班 bān class
事 shì matter
票 piào ticket
意 yì meaning
Word Practice
Exercise Set 11
12 Take it Easy 别太累了
身 shēn body
眼 yǎn eye
累 lèi/lěi tired
忙 máng busy
病 bìng disease
药 yào medicine
休 xiū to rest
望 wàng to hope
别 bié do not
Word Practice
Exercise Set 12
Answer Key
English-Chinese Index
Hanyu Pinyin Index
Some Tips on Learning
Mandarin Chinese Characters
Look at the nature surrounding you, the mountains, the rivers, the trees, the flowers, the animals and the people. All have different shapes and different voices. Ancient Chinese people living within this beautiful world found a unique way for humans to communicate with each other. They created Chinese characters!
From oracle-bone script to bronze inscriptions, from seal script to clerical script, from regular script to simplified Chinese characters, centuries upon centuries have passed by and those square shaped figures are still being used by a vast population today.
Chinese characters from past to present
There are two other ancient writing systems known to man, the Sumerian cuneiform and the Egyptian hieroglyphs. Of the three, the Chinese character writing system is the only ancient writing system still being used today. Credit for this goes to several distinct features that make Chinese characters unique.
Three Basic Elements of the Chinese Character: Form, Sound and Meaning
汉字的三个基本要素: 形,音,义
Chinese characters are known as square shaped characters. Each character is made up of three basic elements: form, sound and meaning. For example,
“我” is the form.
“wǒ” is the sound.
“I” is the meaning.
Over time, there have been many changes in the phonetics of Chinese characters. The composition and meanings, however, have remained somewhat the same. As a result, many Chinese speaking people today can read ancient texts without much difficulty.
Before the inception of Chinese characters, communication was difficult within China due to the number of vastly different dialects being spoken. Chinese characters gave people a common ground for understanding.
One Syllable and Single Characters
单音节和独体字
Chinese characters are single characters with one syllable. These characters are created by drawing pictures of objects. Over time the characters have evolved from pictures into symbols. The symbols were standardized, then simplified to make writing easier. This simplified version is very basic in structure. It can’t be divided into components or radicals. For example,
月 yuè means “moon”
木 mù means “tree” or “wood”
山 shān means “mountain”
水 shuǐ means “water”
Many of these types of characters are classified as Chinese “pictograms.”
In addition, there is another small category of characters that are direct iconic illustrations. Examples of these include:
上 shàng for “up” and 下 xià for “down”.
These were originally a dot above and below a line. Single number characters, such as,
一 yī for “one”
二 èr for “two”
三 sān for “three”
are also included in this category.
Composed Characters with New Meanings
具有新义的合体字
In the Chinese language there are many compound characters. Compound characters are made up of two or more single characters. When single characters are joined, the meaning and pronunciation of the character can change dramatically. There are twelve ways to compose Chinese characters. For example,
from top to bottom: 日 + 生 = 星
from left to right: 其 + 月 = 期
from left to middle to right: 言(讠) + 身 + 寸 = 谢 and so on.
Here are two frequently used ways to compose compound characters.
1) Two single characters may be combined to create a new single character with a new meaning.
2) Two single characters may be joined to form a new word. This new word is pronounced by speaking the individual characters, one after the other. The definition of this newly formed word may be similar to the individual original definitions or it may be completely changed. Look carefully at the following examples.
In this book, you will see that many compound characters are composed in these two ways.
Various Radicals
多样化的偏旁部首
A Chinese radical (or “section header”) is sometimes considered a “classifier.” It is a particular component of most compound characters that can be found in various positions within the word. The radical usually gives a clue as to the meaning of the character. It can also help with the pronunciation of a word. Characters with the same radical can be grouped together for the easy of studying
