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.