Mar 14, 2013

Vocabulary - Simple Words (1)

If you follow the lesson step by step, you should have learned 16 Chinese characters by now. It's time to add a few more simple words now.

百 (hundred) without the top horizontal stroke is 白 (white colour). Both the pronunciation are the same.

băi
hundred
băi
white



Other simple characters

rén
people
a person with both legs wide open
big
a person with both arms & legs wide open
xiăo
small
a person put his arms & legs close to body
tiān
sky
sky (top horizon) is above (bigger than) big (大)
jiān
sharp
small on one end & big on other end
tài
too
a dot inside


When you write 人, you start with downward stroke to the left, but when you write 大, you should start with horizontal stroke. When you write 天, you start with upper then lower horizontal strokes.



Combining two characters

Every Chinese character can be combined to give more specific meaning, just like combining English words. Similar to English, the thing to be described is placed after the descriptive word, eg. white car, sharp knife.


大人
adult
"big people"
小人
shameless person
not children
白人
caucasian
"white people"
白天
day time
white sky
太大
too big

太小
too small

太白
too white

太尖
too sharp





More simple and important characters that you should learn by heart now, as you will come across these words frequently in future lessons soon.

sun/day
like a drawing of a sun
yuè
moon/month
like a drawing of a moon
shān
hill
like a drawing of a hill
mén
door
like a drawing of a door
chē
car










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