Y: 001

口日(/曰)目白自


口
—— mouth —— Looks like a widely open mouth ——

日(/曰)(*口一)
—— 1) sun; day —— Each time the sun rises a new day begins. —— It is a picture of the sun. Normally we draw the sun with a circle(ㅇ) surrounded by many strokes. But there are no “round” shaped Kanji so we take mouth*1 instead. And adding so many strokes is also very annoying so let’s abbreviate them to only one stroke (one*2) in the middle representing all. ——
2) say —— What is coming out of the mouth*1 is what we say (symbolized by one*2) ——

目
—— eye —— Rotate this character by 90 degree, then it will look like an eye ——
目_目

丶(in白without日)
—— dot; drop —— The dot's ink is dropped, so it looks like a comma. ——

白(*丶(in白without日)日)
—— white —— If you watch into the sun*2 for too long you’ll see several small white dots*1. ——

自(*丶(in白without日)目)
—— self; nose —— In Asia, one refers to oneself by pointing to their nose —— Rotate this character by 90 degree to the right: (*1) shows the nose, it's right to the *eye* (*2) ——

? (in友without又) left hand —— 又 is the right hand (or fist). Together they are 友 (you3 friend) —— Friends give each other the hands. ——

言 say; words —— sethg: "This is simple a pictogram of a mouth SAYing something. The lines are soundwaves. No need to complicate it."

讠words; say —— It's the simplified form of 言 derived from Cursive Script ——

門 door; gate —— Just looks like a door/gate

no.20 门 door; gate —— it's the simplified form of 門

Yuanzi Listing

Please read my post about 'Hanzi, Fenzi and Yuanzi'.

There are thousands of Hanzi, but only a limited number of Yuanzi.
In this post (and the following; beginning witch "Y:...") I would like to collect all Yuanzi I have encountered on sein.se (in the same character sequence) and give some mnemonics to remember them.

Note1: Some Yuanzi can also function as a Hanzi, some not.
The one which cannot are followed by (in...without...). In (in...without...) is a sample Hanzi which contains this Yuanzi.

Note2: Yuanzi in (*...) are Yuanzi of Yuanzi, so they are pseudo-Yuanzi, because Yuanzi are the smallest meaningful components and therefore - to be correctly - not allowed to be split, but this "incorrect" splitting makes them easier to remember^^...

Note3: Translations in "..." are pseudo-traslations. For example 且 actually means 'further; moreover', but my pseudo-translation for it is "building" - It looks like a building so why not remember it as "building"? I guess it's easier to remember mnemonic rhymes with "building" in it than witch 'further; moreover'...

Click on the Yuanzi below:

口日(/曰)目白自

done:
口日(/曰)目白自
to do:
罒(in署without者)覀(in要without女)
八丷(in单without田十)人(/入)亻(in他without也)貝贝頁页
耳
而

H:这{U+20087}說讠门

Here are some characters and their mnemo which you won't find on Reviewing the Kanji:

*Note: I am not able to write all characters on blogger.com . The one I am not able to write are shown as {...} (and numberd). {...} is always linked so you can see the character on another web site when you click on it.

no.11 这 this (zhe4) —— Imagine a literate in a sushi bar. The sushi dishes are passing by/moving and the literate wants to find his favorite dish. Then he found his favorite one and crosses his arms around it saying "This is mine!". (3rd and 4th stroke show his crossed arms; 1st stroke is his head; the 2nd stroke is his shoulders) ——

{U+20087} left hand —— 又 is the right hand (or fist). Together they are 友 (you3 friend) —— Friends give each other the hands. ——

no.19 說 speak; say (shuo1) —— to exchange words words/sayings is to speak/say.

讠words; say —— It's the simplified form of 言 derived from Cursive Script ——

no.20 门 door (men2) —— it's the simplified form of 門

to do: 文辶

My Method

0) Before reading about my method, please read the introduction first (Begin with the oldest post).

1) I will give you mnemonic advices for the 3000 most common characters used in Modern Chinese.
These characters are all listed on zein.se (in the same sequence I will explain them).

2) But there is a problem:
For example the most common character is 的, and 的 consists of the components 白 and 勺, but these two components are more seldom characters than the character 的.

So visit yellowbridge and find out the components of each character.
Alternatively you can also use zhongwen.com.

Before explaining the character I will explain its components.
So I will explain 丶 first, then 日, then 白, then 勹, then 勺, and in the end 的.

3) Why is it so good to know the meaning of components?
Read Mnemonic...

4) Where are the explanations?
To read my explanations please visit Reviewing the Kanji.
This website is made for Kanji-learner (people who learn the japanese variants of Hanzi, more: here)
BUT it's also possible to write explanations for Hanzi!

5) How do I find the explanations for one cerain Hanzi?
When you are logged in at Reviewing the Kanji search for the character you want to know in the 'Study' section ('browse').
The you will certainly find many explanations by many users.

My user name onReviewing the Kanji is 'sinologe' .

6) My former user name on Reviewing the Kanji was pjdekl...

7) There are also characters which are not on Reviewing the Kanji. In this case I will post the mnemo explanation on my blog here...

8) Simplified characters are not shown on Reviewing the Kanji.
Take the traditional variant instead!
For learners of simplified characters I will explain this simplified character on this blog (see (7) ),
but only once. For example: I won't explain 们, but 們, 門 and 门 (because 们 already contains 门, so it's sufficient to explain only 們...)

Yuanzi - Fenzi, Meaning - Sound

Please read my last post about “Hanzi, Yuanzi and Fenzi”.

1) Sound Loan

Often (but not always!) Fenzi imply the pronunciation of a Hanzi.

For example, the following Hanzi all contain the Fenzi 喿(sao4 - chirping of birds).
Note that these Hanzi’s prounounciation are very similar to “sao4” (proununciation of喿):

噪 (chirp; zao4) = 口(mouth) + 喿(sao4 - chirping of birds)
澡 (bath; zao3) = 氵(water [variant of 水]) + 喿(sao4 - chirping of birds)
燥 (dry; zao4) = 火(fire) + 喿(sao4 - chirping of birds)
躁 (impatient; zao4) = 足(foot) + 喿(sao4 - chirping of birds)
操 (grasp; operate; cao1) = 扌(hand [variant of手]) + 喿(sao4 - chirping of birds)

2) Meaning Loan

The Yuanzi which is outside of the Fenzi often (but not always!) imply the meaning of the Hanzi.

噪 (chirp; zao4) = chirping with the “mouth” (口) (or neb…)
澡 (bath; zao3) = bathing in water (氵)
燥 (dry; zao4) = to dry something at a fire (火) place
躁 (impatient; zao4) = tapping the feet (足) while being impatient
操 (grasp; operate; cao1) = to crasp or operate with hands (扌)

3) Conclusion

Over 90 per cent of Hanzi are build up by a sound loan (1 Fenzi) and a meaning loan (1 Yuanzi)
So it’s really useful to learn the meaning of Yuanzi and the pronunciation of Fenzi!

4) Link

Read about "Phono-semantic compound characters" in the Wikipedia article about "Chinese character classification".

Hanzi, Fenzi and Yuanzi

I once attended a course called "Kanji Kreativ" at university.
Miss Yamada-Bochynek - the main lecture and founder of this "Kanji Kreativ" programm - divided the chinese characters/character components into 3 groups:

1) Hanzi (漢字; in Japanese: Kanji)
2) Yuanzi (原子; in Japanese: Genshi) and
3) Fenzi (分子; in Japanese: Bunshi)

1) Hanzi lit. means "Han-Characters" (because of the Chinese Han-Dynasty)
These are the "normal" characters.
e.g. 操(cao1 - grasp; operate)

2) Yuanzi lit. means ‘atom’
These are the smallest meaningful components of a Hanzi
eg the Yuanzi of 操(cao1 - grasp; operate) are the following:
扌[variant of手] (shou3 – hand)
3x 口 (kou3 – mouth)
and 木 (mu4 – tree)

3) Fenzi lit. means ‘molecule’
These are like Yuanzi also components of Hanzi, but are also compound of Yuanzi. So they are Yuanzi-grouped components of Hanzi.
eg the Fenzi of 操(cao1 - grasp; operate) are the following:
喿 (sao4 - chirping of birds)
喿 itself also contains another Fenzi,
it’s 品 (pin3 – product; goods)

Mnemonic

If you like to learn Chinese I do really recommend you to learn these characters, too.
(I recommend to learn Traditional Characters rather than Simplified Character, view my last post...)
They might be difficult to learn with the classical method of learning (writing them down several times). But if you also learn the characters’ components (which are IN the character) and make mnemonic rhymes (or other mnemonic helps) learning Chinese characters will be very easy.

An Example:

唱 (chang4 – sing; chant) consists of
口 (kou3 – mouth) and
2x 日 (ri4 – sun).
(*Chinese is a tonal language. ‘3’ stands for third tone (ˇ); ‘4’ stands for fourth tone (ˋ) )

First let’s learn 口:
That is really easy because it actually looks like a widely open mouth.

Let’s learn 日:
If you draw a sun you certainly first draw a circle (ㅇ) surrounded by many strokes.
But note that there are no round-shaped character so we take 口 instead.
But drawing so many surrounding strokes is also quite annoying so just abbreviate it with only one stroke (一) and put it in the middle (日) to represent all strokes. So it's 日 ri4 sun

Now let’s learn 唱:
Reinterpret 日 as ‘closed mouth’.
sing; chant = 1 open mouth (口) + 2 “closed mouths” (日=sun)
mnemonic rhyme:
Three persons are SINGing. One of them has his solo (open MOUTH [口]). The other two are waiting (upper and lower lip are together; closed mouths [日=SUN]).

It's easy, isn't it? ^^

So why is it useful to learn not only the character itself, but also its components?
Does it not mean that you have to learn more? (character AND its components)?
- In the beginning one has to learn more, that's right, but there are only about 500 possible character components, but more than 5000 characters.
So at the beginning you learn more and at the end you have less problems to remember the characters - therefore it's worth to learn all character components!!!

And of course, mnemonic advices are only possible when one knows the components of a character!

Three versions of Chinese Characters

There are (at least) three versions of Chinese characters:
We have 'traditional characters' (Mainly used in Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan, sometimes in Korea and Mainland China) [=T],
we have 'simplified characters' (Mainly used in Mainland China and Singapore) [=S]
and we have 'japanese simplified characters' (used in Japan) [=J]

Example: These characters are the same but appear in three different versions:
T: 兩 (liang3 – two; both)
S: 两 (liang3 – two; both)
J: 両 (ryou – two; both)

Japanese call "their" chinese characters 'Kanji' [=J]
Chinese call them 'Hanzi' [=S,T]
Korean call them 'Hanja' [=T]

If you learn chinese choose between T and S, or learn both versions. I recommend to learn T actively and S passively because it's easier to read S after having learnt T than vice versa.
(*learning actively: afterwards you can both – read AND write the character;
learning passively: you learn only to read the character, but not to write it)

And of course because it's easier to make mnemonic rhymes tor T than S.
(I believe that “simplified” characters are not necessarily simpler than T!!! … )

If you want to know more about the differences visit this wikipedia link.

About me

Hallo,

welcome to my blog. My mother language is polish and german so I hope you will forgive me my mistakes in english.
I am a passionate learner of Chinese, especially of the Chinese characters – the so called Hanzi (漢子/汉字).
On my blog I would like to show some mnemonic advices/rhymes for the 3000 most common chinese characters in order to help you memorize them better.

In the next few post I try to explain the most important basics to know about chinese characters.
I hope you enjoy to read my blog! ^^

Contact:

Sinologe
漢學家 / 汉学家
sinologe@googlemail.com
http://sinomnemo.blogspot.com/