listed under the pork section on a menu.
Next, you may remember that (s) indicates food that has been
shredded, and from this, you could infer that this item is tripe that
has been shredded. (ml) might be a little bit more difficult
to remember at this point, but it is a word for a type of spicy
flavoring that you will find in some Chinese dishes. (l) itself
indicates spicy, and (m) means numb.
The characters in the dish (mr ru pin) should be

more straightforward as we have seen all of them already. Recall
that (m r), although translated literally as wooden ear, is
actually the name of a type of edible fungus that is commonly
found in many Chinese dishes. The third character should be very
familiar by now (ru), or pork. Our fourth character, (pin),
is similar to the (s) character that we just saw above in that it
describes how the pork was prepared, namely, in thin slices. The
translated name of this dish on a menu might be written as
sauted sliced pork with black fungus.
Similarly, a dish like (f q fi pin) also has this (pin)

character at its end. However, this time it is lung ( fi) that has
been cut up into thin slices (notice the radical indicating that
this character has something to do with meat). The (f q)
found at the front of the dish name means husband and wife or a
married couple and is simply used for the name of the dish (ie,
Couples sliced beef lung). Note that being unable to recognize
these two characters would not have prohibited you from still
understanding what this dish is made of. Just search for what you
already know!
So far, we have only looked at the ingredients in the names of

menu items, but following are some examples of characters for
the methods of cooking that can also be found within these names.
Take, for example, a dish called (cng ko y), or fish with

green onion. As we have already learned, (y) means fish and
(ko) means roasted. From these two characters together, you
are able to know that the fish in this dish is roasted, something
not actually presented to you in the English name. As you might
be able to infer, the Chinese character for green onion is (cng);
notice the grass radical () on top again indicating that this is a
type of vegetation.
Coming back to a character that we first saw closer to the

beginning of this book, you will recall that (cho) means stir-
fried, and you will often find this used in items like fried rice,
(cho fn), or fried noodles, (cho min), as well as dishes
with slightly longer names like (qng cho jiln). Here,
(jiln) is a type of green vegetable called gai lan, so this
dish would be stir-fried gai lan. Can you guess what (cho j
dng) would be?
Lastly, in a dish such as (jin zh li), you should be able

to see that its main ingredient is pork from the second character
meaning pig, (zh). From above, (jin) can be recognized as
pan-fried, and you should notice the four embers () at the
bottom of this character. Although we have not yet come across
the third character, (li), it is used here to indicate a filet, so
this dish might be listed as a pan-fried pork filet.
For some practice on your own, see if you can make out what the
dishes on the next page are made of. You will have seen most of
these characters already, but go back and double check their
meaning if necessary.
(hng yu zh r)
(m l y bng s) (jim m r)
(l zh sh) (sun l tng)
(sun l gu tio) (chn ptru)
(l ru fn) (hng xn y jun)
After you have first tried to decipher these by yourself, flip to the
next page for the answers. Alternatively, you can go online to
print them off for reference here.
(hng yu zh r) - Lit. red oil pig ear

Pig ears in chili sauce
(m l y bng s) - Lit. spicy duck wing shredded

Shredded spicy duck wings
(ji m m r) - Lit. mustard sauce fungus

Black fungus with mustard sauce
(l zh sh) - Lit. marinated pig tongue

Marinated pig tongue
(sun l tng) - Lit. sour hot soup

Hot and sour soup
(sun l gu tio) - Lit. sour hot melon strip

Cucumber with hot and sour sauce
(chn pt ru) - Lit. dried orange peel rabbit meat

Tangerine/orange-flavored rabbit
(l ru fn) - Lit. marinated pork rice

Marinated pork on rice
(hng xn y jun) - Lit. red heart duck roll

Sliced duck rolls with egg yolk
Drinks
Last in this section on foods are some words that will be useful
when looking for drinks on a menu.
One of the most common characters that you will see in a drink
section is (ji), meaning alcohol. We have seen this character
several times already in such words as (ji b), or bar.
However, this character can be combined with other characters to
create the names for many different types of drinks.
Before we get into it though, it might be useful for you to know

more about the two parts of the character for (ji). You are
already aware of the radical (three droplets of water), but you
should also be aware that whenever you see (yu) as part of a
character, it usually means that it has something to do with
fermentation. For example, this process is necessary when
brewing alcohol and so therefore is found in the character for this
word.
Similarly, the character for to brew now takes as its radical

(ning). One of the characters in the word for soy sauce also
employs in this way (jing) which means a thick type of
paste made of fermented soya beans. However, the full word for
soy sauce is two characters long, and can be formed by simply
adding the character that we have seen many times before for oil,
or (jing yu).
Several specific types of alcoholic drinks you are sure to see are
the following:
(pto ji) - wine (lng m ji) - rum

(jn ji) - gin (j wi ji) - cocktail
(qng ji) - sake (pji) - beer
(bi ln d) - brandy (wi sh j) - whiskey
(f t ji) - vodka (bi ji) - bai jiu
As you can probably tell, most of the above words are
transliterations of their corresponding words in English, such as
brandy, rum, and vodka, simply using characters with similar
sounds. You might also have noticed that after several of these
words, the character for alcohol is simply tacked on to the end to
indicate that these are alcoholic beverages.
However, two outliers that are not transliterations of their English

counterparts are (pto ji), wine, and (j wi ji),
cocktail. The first two characters in the word for wine make up the
word for grape, and the first two in cocktail are chicken (cock) and
tail respectively. Again, these are instances where descriptive
characters have been utilized in order to create a translation.
One other type of alcoholic drink that you should definitely be

familiar with is (bi ji), or a variety of very strong distilled
spirits that are usually served in small glasses at banquets and
which are often expected to be finished in one go.
(bi) means white and (ji), as we have seen, means alcohol.

It is most commonly just called by its Chinese name, Baijiu, when
referring to this drink.
A word of warning though this stuff can taste overwhelmingly

horrible (think paint thinner), or it can be really smooth. Either
way, given the 40-60% alcohol content that it usually contains,
any more than just a little bit will surely have you leaving more
loose than when you came in.
Additionally, several other types of drinks that you might order

could be the following:
(ch) - tea
(k fi) - coffee
(shu) - water
(ki shu) - boiled water
(gu zh) - fruit juice
(k l) - cola
(k ku k l) - Coca-Cola
Similar to the alcoholic drinks above, many of these non-alcoholic
beverages are simply transliterated by using characters that
approximate their English equivalents, such as coffee, cola, and
Coca-Cola.
Interestingly, the characters used for Coca-Cola actually translate

literally as can mouth can happy, or perhaps more naturally, can
make your mouth happy. Clever advertising to say the least.
Chapter 11:
Learn to Read a Chinese
Business Card
One of the things you will certainly be required to do while in

China is to receive business cards. No matter if at a boardroom or
at a bar, these should be taken with both hands and deliberately
reflected upon so as to show respect to the person whose card
you are handling.
And dont just then shove it into your pocket either. Be sure to
place it in plain view on the table in front of you for reference, but
if standing, try to slip it away carefully, though only after clearly
showing enough consideration for the persons company, position,
and perhaps even their location within the city in which they work.
You might even find many business cards with print on both sides,
one with Chinese and the other with English. Youll most likely be
presented with the English side, but it wouldnt be rude to flip it
over and see what else is written after carefully ruminating over
the cards English credentials. But that being said, wouldnt it be
nice to understand at least some of what you find on the Chinese
side of a business card?
However, as many learners of Chinese experience, when suddenly

confronted with a large block of Chinese text, an abrupt feeling of
nausea is not uncommon. It can look very overwhelming when
presented all at once, in different fonts, and most simply because
theres so much of it! It also doesnt help that youre probably
expected to understand immediately what youre seeing.
That said, there are some very simple things that you can look
out for when viewing a Chinese business card. They arent
fundamentally different from their English versions, so if you know
what to look at, you should be able to piece together what youre
seeing.
Names
Example of an English business card
The above business card should look fairly standard. You have
your company logo and name at the top, followed by the
employees name and position underneath. Lastly, you can find
details about where the office is located, as well as how to contact
the person in question, Mr. Fang Xizhe.
Now lets look at the other side of the same card:
Example of a Chinese business card
You can probably make out the relevant phrases just by

comparing the placement of characters to those in the first card.
Although you may not be familiar with many of the characters just
yet, you probably realize that the employees name is written in
the largest font, followed by his position in smaller characters just
underneath. Its also important to know that Chinese names are
usually composed of either two or three characters, with the first
character of the duo or trio being the individuals family name.
Unlike in English, the family name always comes first. Therefore,

the first character here, (fng) is the family name and (x
zh) is the given name. Although you may not be able to
immediately recognize the exact characters in a persons name, at
least youll be able to locate it on his or her business card and tell
which one belongs to the surname and which one(s) belong to the
given name.
Its possible that you may also come into contact with a business
card from a non-Chinese person, someone who regularly does
business in China and so may also have a card with Chinese
characters written on it.
If you recall our discussion on punctuation in Chapter 9, you may

remember the middle dot that is used when writing
transliterations of foreign names. You will likely see this on a
foreigners card, such as the one found on the next page.
Example of a Chinese business card with a non-Chinese name
The name on the card above is my own name, Aaron Posehn,

transliterated into Chinese by using common characters that
approximate the sound of it.
The transliteration, (y ln bsn), then uses the dot

to separate the first name from the last name.
Contact Numbers and Addresses
We have already seen the word for telephone in Chapter 3, or

(din hu), also translated literally as electric speech, and you can
see this word at the bottom of the card just above. Underneath
that is the word for fax, or (chun zhn), effectively
translated as to transfer the real (copy).
Although the Chinese term for email often just implements the
English word directly, there is still a Chinese translation that is
occasionally used. This translation is (din z yu jin).
(din z) means electronic (notice the character), and
(yu jin) means mail or post.
Addresses in Chinese are a bit different from their counterparts in

English, specifically because they are completely backwards.
In the English version below, you will see that the practice is to go
from smallest to largest entity, that is, from building number to
street name to city to province/state to country (and if there was
a unit number, that would have gone before everything).
However, Chinese addresses go from the largest to smallest entity,

that is, country, province/state, city, street, building number, and
then unit number.
Lets take the examples from our cards above:
Chinese: 123
English: 123 Pender St., Vancouver, Canada
Breaking things down we have:
(ji n d) - Canada
(wn g hu sh) - Vancouver
(pin d ji) - Pender Street
123 (123 ho) - 123
The first word, Canada, is self-explanatory. It is the largest entity

and so comes first. This would also be so for America ( mi
gu) or China ( zhng gu).
The second word is the Chinese translation for Vancouver, or wn

g hu. However, you may notice that there is also a fourth
character tagged on at the end, (sh), or the character for city.
This character indicates that it is specifically the city of Vancouver

and not one of the many suburbs included in the Greater
Vancouver area. Its more of a formality and wouldnt normally be
used to talk about a city in casual conversation; just saying the
citys name is good enough when speaking about it.
The next part is simply the transliteration of a street name using

Chinese characters with similar corresponding sounds (ie,
pin d ji, or Pender Street). The third character here, (ji),
means street; however, its good to know another common
character that is similarly used, (l), or the character for road.
The last part is the actual number of the building in question. You
will also notice a single character after the numerals, (ho),
and this simply means number.
Lets look at another translated address, but this time one from
the United States.
Chinese: 790 10018
English: 790 Third Avenue, New York, NY, USA 10018
Deconstructing the Chinese address, we have:
(mi gu) - America (USA)

(ni yu zhu) - New York State
(ni yu sh) - New York City
(sn d do) - Third Avenue
790 (790 ho) - 790
10018 (yu bin 10018) - Postal code 10018
Moving right on to the second and third parts, you will notice that
both can be translated as New York, though one is the state and
one is the city. (zhu) indicates a state and can also be found
in names such as California ( ji l f n y zhu),
Georgia ( zu zh y zhu), Illinois ( y l nu zhu),
and Florida ( flul d zhu).
Similarly, (shng) is the word used for province. Examples

include (s chun shng), Sichuan province; (shn x
shng), Shanxi province; and (gung dng shng),
Guangdong province.
Third Avenue simply uses the characters for three ( sn) and
avenue ( ddo). Recall from the very first chapter in this
book the character for big, or (d). This character can be
tagged in front of another character for road ( do) to create
the word for avenue.
Its worth noting that we can also take the words we just learned
in our last examples for street ( ji) and road ( l), and put
the character for big in front of them as well to create two
additional terms for avenue (dji) and (dl).
Lastly, the word for postal code (zip code) in Chinese is (yu
bin). For all of our previous discussion on the units of a Chinese
address going from largest to smallest entity, the postal code is a
bit of an outlier in that its simply tagged onto the end.
If you think back to our initial example of a radical in Chapter 3

where we discussed the break down of the character for oil,
(yu), you might notice a structural similarity here between this
character and the first one in postal code, namely and , both
pronounced yu.
Their respective radicals are of course different, the former

consisting of the city radical ( / ), whereas the latter has the
water radical ( / ), but you should be able to decipher both
characters now in detail.
Common Chinese Surnames
Since a person can utilize literally any characters to form a first

name, it would be difficult here to list any useful number of
examples; an appropriate listing might consist of many hundreds
or even thousands of characters. Although many of these are
used more than others, being able to recognize given names in
Chinese will come with increased practice and exposure.
However, unlike English surnames, Chinese surnames are quite

limited in number, many of Chinas 1.3 billion people sharing a set
of only about 200. If you learn to recognize any of these, and
especially the top 20 or so, you will drasitically improve your
ability to read names on Chinese business cards.
Some of these surnames are listed as follows. Note the

breakdown of the characters and their radicals. You might also
like to refer back to page 34 for a listing of some of the most
common Chinese radicals (or click here to print off a copy).
Surname Radical (Full / Abbr.) English
Wng Jade radical () Wang
Chn Mound radical ( / ) Chen, Chan
L Tree radical () Li, Lee
Zhng Bow radical () Zhang, Chang
Li Knife radical ( / ) Liu
Yng Tree radical () Yang
Hung Grass radical ( / ) Huang
W Mouth radical () Wu, Woo
L
n Tree radical () Lin
Zhu Usefullness radical () Zhou, Chou, Chow
Y Mouth radical () Ye, Yeh
Zho Walking radical () Zhao, Chao
X Speech radical ( / ) Xu, Hsu
X Step radical () Xu, Hsu
Sn Child radical () Sun
Zh Tree radical () Zhu, Chu
Go Top radical () Gao, Ko
M Horse radical () Ma
Ling Tree radical () Liang, Leung
Gu City radical ( / ) Guo, Kwok
H Person radical ( / ) He, Ho
Zhng City radical ( / ) Zheng
H Meat radical ( / ) Hu
Zng Division radical () Zeng, Tseng
Dng City radical ( / ) Deng

Xi Speech radical ( / ) Xie, Hsieh
Fng Water radical ( / ) Feng
Sng Roof radical () Song
Rn Person radical ( / ) Ren, Jen
Jing Grass radical ( / ) Jiang
Fng Lid radical () Fang
Hng Water radical ( / ) Hong, Hung
Fn Grass radical ( / ) Fan
Wi Ghost radical () Wei
Jing Woman radical () Jiang
Lio House on cliff radical () Liao
Yun Clothing radical () Yuan
Png Markings radical () Peng
Sh Rock radical () Shi, Shih
Yo Woman radical () Yao
D Tree radical () Du
Jn Gold radical () Jin, Kim
G Leaf radical () Gu
Tin Field radical () Tian, Tien
Li Shell radical () Lai
Mo Fur radical () Mao

Kng House on cliff radical () Kang
Li Rain radical () Lei, Louie, Lui
Ci Grass radical ( / ) Cai, Tsai
Shn Water radical ( / ) Shen
Co Speaking radical () Cao, Tsao
Pn Water radical ( / ) Pan
Tn Speech radical ( / ) Tan
Xio Small radical () Xiao, Hsiao
Bi Sun radical () Bai
Zu City radical ( / ) Zou
Positions within a Company
The positions held by people in Chinese companies are basically

the same as those held in Western countries. Although the names
of these positions may be different, once learned you will be sure
to understand the different hierarchical structures within a
Chinese company or organization in general.
Lets start with the following eight:
(zng ci) - president (fzng ci) - vice president
(xio zhng) - principal (fxio zhng) - vice principal
(jng l) - manager (f jng l) - assistant manager
(zng jng l) - GM (fzng jng l) - deputy GM
As you may have noticed, the entries in the second column all
have the character (f) at the beginning and this indicates
someone who is junior to the person above him or her, such as in
the examples of vice president, vice principal, assistant manager,
and deputy general manager.
Additionally, if you take a look back at the second character in the

word for principal in particular, (xio zhng), you can see
that it is (zhng). This generally denotes someone who is the
head of something, like a chief or a principal, as the principal is
the head of a school.
Other examples that include this character at their end would be

as follow:
(dng shzhng) - chairman of the board
(zhx
ng zhng) - CEO, chief executive
(chzhng) - department head
(bzhng) - minister
(dng shzhng), or chairman of the board, essentially

translates as the chief who directs affairs.
(zhx ng zhng), or CEO, is the chief who implements

(decisions).
(chzhng), or department head, would be the head of the

department/section.
(bzhng), or government minister, is translated literally as

the head of the ministry/government department.
The most important thing to know here is that (zhng)

indicates someone who is in charge or more senior than yourself.
Theres even a respectful term in Chinese for a classmate who is
older than you or who is in a more senior grade, and this follows
the same pattern:
(xu) + (zhn) = (xuzhn)

to learn form of address for an older student
Another important character to be able to recognize is (zh),

one that also means head or chief, but which is usually placed at
the beginning of a title instead of at the end as we did with
(zhng). For example:
(zh x
) - chairman
(zh rn) - director
(xzh rn) - dean (of a university department)
As you can see above, each position has (zh) at the beginning
except for the third example. However, this one can be further
broken down into (x ), meaning a department (of a university),
and (zh rn), the same as the second example above
meaning director.
Its also important to know how to use these titles when

addressing a Chinese person who may hold one of them. In
English, you would usually just say, for example, Mr. Lee or Ms.
Zhou regardless of if he or she was a CEO or the head of a
department (and more likely, you would probably even call them
by their first name depending on how well you knew the
individual).
However, Mr., Mrs., Ms., or Miss are rarely used to address

someone when speaking of their position within a company, and
their first name is most certainly never used.
For example, an individual surnamed Wang who is the head of a

department would be called (Wng chzhng), or
Department Head Wang. It may appear somewhat awkward in
English, but it is very natural and polite in Chinese.
Similarly, a manager surnamed Huang would be (Hung

jng l) and a principal surnamed Zhang would be (Zhng
xio zhng).
Some titles can also be shortened further when using them to call
an individual by name, usually just eliminating the final character.
For example:
Full Title Shortened Title English Title

(Hung zng ci) (Hung zng) President Huang
(Chn zng jng l) (Chn zng) General Manager Chen
(L chzhng) (L ch) Department Head Li
You may notice that the abbreviations for the first two entries
above are the same. This is simply because any position with the
character (zng) in front of it (meaning general, indicating that
the individual in that position oversees generally everything, such
as the president of a company) is used to refer to someone of
high rank within an organization, and it is through context that
you would understand who exactly he or she is. However, this
type of informal shortened title would never appear on a business
card.
Chapter 12:
Take the Long Road to
Learning Chinese
Learning to read and write Chinese characters can seem like a

daunting task to accomplish. This is not only true for the
beginning student, but even for those who have been learning
them for a while.
Heck, I started my study of Chinese about 15 years ago, and

although Im more than comfortable with reading and writing now,
there are still Chinese characters I come across that I cant even
make out.
At this point, you might be taken back. Really?! 15 years and you
still dont know them all?
Well, you first have to understand that while there are probably
more than 50,000 existent characters out there, Chinese people
generally only use 3500-5000 on a daily basis.
Those other 45,000? Who knows what they are? I dont need to
know in order to be literate, and neither do you (and neither do
actual Chinese people). Youll find that many of them are old
varients on modern forms or characters that are just no longer
used today.
If you take the above graph into consideration, youll see that you
only need 200 characters to recognize a whopping 50% of what
youd come across on a daily basis in China. And 200 is a lot less
than 50,000, right? 200 is a lot less than even 5000!
However, you should also note that while you may be able to
recognize 50% of the characters youre seeing, many words in
Chinese are actually made up of two or three characters. While
technically 200 characters would make some writing recognizable,
youd still be limited in what you could fully read and understand.
You really do need to know at least 1000-2000 if you want to
start making good progress.
But this amount in itself is also not an overly difficult task to

accomplish. Just like anything else you would want to get good at,
its just a matter of practice.
However, this practice doesnt need to be frustrating or

complicated, and you certainly dont need to spend years and
years before you find yourself getting anywhere. Take a class,
give yourself slightly less than a year of learning time, and Id say
youll have started to make some decent headway.
I started learning Chinese characters a little bit differently than

many others though. Most people go to a class to learn them, but
I learned them by myself (or at least partially).
Back in 1997, I was in Grade 5. One day, I remember discovering

a picture book in my elementary school library that presented 15
Chinese characters, including some stories that could be used to
remember them.
For example, it was shown in the book that the Chinese word for
volcano is just the two characters for fire and mountain placed
side by side ( [hu] + [shn] = [hu shn]).
It also explained that the word for train put fire and cart together,
or [hu] + [ch] = [hu ch] (think 19th century coal-
powered trains in order to make sense of the fire reference).
It was just really interesting! Here was something that I had

never seen before, a way to communicate using little symbols that
were totally foreign to me at the time. I even borrowed that book
and sat out on the playground so that I could copy down all 15
characters by hand. I remember being very proud of what I had
learned.
After that day I must have learned a bit more Chinese in my spare
time because I recall a report that I did about Taiwan in Grade 6.
One section of the report was dedicated to the national language,
Mandarin, as well as how to write some simple sentences such as
Goodbye and Do you speak English? You can see a picture of this
below on the next page.
However, it was in Grade 7 that I finally took my first formal

after-school Chinese course. It was simply great!
I got to implement what I already knew, as well as learn more

and more each time I attended class. I remember being able to
already count from one to ten, as well as being able to read these
numerals in their written Chinese forms. No one else in the class
could do this at the time.
Looking back, I dont really remember seeing Chinese as being

specifically difficult, but this was probably because I was learning
it for myself. I wasnt learning it to pass a test, get a grade, or
improve my chances of being employable.
Of course, none of these reasons for learning Chinese are bad, but
they do often exert pressure to learn in ways that might not be
the best for learning something new (for example, cramming 60
new characters into your head the night before a test and then
simply forgetting them afterwards).
Speaking, reading, and writing Chinese well is a skill that you

should seek to gain over the long term (five years or more). After
a year of study, youll probably still struggle a bit, but at least
youll have learned a lot in this time. Youll probably be at a level
where youll be more comfortable with the language than you
were when you were just starting out and will be able to more
easily navigate new vocabulary, grammar, and characters. A while
after that and youll probably be pretty good, and a few years
after that and youll probably be pretty awesome indeed!
It just takes time, so enjoy the process. Like I discovered on that

day back in Grade 5, youll learn an amazing new way to
communicate and youll probably even learn a thing or two about
another culture and how they view the world (fire mountain and
fire cart!). You may even have fun and make some new Chinese
friends along the way, and that in itself is priceless.
Chapter 13:
How to Get Good at
Mandarin in 4 Steps
So youre almost finished reading this book (just one more

chapter to go!), and now that youve gotten to this point, I hope
you find yourself becoming more comfortable with Chinese
characters.
If you still find them slightly puzzling, thats okay. Chinese isnt
the easiest thing in the world to learn but I hope you are
starting to see that it doesnt have to be the most difficult task
either.
As the title of this chapter promises, Ive written a few more ideas
down about how you can get better at Chinese, not only in terms
of learning the characters, but in speaking and listening too. Enjoy!
Step 1: Repetition
When first learning how to speak Chinese, or any language for

that matter, the first thing you need to do is to not actually speak
at all. It might seem a bit contradictory to say this, but its true.
What you really need to do is just listen and listen many, many,
many times over. If its writing youre practicing, you just need to
practice writing and practice many, many, many times over.
Repetition is key, and improving these skills through repetition is

really where you need to start.
How many of you remember taking high school language classes,

only to graduate and not actually be able to speak or write
whatever language it was that you were (apparently) learning?
For me it was French. I took it from Grades 5 through 12, barely
being able to form a coherent sentence until my last year, and
then only at a marginally better rate because we finally had a
decent teacher.
The reason the teacher was decent (read: very good) was
because she actually spoke to us in French! Previous to her, most
of my teachers only uttered vocabulary words or specific key
sentences in French that we were learning, but never spoke freely

to us in the language.
This caused us to be very good at basic French grammar and

conjugation, but not much else. We had no idea what the flow
and the sound of the language really was like because we were
never hearing it on a daily basis!
Think about how a baby learns. Babies never learn languages

firstly by speaking (simply because they physically cant), but
instead they just listen and listen for months and months before
ever being able to utter anything coherent.
Now, Im not saying that you need to listen to Chinese audio for
months on end before you start to speak (or read books before
you start to write). Babies have to go through this extensive
listening process because they are physically unable to speak. You
will be able to excel in Chinese far before months and months (or
years!) have passed if you simply practice repetition from the get-
go.
You should put a serious emphasis on just listening in order to

understand what the language really does sound like, as well as
serious emphasis on practicing your characters in order to get
their forms right. For Mandarin Chinese, youll hear the ups and
downs of the tones, youll hear the unique sound combinations,
youll hear how some of the tones change when placed alongside
words with other tones. Additionally, youll find out that words
arent actually pronounced as clearly as your textbooks claim
them to be pronounced.
By observing the writing of others and practicing it yourself, youll

also see how most people dont write neatly and clearly like your
teacher does on the chalkboard. Just as in English, each person
has their own writing style, but each person also had to develop
that style through basic practice in the beginning.
This is the problem with adopting a purely mechanical view of a

language in the classroom; you dont learn how the language
actually works unless you practice it over and over again. Your
textbook will say that a word is pronounced a certain way (and it
probably is, at least officially), but thats no indication of whether
thats actually how people in real life pronounce that word. The
same goes for writing.
Slang, slurring, and laziness when speaking are all real life factors
that arent reflected in most textbooks.
So listen! And listen long! Write! And write long! Get a feel for the
language. If you have audio recordings, listen to them over and
over again. It doesnt matter if you dont understand them the
first time around, and it still doesnt matter if you dont
understand them the 20th time around.
Just know that at some point youll realize that you suddenly
recognize one word that you never understood before, then youll
realize that you understood a whole sentence (even if its just a
short one), then youll realize that you actually understood half of
the whole recording! One day soon you might even be surprised
at yourself when you realize that you now understand the whole
thing.
As a side note, if youre wondering where the heck to get such

recordings to listen to over and over again, Id suggest starting
with either Chinese Learn Online, ChineseClass101, ChinesePod,
or Lingq.
Step 2: Utilize Your Time
How many hours do you have in a day? Obviously, its twenty-four.
And thats a lot of hours, but Im often surprised when people

claim that they dont have enough time to do what they need to
get done.
If you will allow me to comment, I have noticed two things here

that may be in conflict with a statement like this:
1. People waste a lot of time doing things they shouldnt be

doing.
2. People waste a lot of time doing nothing at all.
Point number one goes something like this. When I was a student
in university, I used to tell my friends why I couldnt go out with
them on a particular night because I needed to study. Studying is
important, right? I certainly thought so, and I really intended to
do it!
But it was interesting to see what often happened once I sat down
to work Id get distracted. Facebook was always more
interesting than doing a set of math problems. Even staring
blankly out the window was often more enticing than reading 50
dry pages of some textbook I didnt care about.
Do you do this too? What do you do when you actually sit down to
study your Chinese? Are you distracted by Facebook? Or Twitter?
Or something on TV?
Or do you not even make it to your desk? Do you tell yourself that
you will study Chinese at some point today, but never actually say
when, and never actually do it? Maybe youll do it for sure
tomorrow. After all, that next TV show is way too good to miss.
Organizing your time (and life!) is one of the most important

things to know how to do in general, and this extends to language
learning as well.
Nothing can be learned if you dont actually allow yourself the

time and opportunity to learn it. Nothing is wrong with Facebook,
or Twitter, or television, but these things are only good if theyre
not the major things ruling your time. That job is reserved for you.
Point number two goes like this. Youre waiting in line for a coffee,
perhaps at Starbucks. What are you doing? Maybe a bit later
youre waiting in line to purchase your groceries at the
supermarket? What are you doing? Then perhaps a bit later your
TV show has been interrupted by a commercial. What are you
doing?
Probably nothing, right? Staring at the person/thing/screen in

front of you? If each of these types of individual instances
happened only five times a day for five minutes each, thats 25
minutes that you could have been reviewing a list of new Chinese
vocabulary words.
But theres probably even more dead time in your day than this. If
you commute to work, the drive or bus in to your office likely
takes from 15 minutes to two hours (yikes!), and thats a lot of
time that you could be playing some Chinese audio either through
your car speakers or on an iPod. And what if your commute is this
amount of time back home at the end of the day too? That means
you might have up to four hours per day to practice Chinese that
youre seriously overlooking.
Of course, you may have other things that you would like to do
during this time, such as listen to the news, listen to music, study
for an upcoming test, or anything else. But the point is that this
time exists, and I would bet that youre not using it as well as you
could. I know that I dont a lot of the time, but I try my best. Its
a great way to find extra alone time hours in the day and get
stuff done!
Step 3: Dont Stress!
One of the biggest obstacles to learning anything successfully is

ourself. Were impatient immediately, were dissatisfied easily,
and we give up quickly.
And this usually occurs because we get stressed out. We realize

that a task like learning Chinese is actually pretty tough, that it
wont be learned quickly, and that, heaven forbid, we might
actually have to put in some effort!
These are the obsticals you want to try and keep to a minimum if
youre going to learn something new, and learning Chinese is no
exception.
I should know. The impatience that I used to (and sometimes still

do) have when learning something new is insane! I have to keep
reminding myself that this is not how anything is learned. I have
to tell this to myself over and over again every time I learn
something new, which is quite often, because I love learning,
whether it be to improve language skills or anything else. I just
hate the time it actually takes.
If I feel that Im not making any progress in my learning, I need

to take a step back and remind myself that daily progress is
sometimes difficult to see. Improvement is apparent over time.
Adding stress to your daily studying routine never helps the actual
learning outcomes.
If youre anything like me, you just have to keep reminding

yourself that progress will be made little by little, even if its not
immediately apparent. My (and your) task at present is just to
study what needs to be studied today, and thats it. Doing this
over a long period of time (weeks, months, and years) has the
ability to produce amazing results.
So keep at it. You have the time. You certainly have the ability.
Take things slow. Dont stress and become awesome at Chinese
little by little.
Step 4: Read as Much as You Can
Its difficult to read in another language, especially if youve just
started and can barely pronounce any words. But my advice

would be to try anyway. Remember rule number one above about
constantly repeating your audio input and practicing your
characters so as to get a solid sense of how Chinese works? This
is also necessary for learning how to read well. Repetition from
reading many, many sentences will make you a good reader.
Unfortunately, nothing else does the trick.
Now, this doesnt mean you have to read classic novels in Chinese,
or even modern novels for that matter. You dont even have to
read simpler teen fiction. A Grade 1 level reader may be sufficient
enough to get you started. And dont feel bad about it. Read it
with pride. Who cares that its at a Grade 1 (or lower) level? At
least youre making progress. Remember rule number three?
Dont stress.
Kids learn the flow of a language through rhyming, lengthy

sentences, and exposure to new patterns of language, all things
which can be accessed in childrens books.
You could try your local library to get some kids books in Chinese,
but this website (the International Childrens Digital Library)
might give you an online equivalent of what youre searching for
as well. Although childrens books in multiple languages can be
found here, there is also a wealth of Chinese titles that will be
sure to get you comfortable with learning Chinese at a basic level
and beyond.
So good luck! Take things slow and enjoy the process. I know
youll be great!
Afterword
Now that you have finished reading this eBook, I hope you realize
just how much you have learned up to this point. You likely
started off with not much of an understanding as to how Chinese
characters are formed and written, let alone an understanding of
how to start the process of knowing how to read them. So,
congratulations on your efforts!
You might need to reread some of the sections for a review of our
key concepts, but I hope that I have been able to prove to you
that learning Chinese is not the insurmountable task that you may
have once thought it to be.
Make sure you remember the relationships between the different

parts of Chinese characters, namely between the radicals and the
portions that suggest pronunciation. Be sure to use this tactic
when meeting new Chinese characters and see if you can identify
what the character might mean. Try as well to always have a
dictionary on hand in order to find out more about the character
in question. It will be an invaluable resource. If you dont like
paper dictionaries, you could try one of the many apps available
for download online. I suggest searching for one called Pleco
(www.pleco.com). Nciku (www.nciku.com) is another good one.
In the end, mastery of Chinese characters simply takes time. If

you practice and review a little bit each day, you will be surprised
at what you can learn over the span of a month or a year.
But be sure not to forget what you have already learned! At least
at the beginning of your studies and until you feel comfortable
with the writing, I would suggest not exclusively using a computer
to type characters. Though you will find that individual characters
might become easily recognizable after a while, if asked to write
down those characters from memory, you will likely have
problems if you have not been practicing their forms by hand.
In fact, since so many Chinese people peck out words with a

keyboard or cell phone these days and do not write as much by
hand anymore, some occasionally forget how to write the
characters for even simple words.
In a 2010 survey by the China Youth Daily, 83% of 2,072

respondents said that they had trouble writing characters. There
is even a name for this problem: (tb wng z ), or take
pen forget character. Additionally, people in their 20s estimate
they have actually forgotten about 20% of the characters they
learned in school [Source: Barbara Demick, Los Angeles Times,
July 2010]. This doesnt mean that they cant recognize them
once written, but just that they have a lapse in memory if asked
to write because they are not practiced that often anymore.
Hopefully stats like these will allow you to realize that Chinese
characters can be problematic even for well-educated Chinese
people. But the fact that you have read this book shows your
dedication; you now have a very good foundation on which to
proceed, so dont give up! (ji yu)Keep going!
Additionally, if you enjoyed this book and found it useful, please

consider sharing it with your friends. I would be forever greatful!
You can do so by clicking these links for Facebook or Twitter.
In the following pages, you will find several appendices within

which youll see a short introduction to pinyin (the official
pronunciation system used to transliterate Mandarin with the
Roman alphabet), as well as a chart of all possible sounds that are
found in the language. Additionally, there are sections on how to
install Chinese typing software on your computer and also
printable grids on which to practice your characters. Lastly, you
will also find a bonus list of 36 excellent additional resources that
you can utilize for further study of Chinese characters and the
Mandarin language in general.
Appendices
Appendix A - An Introduction to Pinyin
In order to make the reading of Chinese characters easier for

those just beginning to learn them (and for Chinese school
children as well), several Romanized transcription systems have
been devised. Although there are various systems for any given
Chinese language due to the fact that different Chinese languages
pronounce the same characters in different ways, pinyin ( pn
yn) is by far the most popular system in current use for
transcribing Mandarin. Most of the letters hold basically the same
equivalency to their English counterparts.
Since you may be using this eBook in tandem with other

resources such as classroom instruction or a phrasebook, Ill just
provide you with a short overview here.
Pinyin consists of what are called initials and finals, the former
usually being a consonant or a pair of consonants and the latter
being a vowel or a set of vowels. For example, the initial b can be
combined with the final ao to create the combination bao
(pronounced like the English word for the gesture bow). Similarly,
the initial zh could be combined with the final u to create zhu
(pronounced joo). See Appendix B for a complete chart of all the
possible sound combinations used in Mandarin.
Try also visiting the following website and clicking on any one of
the pinyin combinations in order to hear how it is properly
pronounced: www.learnhanzi.com/pronunciation
Additionally, and as you probably already know, Mandarin is a

tonal language with a total of four tones. Therefore, a sound like
bao can be pronounced with four different intonations.
The first tone is high, the second is rising, the third is falling then
rising, and the fourth is falling.
Applying a certain tone to one of these sound combinations can

produce up to four different words. For example, bao with the first
tone is written in pinyin as bo and means package (). With the
second tone, it is written as bo and means thin (). The third
tone is bo, meaning treasure (), and the fourth tone is bo (),
meaning to report.
There is also one extra neutral tone that is pronounced lightly

and without any intonation. This is denoted by simply leaving
absent any type of additional tonal marking above a pinyin word,
such as bao.
Below is a relative pitch scale to illustrate these four tones.
First tone
High
Mid-high
Mid-low
Low
Appendix B - A Chart of All Sounds in Mandarin
a o e ~i ai ei ao ou an a ng en e ng o ng e r i ia ia o ie iu ia n ia ng in ing io ng u ui ua uo ua i un ua n ua ng e a n n
b ba bo bai bei bao ban bang ben beng bi biao bie bian bin bing bu
p pa po pai pei pao po u pan pang pen peng pi piao pie pian pin ping pu
m ma mo me mai mei mao mo u man mang men meng mi miao mie miu mian min ming m
f fa fo fei fo u fan fang fen feng fu
d da de dai dei dao do u dan dang den deng do ng di diao die diu dian ding du dui duo dun duan
t ta te tai tei tao to u tan tang teng to ng ti tiao tie tian ting tu tui tuo tun tuan
n na ne nai nei nao no u nan nang nen neng no ng ni niao nie niu nian niang nin ning nu nuo nuan n ne
l la lo le lai lei lao lo u lan lang leng lo ng li liao lie liu lian liang lin ling lu luo lun kuan l le
g ga ge gai gei gao go u gan gang gen geng go ng gu gui gua guo guai gun guan guang
k ka ke kai kei kao ko u kan kang ken keng ko ng ku kui kua kuo kuai kun kuan kuang
h ha he hai hei hao ho u han hang hen heng ho ng hu hui hua huo huai hun huan huang
z za ze zi zai zei zao zo u zan zang zen zeng zo ng zu zui zuo zun zuan
c ca ce ci cai cei cao co u can cang cen ceng co ng cu cui cuo cun cuan
s sa se si sai shei sao so u san sang sen seng so ng su sui suo sun suan
zh zha zhe zhi zhai zhei zhao zho u zhan zhang zhen zheng zhong zhu zhui zhua zhuo zhuai zhun zhuan zhuang
c h cha che chi chai chao cho u chan chang chen cheng chong chu chui chuo chuai chun chuan chuang
s h sha she shi shai shei shao sho u shan shang shen sheng shu shui shua shuo shuai shun shuan shuang
r re ri rao ro u ran rang ren reng ro ng ru rui ruo run ruan
j ji jia jiao jie jiu jian jiang jin jing jio ng ju jue juan jun
q qi qia qiao qie qiu qian qiang qin qing qiong qu que quan qun
x xi xia xiao xie xiu xian xiang xin xing xio ng xu xue xuan xun
y yo yi ya yao ye yo u yan yang yin ying yo ng yu jue yuan yun
w wa wo wen weng wu wei wa wo wai wan wang
~ a o e ai ei ao ou an ang en eng er i
Due to space considerations above, you can also download a

larger copy of this chart by clicking here.
Appendix C - How to Type in Chinese
Pinyin (see Appendices A and B) is also used for typing Chinese

characters. In order to install Chinese typing support on your
computer, follow the steps below:
For Windows: Click the Start button at the bottom of your

screen and open the control panel. Next, click on the Change
keyboards or other input methods option found under the Clock,
Language, and Region icon and a new window should appear.
Follow by clicking on the Keyboards and Languages tab at the top
of this window, and then click on the Change keyboards button.
Under the General tab, now click the Add button. This will give
you all the various language supports you can download for your
computer. Choose Chinese (Simplified, PRC). Under the Keyboard
subgroup, select Chinese (Simplifed) - Microsoft Pinyin. Click Okay.
At the bottom right-hand side of your screens toolbar, you should
see a new icon now labled EN. This means your computer is
currently in English typing mode, but if you click it and select CH,
you will now be able to start typing in Chinese.
For Mac: Click on the Apple icon at the top left-hand corner of
your screen and then on System Preferences. Next select the
Language & Text icon and then click on the Input Sources tab.
This will give you all the various language supports you can add to
your computer. Choose Chinese-Simplified to be able to type
simplified characters, and then the sub-setting Pinyin-Simplified
to specify the input method. Close all open windows. At the top of
your screen on the toolbar, you should now see a flag (probably of
your home country). Click it and you will see a dropdown box for
all the language supports you have installed. Select the one for
Chinese and away you go!
Appendix D - Chinese Character Practice Grids
Use the grids below to practice writing your Chinese characters.

You can also find more grids online that you can print off by
clicking here.
Bonus! - 36 Resources for Further Study
About.com (mandarin.about.com) Everything about Mandarin.
Baidu (www.baidu.com) Chinas answer to Google.
China Knowledge (www.chinaknowledge.de) a universal guide

for China studies.
China Smack Glossery (www.chinasmack.com/glossary) a

listing of common Chinese-language internet terms, expressions,
acronyms, swear words, and slang.
ChineseClass101 (www.chineseclass101.com) fun and

effective audio and videos lessons available to help you improve
your Chinese.
Chinese Hacks (www.chinesehacks.com) very useful site

providing tips and tricks to improve your Chinese, often using free
tools provided online.
Chinese Learn Online (www.chineselearnonline.com) an

online podcasting service that is aimed at helping you improve
your Chinese by listening to custom and authentic dialouges in
your free time. The word-for-word transcripts and flashcards
ensure you understand every word, and online tools help you
perfect your pronunciation. Theres even feedback from real
teachers whenever you need it! Highly recommended if youre
anywhere in the absolute beginner to high intermediate levels,
and their monthly subscriptions are some of the lowest out there.
ChinesePod (www.chinesepod.com) learn Mandarin and

Chinese culture through daily podcasts.
Chinese Text Project (www.ctext.org) a web-based e-text

system designed to present ancient Chinese texts, particularly
those relating to Chinese philosophy, in a well-structured and
properly cross-referenced manner.
Chinese with Mike (www.chinesewithmike.com) learn Chinese

from an American guy who lives and teaches in a garage.
Confused Laowai (www.confusedlaowai.com) a blog about one

South Africans exciting, yet often confusing adventure to learn
Chinese.
Glossika (www.youtube.com/user/Glossika) the YouTube

account of language learner Mike Campbell, who specializes in
foreign language training for various languages. Most of his videos
are filmed in either English or Mandarin.
Hacking Chinese (www.hackingchinese.com) a website

dedicated to unveiling the mysteries of learning a language in
general and about learning Chinese in particular.
Hanzi Grids (www.hanzigrids.com) improve your Chinese

handwriting.
How to Learn Any Language (www.how-to-learn-any-

language.com/e/languages/mandarin-chinese/index.html) an
overview of Mandarin in terms of the number of its speakers, the
countries in which it is spoken, the pronunciation, the grammar,
and even an analysis of its chic factor.
How to Learn Chinese Writing

(www.howtolearnchinesewriting.com) a regularly updated blog
with tips and tricks for how to successfully master Chinese
characters.
iLearn Mandarin (www.ilearnmandarin.blogspot.tw) a blog

about one Americans experience as a Chinese language learner
and a Chinese language teacher.
International Scientific (www.internationalscientific.org)

information on the etymology and history of Chinese characters.
Living a Dream in China (www.sarajaaksola.com) a blog

written by a girl from Finland with a life-long passion for
everything Chinese who is on a journey to fluency in Mandarin.
Lingq (www.lingq.com) learn Mandarin (or other languages)

online while listening to interesting material from free podcasts.
Mandarin Poster (www.mandarinposter.com) a website

producing posters to help you with your Chinese learning.
MDBG Chinese-English Dictionary (www.mdbg.net) this

online dictionary has it all.
Melnyks Chinese (www.melnyks.com) learn Mandarin with

theme-based, progressive, and easy-to-follow podcast lessons.
Money in Mandarin (www.moneyinmandarin.com) raising

awareness of money-making opportunities that Mandarin
proficiency has to offer while providing information and other
resources to help people pursue this endeavor.
Nciku (www.nciku.com) a superb online Chinese-English,

English-Chinese dictionary.
Nommoc (www.nommoc.com) an app for learning to write

Chinese, containing stroke-by-stroke animations of a native
Chinese persons handwriting for the most common Chinese
characters, as well as a freehand writing area for the learner.
Omniglot (www.omniglot.com/chinese) an excellent site for

everything from the origins of Chinese writing to Chinese Braille.
Peggy Teaches Chinese (www.peggyteacheschinese.com) a

free online learning platform on YouTube for learning Mandarin.
Polyglot Link (www.polyglotlink.com) a directory for language-

related blogs.
Sinoglot (www.sinoglot.com) a blog about language in China.
Sinosplice (www.sinosplice.com) try to understand China;

learn Chinese. Also includes a blog about the authors experience
from years living in China.
Skritter (www.skritter.com) the write way to learn Chinese.
Social Mandarin (www.socialmandarin.com) a social

bookmarking site that aims to collect and bring together the best
Mandarin learning resources online.
The World of Chinese (www.theworldofchinese.com) a bi-

monthly English magazine and web portal dedicated to Chinese
language and culture.
Yellow Bridge (www.yellowbridge.com) a very useful and

user-friendly website which allows you to break down characters
into their component parts.
Zhongwen.com (www.zhongwen.com) a FAQ page answering

questions like what Putonghua is and the differences between
Chinese dialects. A very good and unique Chinese character
dictionary and an online pinyin chatroom can be accessed here as
well.
2014 chinEASE
Written by Aaron Posehn
Web: www.chinease-ebook.com
Email: contact@chinease-ebook.com
First edition released January 2013

Second edition released February 2014

Chin Ease

Hochgeladen von

Dokumentinformationen

Copyright

Verfügbare Formate

Dieses Dokument teilen

Dokument teilen oder einbetten

Freigabeoptionen

Stufen Sie dieses Dokument als nützlich ein?

Sind diese Inhalte unangemessen?

Copyright:

Verfügbare Formate

Chin Ease

Hochgeladen von

Copyright:

Verfügbare Formate

chinEASE

Start Reading Chinese Characters TODAY!

Copyright Aaron Posehn, 2014

Cover art by Frank Fradella

A SPECIAL THANKS to the people who helped make this book

If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to

To have another language is to possess a second soul.

A Note About Character Pronunciation 10

About the Author 11

Chapter 1: Your First Twelve Chinese Characters 14

Chapter 2: The Origins of Chinese Characters 21

Chapter 3: Modern Characters 26

Chapter 4: The Six Character Structure Types 38

Chapter 5: The Five Major Chinese Scripts 42

Chapter 6: Character Simplification 46

Second-Round Simplified Characters 50

Chapter 7: Character Spacing and Stroke Order 52

Chapter 8: Outside Influences and Influencers 60

Chapter 9: Other Types of Markings 75

Chapter 10: Learn to Read a Chinese Menu 88

Chapter 11: Learn to Read a Chinese Business Card 112

Chapter 12: Take the Long Road to Learning Chinese 127

Chapter 13: How to Get Good at Mandarin in 4 Steps 133

Appendix A: An Introduction to Pinyin 146

Appendix B: A Chart of All Sounds in Mandarin 148

Appendix C: How to type in Chinese 149

Appendix D: Chinese Character Practice Grids 150

Bonus!: 36 Resources for Further Study 153

A Note About Character Pronunciation

This book makes use of the pinyin romanization system that is

Additional systems also exist for other Chinese languages such as

For more on pinyin, please see Appendices A and B.

An entry from an old Chinese-Arabic-Xiaoerjing dictionary.

About the Author

Aaron Posehn is a graduate of the

Aaron has had an interest in Asian cultures and languages since in

In addition to Mandarin, he has a love for foreign languages and

Learning how to write Chinese characters is not difficult. Really!

As an added bonus, Chinese characters are used across all of the

Essentially, this book has been specifically created to explore the

After reading, you will understand in much greater depth how to

To teach these things successfully, the author demonstrates how

It is recommended that you have a good Chinese-English

Hopefully you enjoy this eBook. But remember, it has been

As stated in the Introduction, I claimed that Chinese characters

It is in fact the Chinese character for person.

The character for person

The character for big

The character for small

By adding one more horizontal stroke on the character for person,

How about the next three characters?

The character for up

Similarly, if you think of the second one as a root reaching down

The character for down

The character for ground

The character for rain

Now that you have a basic understanding of how Chinese

Heres a hint its an abstract representation of an open cavity on

The character for mouth

Lastly, we have another body part, the ear.

However, it may not appear like much until we give it some

The character for ear

One ancient legend tells of a time before written history when

This story goes on to tell of a man