For children and parents · Primary Chinese · four short videos and a quiz
Why is there a sheep in the word for ocean? Chinese characters look like a jumble of strokes until you know the secret: almost every one is built in one of four ways. Learn the four, and a new character stops being a shape to memorise. It becomes a little puzzle your child can read.
Tap ▶ to play a video. With sound on, the characters are read aloud by your own phone or tablet's voice, so the voice differs from device to device. Captions always show.
The oldest characters are drawings. To write "sun", people drew the sun; to write "mountain", they drew a mountain. Over more than 3,000 years the curves were straightened into strokes, but many characters still look like what they mean once you know to look.
| Character | Means | How it is used | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 日rì | sun, day | 生日 shēngrìbirthday | |
| 月yuè | moon, month | 月亮 yuèliangthe moon | |
| 山shān | mountain, hill | 爬山 páshānto climb a hill | |
| 木mù | tree, wood | 木头 mùtouwood | |
| 人rén | person | 大人 dàrena grown-up | |
| 水shuǐ | water | 喝水 hēshuǐto drink water | |
| 火huǒ | fire | 火车 huǒchēa train | |
| 口kǒu | mouth | 门口 ménkǒuthe doorway |
Some ideas cannot be drawn: "up", "down", "the root of a tree". So people drew a simple shape and added a mark that points at the idea. There are very few pointing characters, but some of them are among the most used characters of all.
| Character | Means | How it is used | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 上shàng | up, above | 上学 shàngxuéto go to school | |
| 下xià | down, below | 下雨 xiàyǔto rain | |
| 本běn | root | 本子 běnzia notebook | |
| 末mò | tip, end | 周末 zhōumòthe weekend | |
| 刃rèn | blade edge | 刀刃 dāorènthe edge of a knife | |
| 一 二 三yī èr sān | one, two, three | 一二三 yī èr sāncounting strokes |
Put two or three characters together and their meanings join into a new idea. Nothing inside a put-together character tells you the sound. You work out the meaning from the pictures hiding inside.
| Character | Made from | How it is used | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 休xiū | 人 person + 木 treerest | 休息 xiūxito rest | |
| 明míng | 日 sun + 月 moonbright | 明天 míngtiāntomorrow | |
| 林lín | 木 + 木 two treeswoods | 树林 shùlínthe woods | |
| 森sēn | three 木 treesforest | 森林 sēnlína forest | |
| 从cóng | 人 + 人to follow; from | 从前 cóngqiánonce upon a time | |
| 众zhòng | three 人 peoplea crowd | 观众 guānzhòngthe audience | |
| 尖jiān | 小 small on 大 bigpointed | 笔尖 bǐjiānthe tip of a pen | |
| 好hǎo | 女 woman + 子 childgood | 你好 nǐhǎohello |
This is the big one, and the clever one. A 形声字 has two parts: a meaning part (usually the radical, 部首) that tells you what the character is about, and a sound part that tells you roughly how to say it.
That is why there is a sheep in "ocean". 洋 (yáng, as in 海洋 hǎiyáng, the ocean) is 氵 water, for the meaning, plus 羊 yáng, a sheep, for the sound.
| Character | Meaning + sound | How it is used | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 清qīng | 氵 water + 青clear | 清楚 qīngchuclear | |
| 晴qíng | 日 sun + 青sunny | 晴天 qíngtiāna sunny day | |
| 请qǐng | 讠 words + 青please; to ask | 请问 qǐngwènexcuse me, may I ask | |
| 情qíng | 忄 heart + 青feeling | 心情 xīnqíngmood | |
| 睛jīng | 目 eye + 青eyeball | 眼睛 yǎnjingeyes | |
| 蜻qīng | 虫 insect + 青as in dragonfly | 蜻蜓 qīngtínga dragonfly |
| Character | Meaning + sound | How it is used | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 妈mā | 女 woman + 马mum | 妈妈 māmamum | |
| 吗ma | 口 mouth + 马question word | 你好吗 nǐ hǎo mahow are you? | |
| 蚂mǎ | 虫 insect + 马as in ant | 蚂蚁 mǎyǐan ant |
Radical names your child will hear in class: 氵 三点水 (sāndiǎnshuǐ), 讠 言字旁 (yánzìpáng), 忄 竖心旁 (shùxīnpáng).
The first dictionary of Chinese characters, 说文解字 (Shuōwén Jiězì), was finished about 1,900 years ago by the scholar 许慎 (Xǔ Shèn). A well-known count of its 9,353 characters sorts them like this:
About 8 in every 10 characters are meaning + sound. That is why spotting the sound part is such a useful habit: it works on most of the characters your child will ever meet.
许慎 actually described six kinds of characters, the 六书. The two not covered above are about how characters were used, not how they were built:
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Practise Chinese 听写 →象形字 (picture characters, such as 日 sun and 山 mountain), 指事字 (pointing characters, such as 上 up and 下 down), 会意字 (put-together characters, such as 休 rest and 明 bright) and 形声字 (meaning + sound characters, such as 洋 ocean and 妈 mum).
The four types above, plus 转注 (zhuǎnzhù) and 假借 (jiǎjiè). The last two describe how characters were used rather than how they were built: 假借 means borrowing a character for another word that sounded the same, such as 来 (a picture of wheat) borrowed to mean "come". The six were set out by the scholar 许慎 (Xǔ Shèn) in 说文解字, the first Chinese dictionary, about 1,900 years ago.
Most of them. A well-known count of the 9,353 characters in 说文解字 gives 7,697, about 82%, as 形声字. The other types are much rarer: 会意 1,167, 象形 364 and 指事 125.
No. It is a strong clue, not a rule. Sometimes it matches exactly (羊 yáng in 洋 yáng), sometimes only the tone changes (青 qīng in 晴 qíng), and sometimes the sound has drifted further (青 qīng in 睛 jīng, 可 kě in 河 hé), because Chinese pronunciation has changed over two thousand years.
It turns guessing into reasoning. If your child mixes up 清 and 晴, ask whether the word is about water or the sun: 清水 (clear water) takes 氵, 晴天 (a sunny day) takes 日. The meaning part decides it.