The Composition of Chinese Characters ( 06-08-24 )

The composition of Chinese characters follows a certain system. Most of the characters consist of several components, one phonetic component and one symbolic component. That means that even though the Chinese language -unlike the Roman alphabet- is not a phonetic alphabet you can sometimes recognize how a character is pronounced. The meaning of a character can be guessed from the symbolic component. The following character serves as an easy example: "叨"The character consists of two ...

The Development of Chinese Characters ( 06-08-24 )

In the Qing dynasty (清朝) the Chinese characters were standardized. Because of the fragmentation of the empire into many small semi- independent territories one character could be spelled in many ways. Since the unification of the empire in the Qing dynasty the script became a unifying element for China. Even though there were many different Chinese dialects and the spoken language had gone through changes over time the characters were the same in every part of the empire. Due to the fact that ...

The Origins of Chinese Characters ( 06-08-24 )

Chinese characters are the oldest script in the world which is still being used today. As early as 4000 years ago Chinese characters were used on oracle bones or tortoise shell. About 1.3 billion Chinese (PRC, Taiwan, overseas Chinese in the USA, Singapore etc.) use these characters today, which means about ¼ of mankind. Chinese symbols Originally, the Chinese characters were an ideographic script. Each of the characters stood for a certain thing, for example a human, the sun, the moon etc. ...

The Reform of Characters ( 06-08-24 )

There have been ideas about reforming the characters before. During the reign of the emperor Qin Shi Huangdi (秦始皇帝) of the Qin dynasty the spelling of characters was standardized. During the Hundred Days Reform in the 19th century thoughts about reforming the characters emerged. In the PRC a reform finally took place in 1955. However in the course of this reform only a small number of characters was simplified. 1055 different spellings of characters were declared null and void. Only about 500 ...

How Many Chinese Characters Exist? ( 06-08-24 )

How many characters do you have to know to be able to read a Chinese newspaper? And how many Chinese characters exist? Chinese children learn 3000 characters in the first six school years. This is sufficient for reading books and newspapers. Chinese who can master more than 1500 characters are not regarded as illiterates. Educated Chinese have internalized about 6000 characters. With the knowledge of the most common 3500 characters you are at least able to read about 99.7% of a text. The exact ...

How to Use a Dictionary ( 06-08-24 )