Saturday 26 November 2011

Learn one Chinese Character a day - "三"


We have learned "一" and "二", today we look at "三".  Do a wild guess - what is the meaning of "三"?

let us look at the evolutionary history of "三" first:


Learn one Chinese Character a day - "三"

As we knew already that "二" means two and upper part of "二" refers to Sky while lower part of "二" refers to Earth. as for "三",  the upper part and lower parts of "三" are the same as "二". middle "一" of the "三" refers to everything that lives & grow below the sky and above the earth. The middle "一" of "三" sometimes also refers to a special species - ourselves the Human-being.

"三" means three important ones in the universe - Sky, Earth and Mankind.
"三" means three.

Please also note the original meaning of "三" with middle "一" referring to everything under sky and above earth, so in Chinese characters or phrases, three is also used to mean a lot.

Let us enjoy again a Chinese Calligraphy with "三" inside.

Learn one Chinese Character a day - "三"


Next time we are going to learn "人". I attach a few pictures of the ancient writing of "人" that your can guess its meaning.
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Monday 21 November 2011

Learn one Chinese Character a day - "二"

Today let us look at a new Chinese character:  "二", below is the picture to show the progressive change of "二" from Oracle till now:

"二"
Can you guess its meaning? what if you recall the meaning of "一", which means "1"?
Does "二" seem to comprise of two "一"s?  Yes now I think you can guess it correctly that "二" means two.
You can think of  "二" as the sum when "一" spawns another "一", or when "一" is divided apart horizontally.

The second perception of "二" is very close to the most primitive understanding of the universe by our Chinese ancestors, remember that "一" also refers to the original status of the universe, "二" is the second stage of the universe that Sky and Earth were separated. 

the upper "一" of "二" represents the sky while the lower "一" of "二" represents earth. So remember it carefully that you should not be surprised when you learn other Chinese characters, part of which is "一" and that "一" means either Sky or Earth.

now let us enjoy a Chinese Calligraphy with "二" inside to end today's learning.
Learn one Chinese Character a day - "二"



Friday 18 November 2011

Learn one Chinese Character a day - "一"

"" means one, or number 1.

let's see how it is evolved till current writings:
left most is the Oracle writing of "", right most is the printing format of modern "".
You can see that it is not changed much. When we see Oracle "一" on a shell of turtle, we can immediately know its meaning.

And ancient Chinese consider that everything is generated from the one - "" and "" also represents the status of the universe before sky and earth were created, which is close to Christian Bible that God created everything and He is the One. And it can also be close to the Big Bang theory that the whole universe is created from a dot.

Now it should be easy for you to know the meaning and the extended meaning of "":
  • it can mean "the universe"
  • it can mean "everything"
  • it can mean "same"
  • it of course mean "1"
To end, let us enjoy a Chinese Calligraphy with "" inside. I am sure you can recognize it from below picture.

Chinese Calligraphy with "" inside

    Learn Chinese Character in a different way

    I have many colleagues who are not Chinese. Sometimes when we sit for the coffee, I will try to explain to them how Chinese characters are created and represented to mean different stuffs.

    And during the explanation, I found that we can actually appreciate Chinese characters and know their meaning without knowing their pronunciations. And by this way, foreigners are also more interested in learning Chinese through such a fun way. And I feel that it will also be easier for them to learn pronunciation that they can now understand why same pronunciation in Chinese can mean different things.

    And I also realized from a C++ Software Engineer point of view that how smart our Chinese ancestors are. They have created the Chinese language in a real OOP way that meaning of the Chinese Characters are totally de-coupled from their pronunciations. I liked that. And hopefully you will like it as well.