Private Mnemonics for Remembering Chinese Characters
To avoid confusing 左/右 as a beginner, I associated the falling fourth tone of 右 yòu / yow and the very last falling stroke of 口 with the meaning “right”: …
Chinese characters
Which are the 7 most splendid Chinese characters according to you?
I have to make a little clever remark here! To some extent this is a pseudo-question. Zhao Mengfu’s Huangting Jing — every single character in it is …
Is there a reason why Chinese characters are written vertically?
When I was young, there were books with characters printed vertically. One of my classmates told me that he enjoyed the vertically printed books because …
How many Chinese characters do I need to know to know Chinese?
As a language, Chinese is largely monosyllabic and doesn’t have a fixed grammar, so learning it is really quite easy — easier than English. If …
Is there a reason why Chinese characters are written vertically?
I am not a scholar, but on this question I am 100% certain that I am correct. First of all, I am Chinese, deeply familiar …
Do the Chinese still make new characters today?
As far as I know, very few. But they do exist. For example, the character “砼” refers to concrete. It consists of the parts “人” …
What are some of the easiest and hardest Chinese characters to write?
The easiest Chinese character would be numbers, one → “一“ two → “二” three → “三“ （No, four is not four straight lines.) the hardest …
What is the most effective way to learn Chinese characters?
Let me pour a giant bucket of cold water on this. [[ As a normal adult, you will never learn enough Chinese characters to be …
Are new Chinese characters still being invented?
Inventing new characters seems to have been still practiced quite commonly through the 20th century. For instance, the character “熵” means entropy, and was coined …
Do Chinese characters look like what they mean?
Eh… no, not really. At least not anymore lol. Modern Chinese characters are not particularly effective at conveying meaning through visual representation, but ancient Chinese …