文, 言, 字, 词 and 诗
johnb
December 01, 2007, 02:00 PM posted in General DiscussionThe last two lessons have been pretty tough -- 廖 and 毙 are, admittedly, not characters you run into every day. Today we'll take it down a notch, and look at five characters that talk about language.
We'll start with 文 [wén], which means "language" or "literature," but has an expanded meaning "culture" and "civilization." In fact, one of the more common words it is found in, 文化 [wénhuà] "culture," really means something like "culturalification," in the same way that 自动化 [zìdònghuà] means "automation." It is also found in words for the names of languages, like 中文, 英文, 日文, etc. Radical: 文 (67). Components: 亠乂. Stroke Count: 4
The next character we'll look at is 言 [yán], which means "speech" or "language." By itself, 言 means "to say," basically the same as 说 [shuō], but is seldom used in this way. Instead, 言 is found in tons of compounds, including 语言 [yǔyán] -- "language" -- 谣言 [yáoyán] -- "rumors." Radical: 言 (149). Components: 亠口. Stroke Count: 7
Next up we have 字 [zì], which refers to written characters. This character is both easy and common, and should be no problem to learn. An obvious word involving this character is the entire focus of our group, 汉字 [hànzì] -- "Chinese character." 数字 [shùzì], meaning "number" -- as in the actual digits: 1234567890. Radical: 子 (39). Components: 子宀. Stroke Count: 6
Fourth we'll look at 词 [cí], which means "word" (generally made up of one or more 词). This can be a little confusing at first when looking for a good dictionary, as 字典 [zìdiǎn] contain only individual character entries, whereas a 词典 [cídiǎn] has both words and characters (but only characters that are words on their own). For music lovers, the word 歌词 [gēcí] -- "lyrics" -- might be important as well. Radical: 言 (149). Components: 讠司. Stroke Count: 7
Finally, we arrive at something made up of 词 and 字 -- 诗 [shī], "poetry," "verse." A poet is simply a "poem person" -- 诗人 [shīrén] -- in Chinese. You can add this character to the back of many dynasty names to get a word for poetry written during that time, like 唐诗 [tángshī] for poetry from the Tang Dynasty. Radical: 言 (149). Components: 讠寺土寸. Stroke Count: 8
johnb
December 03, 2007, 03:12 AMAFAIK 讠 is never on the right hand side, though there are some characters where its not on the extreme left (normally because some other radical has been added to a character that already contained it), like 辩 and 狱.
RonInDC
December 01, 2007, 06:51 PM生词- new word 文章- article or essay 言论- expression of (political) views
man2toe
December 01, 2007, 09:04 PM詩或者寺?
johnb
December 01, 2007, 11:47 PMMan2Toe, here's what you have to do: put five spaces after a line you want to break. Or, just use the HTML "< br />" tag (without the spaces between the components). It's a "feature" of the Markdown plugin, something that we're trying to figure out a way around.
RE: the publishing rate, I'll try it like this for a few weeks and see how it goes. :)
Also, you're right, it's 诗/詩 not 寺. Oops :) I'll change the title now!
man2toe
December 01, 2007, 05:40 PM哼
man2toe
December 02, 2007, 02:39 PMThanks JohnB. Yes Bryan, that looks good. HTML "< br />" tag I am ignorant when it comes to computer code:(
user4318
December 02, 2007, 07:39 PMThank you for including both traditional and simplified. I am trying to increase my simplified but don't want to lose traditional.
bryan
December 03, 2007, 02:47 AMSo when 言 is a stand-alone character it remains 言 in simplified, but when just part of a character it switches to 讠，is that right? Also, is the 讠always on the left side of a character? In my very limited exposure to 汉字, I don't recall ever seeing it on the right-hand side...
bryan
December 03, 2007, 02:47 AMSo when 言 is a stand-alone character it remains 言 in simplified, but when just part of a character it switches to 讠，is that right? Also, is the 讠always on the left side of a character? In my very limited exposure to 汉字, I don't recall ever seeing it on the right-hand side...
bryan
December 02, 2007, 03:06 AMThis is a test for Man2Toe. Is this what you want?
文, 言, 字, 词, and 寺
文, 言, 字, 詞, and 寺
Two spaces at the end of the line followed by a hard return does the trick.
man2toe
December 01, 2007, 05:39 PMJohn,
Are you sure seven days a week is going to work for you? That's a ton of work. Maybe Saturday could be a week review and Sunday a day off for you. We want you around for the long term.
I am having a problem with the formatting of these messages and the edit button doesn't seem to be working for me.
The problem I am having is I paste in the simplified characters on one line and type in the traditional on the line below. When I post, the system combines the two lines together. I am going to try and put and English word at the end of the first line today to see if this helps maintain the two line's separation.
文, 言, 字, 词 and 寺 mirror 文, 言, 字, 詞, and 寺
寺廟