An Efficient Way to Learn the Chinese Language

The Basic Structure of Chinese Characters

Aug 16, 2009

A highly efficient way to learn the Chinese Language is to acquire some knowledge of the basic structure of Chinese Characters.

Instead of alphabetic letters (26 in the case of English) Chinese has 214 radicals to construct their characters in the written language. Every Chinese Character is composed of one or more radicals. Consequently, the importance of some knowledge of the basic structure of Chinese characters cannot be overstated.

There are many Chinese words that have the same sound but with a different meaning. This fact highlights the importance, in learning the Chinese language, of recognizing the structure of the written form and, accordingly, the meaning of the word.

At the beginning of the second century, in an attempt to disambiguate the meaning of the ancient Chinese Classics, a Han dynasty scholar, Xu Shen compiled a dictionary type of book “Analyzing and Interpreting Characters” (Shuowen Jiezi). He analyzed the structure of Chinese characters and defined the meaning represented by them. According to him, there are six fundamental constructions of Chinese characters as follows:

The majority of the earliest Chinese characters portray the thing they signify. This is called “Representation of a physical form” by Xu Shen. Each character of this kind looks like the physical object it refers to, for example, “sun” is the outline of a sun with a stroke inside indicating the sun is solid; “moon” is the sketch of a crescent with two strokes inside also indicating its solidity; whilst the character for “opening/entrance/mouth” is simply a square.

This type of character is called “Indication of an idea”. They represent abstract concepts by the image they evoke such as “upward/upon” is an arrow-like symbol pointing upwards and pointing downwards for “downward/below”; “sun” plus a cross-like symbol, one horizontal and one vertical line, indicates the sun rising over the horizon giving the meaning “early” or “morning”; whilst “dusk/evening” is an incomplete crescent depicting the emerging moon and thus “the beginning of the night”.

With the passage of time, the demands for more characters to express more complex ideas or innovative concepts increased, so the existing Chinese characters were combined to form new words. There are two types of combined characters: associative compounds and the combination of a shape and sound.

In terms of associative compounds, a Chinese character is usually made up of two or more meaningful parts. For example, “sun” and “moon” constitute “bright”, whilst “getting trapped or stuck” is a combination of “upwards” and “downwards” promoting the idea that in hesitating to go up or down, one would get stuck in the middle. Other examples are two “trees” stands for “wood” and three trees forms “forest”.

Many Chinese characters belong to the “Combination of shape and sound” category. They are made of two parts, one to signify the meaning from its appearance and the other for pronunciation or both. For example, three splashes of water and “evening”, which is pronounced “xi”, for “night tide” which is also pronounced “xi”; whilst three splashes of water and “tree” become “shower” having the same sound as “tree” (mu).

Part Exchange Chinese Writing extends the Range of Chinese Vocabulary

With increased demand for new terms, two new approaches for generating characters were employed: transition and assumption. A transition character usually arises by simply changing the parts of an existing character or adding an extra part onto it, for instance, varying the lower part of “old” to become “long life”; adding a symbol of “a seal”, hence a symbol of authority, onto “father” which then becomes “dad”.

In the “Assumption” group, no new symbol is created but is borrowed from another character of similar sense. For example, the ancient Chinese had a habit of turning their back to the cold north, hence, the concept of “north” makes use of the writing for “back” which shows “two people sitting back to back”; or, a “nail” with the suggestion “firmly fixed” depicts “a strong person”.

However, the six methods for creating Chinese characters can be summarized by this single observation: most Chinese characters are built up from the simpler characters to the more complicated. The simpler characters which are the foundation of other characters are called "radicals," or "root elements." They act as common basic building blocks on which the meaning of the character is constructed. For example, "water" in its capacity as a radical, gives rise to countless other characters which bear a relationship to water, wetness, and anything liquid.

While simultaneously as vocabularies expanded, hundreds and thousands of terms were gradually eliminated because they were obsolete. There are also some characters which are kept in their original form but now with a different significance. Nevertheless, most of the modern formal Chinese characters still maintain their original structure although, by comparison, they are somewhat stylized.

From the description above, it still might seem very confusion to understand Chinese characters. Nevertheless, once one looks at the Chinese characters along with their original forms, a pictorial representation, it can be fun and not too difficult to learn Chinese writing. (See the illustration).

In brief, the stimulating challenge of acquainting oneself, from the earliest, with the Chinese Radicals and how the Chinese characters are constructed is a sound and efficient way of learning the Chinese language. And thus, in the long run, it is an easier way for anyone who wishes to master the Chinese language and communicate with the largest population on the earth.

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