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Chinese characters
Chinese characters: Pictographs: 雨、气; Phono-semantic compounds: 冷、病; Ideographic compounds: 喜、休
Let’s move on to Chinese characters.
yǔ. The horizontal line indicates the sky. The dots represent the rain drops. “Xiàyǔ” means to rain.
Qì. Please look at this picture. It refers to the air, so “tiānqì” means “weather”.
Lěng. The left two dots refer to the ice that is melting. So the two dots represent coldness. The right part stands for the pronunciation. It reads “lìng”. “lìng” means order and order cannot be rejected and neither can coldness. That is why we choose this character to stand for pronunciation. This character is “xǐ”. As the picture shows, it’s like a smiling mouth under a drum. Just imagine that a person is playing the drum happily. Perhaps he or she has something happy to share with others. So “xǐ” means happiness. Like “xǐhuan”, you like it because it makes you happy. “Xǐshì” means “happy event”. In China, we double this character and put them side by side for wedding ceremonies.
Because we believe happiness comes in double, and it also has the meaning that the couple are happy.
bìng. Let’s look at the outside part first. This person is lying in bed and sweating. So this part means being sick. The inner part stands for the pronunciation. It reads “bǐng”. There are many characters with this radical like “téng”, “shòu”, “fēng”. Xīu.
As the picture shows, a person is taking a rest under a tree. This character “xīu” consists of two parts. The left part “rén” means people. The right part is “mù”, meaning tree. So “xīu” means to rest. “Xīuxi” means to take a rest.
After learning this video, you can write these characters as their order in the worksheet to help you better understand what you have learned.
- 雨（yǔ, rain）：The horizontal line of this character indicates the sky. The dots represent the rain drops.
- 气（qì, air）：It refers to the air, so 天气（tiānqì） means “weather”.
- 冷（lěnɡ, cold）：The left two dots refer to the ice that is melting, so the two dots represent coldness. The right part 令（lìng, order）stands for the pronunciation.
- 喜（xǐ, happy）：This character looks like a smiling mouth under a drum, so it is related to happiness.
- 病（bìnɡ, sick）：The outside part is the radical, meaning “being sick”. The inner part stands for the pronunciation.
- 休（xiū, rest）：This character 休 consists of two parts. The left part 人（rén, person）. The right part is 木（mù, tree）. So 休（xiū） means “to rest”.
This article is from the online course:
Introduction to Chinese: Conversation
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