Why do Chinese use a character that is a combination of the characters for “moon” and “city” to mean “lung”?
To be honest? Because you are totally misreading the character. The word lung is, on the left, the radical 肉 meat, flesh, which is used …
What is the reason behind China’s use of a script for their language instead of an alphabet like English or French?
Mutual intelligibility. French and English use the same alphabet, but have you ever noticed that as an English speaking person you can’t understand most things …
Why do the names of many cities in China end off with -zhou（州）?
As pointed out in the previous answer, this Chinese character“州” in pictographic writing refers to the land in the middle of rivers, representing the basin …
What is the difference between 赤 (chì) and 红 (hóng)?
红 is red. It is very distinct, you can’t mistaken it. Blood is red and one know what is red when one see red. As …
How likely is Mandarin to surpass English as the global lingua franca?
There are many reasons why English is the lingua franca today. It’s widespread around the world. The British Empire was pretty effective at spreading it …
Why do brides in China wear red instead of white for the wedding dress?
Modern day brides in China make use of red as well as white depending on the ethnicity of the Chinese group. A hundred couples from …
What are Mandarin Chinese radicals?
The radicals 部首 are not just Mandarin Chinese, they are for all Chinese characters. They are the bases of the characters. Take, for example, the …
What color is offensive to the Chinese?
It depends. If you wear white on festive days, like the Chinese Spring Festival and a wedding, you will offend all the Chinese people. Well, …
What is the introductory challenge in learning Chinese?
It depends on what your native language is. People who speak Indo-European languages find the vocabulary alien and especially people from structured languages like German …
Why do Chinese people use the symbol “~” in their writing?
Although I’m a science guy, I’ve always been fascinated by language and writing. The symbol “~” is called a “波浪号” (bōlàng hào) in Chinese, which …