Learning Chinese Word

Lesson 06 The human symbol 人 I think we have enough for the straight lines, all about the horizontal and vertical strokes in the pervious lessons. This lesson we will learn the human symbol 人 , and other additions like 大 , 天 , and 夫 . To write the human symbol 人 , the first stroke is 丿 , which is a falling left stroke and it’s drew from top to bottom, with a little curvature bending left and ended with a pointed end, what we don’t do this kind of calligraphic style (pointed end of a stroke) because we are focusing on the handwriting strokes so far with normal pen or pencil, the structure of the Chinese characters we demonstrated is in plain style font. 人 human pronunciation: Rén Please look at the animation carefully. The first stroke (red color)   is the falling curved stroke bending left 丿 , draw it from top to bottom with a little curvature bending left. The second stroke (blue color), from somewhere about the shoulder part...

Lesson 05 Combination of 口 and 十 with other elements This lesson we will combine the 口 symbol with other symbols like 十 , 士 , 土 , and 玉 , to form Chinese words like 古 , 吉 , 吐 , 中 , and 国 . 古 ancient pronunciation: Gǔ As in the animation, you can see this symbol 古 , is the combination of one cross form 十 (ten) on the top of the 口 (month) the square form. The order of handwriting is, start from the upper part, the 十 part, when finish this part, then proceed with the lower part, the 口 (mouth) part. By the way, in case you need to review these basic elements,   the instruction for symbol 十 (ten) is in Lesson 02, and for symbol 口 (mouth) is in Lesson 04. 吉 auspicious pronunciation: Jí This 吉 symbol is the combination of 士 (learned or noble person) on the top of a 口 (mouth) symbol. It means “auspicious, lucky” and usually used as an adjective to add in front of a noun. For example, the word 吉日 (lucky da...

Lesson 04 Right angle ㄇ and 口 Square This lesson we will learn how to write the Chinese symbol 口 , the mouth, a square shape. I am not talking about the traditional calligraphic way, that kind of ancient art needs some styles and skills with the using of brush pen and black ink. We are learning the handwriting skill of modern Chinese words, use a pen, pencil, or any tool you used to write on paper. The Chinese characters in handwriting are the combination of lines, curves, dots, and hooks which can be assembled together to express different styles of writing strokes.   口 mouth pronunciation: Kǒu It’s kind of troublesome to create this GIF animation in three different layers and colors, each color presents a continuous stroke as the order of writing (or drawing) for this Chinese symbol 口 , a standard square shape, that’s a very important element of lots of Chinese words related to talk, speak, month, and eat. 1. the first stroke, ...

Chinese 03 Cross, horizontal, vertical bars mixed This lesson is to review the previous 2 lessons, about horizontal bars, vertical bars, and the intersections of them. We are going to learning the following characters: 士 , 土 , 工 , 王 , and 玉 士 learned, trained person pronunciation: Shì The first example is the Chinese symbol 士 , which is a classic word in ancient China, means “learned people or noble people.” This symbol was adopt by ancient Japanese (during Tang Dynasty 618-907) and developed as a modern word as “trained, skilled person” and you know what? It was translated (adopt) back to China in early 1900s to use as a modern word.  The pronunciation is Shì, which is a retroflex consonant in speaking Mandarin. Again, as I did in the previous lesson, I will add a reference link for practicing all 4 tones about Shī, Shí, Shǐ, Shì on the end of this article. Why do I keep emphasizing the “retroflex consonant” thing? Because it’s very...

Lesson 02 Vertical and crossed strokes 十 We have already learned the horizontal strokes ㄧ , 二 , 三 from Lesson 01, now it’s time to learn the vertical strokes and the 十 crossed strokes. Vertical bars The first symbol we are going to study is the Chinese symbol 川 with three vertical strokes . It’s the ancient Chinese hieroglyph for “river” and symbolized with three curved or semi-vertical lines like river flows. It also the abbreviated name of Sichuan 四川 , where comes a famous spicy hot Chinese cuisine style. 川 river, Sichuan pronunciation: Chuān Look at the structure of the symbol 川 , there are three vertical bars. When there are more than one part in a symbol, in this case, three parts (bars) are arranged at left, middle, right position. The process for writing parts of this symbol 川 is: left bar first, then middle bar, and right bar will be the last one. The second symbol is the Chinese word 十 , the number 10. This is the cr...

Lesson 01 Horizontal bars, the very basic strokes Let’s start from the very basic stroke of Chinese writing: the horizontal bar, a line drawing from left to right. We are going to write the first Chinese three numbers, ㄧ (one), 二 , (two), and 三 (three). like this: this is the Chinese symbol for "one" 一 one, number 1 pronunciation: Yī By the way, when you are learning Chinese handwriting of this lesson, just use a pen, pencil, marker, or any writing instrument whichever you feel comfortable to practice. I am not teaching the Chinese calligraphy, which you need a special brush pen and ink to write and display all the amazing strokes of calligraphic art forms. When you know how to write Chinese characters by hand, then you can do the traditional Chinese calligraphy easily. The second simple word is the Chinese symbol for "two" 二 two, number 2 pronunciation:  Èr two horizontal bars, bo...