Chinese Pictogram
Memorizing Mandarin Character
The Chinese characters are pictogram. They depict the meaning of words in a pictorial way.
For example, can you guess the meaning of the words on the left top corner?
You see three characters, but they are actually one. It is the Mandarin character that depicts rain. We put them together to show you its evolution from the early days.
Does the character look like rain?
Chinese Pictogram & Meaning of Words
Not every Chinese character is so pictorial or intuitive, but many of them are.
As a result, if you can take the pictogram approach to appreciate and memorize the Chinese characters, you would be delighted to see better progress in your efforts of learning the language.
These are examples:
人 |
 |
Rén 人, which means human being |
木 |
 |
Mù 木, which means tree |
日 |
 |
Rì 日, which means the sun |
Can you see the pictograms at work?
Now, try the following exercise and give your answers by intuition. You don't really have to know the chinese writing to do so.
1. One of the following characters means ‘up’, while the other means ‘down’? Which character do you think means ‘up”?
下 |
上 |
1. xià |
2. shàng |
2. One of the following characters means ‘black’, while the other means ‘white’? Which character do you think means ‘black”?
白 |
黑 |
1. bái |
2. hēi |
3. One of the following characters means ‘goat’, while the other means ‘horse’? Which character do you think means ‘goat”?
羊 |
马 |
1. yáng |
2. mǎ |
There is a high chance that your answers are right, even if you know not a word of the chinese language.
These are the answers:
- Up is 上
- Black is 黑
- Goat is 羊
Appreciating the Chinese characters as pictogram is a very powerful approach to learning the language, and you should make it work to your advantage.
Read about radicals of Chinese words.
Read more about Chinese pictogram.
Read about simplified and traditional Chinese.
Read more about learning Chinese.
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