Left and Right

cinnamonfern
 January 04, 2011 at 12:20 PM posted in General Discussion

Hey all, does anyone have any tips or ideas on how to remember the difference between "left" 左 [zuǒ] and "right" 右 [yòu], both the pronunciation and the characters? I cannot remember which is which to save my life and it's starting to drive me a little crazy.

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cinnamonfern
 January 05, 2011 at 08:01 AM

Thanks butane!  But that means I need to learn something about baseball, so one more thing to remember...too much work for me.  ;) 

I think I've come up with a way to remember:

右 contains the character kǒu, which is spelled like yòu. So kǒu 口 is kind round-shaped and the word "right" also has a round-shaped letter in it (g), while "left" doesn't. By reverse logic, "left" is the other symbol 左 and the other sound zuǒ.

This explanation seems so odd - but it's interesting the way our brains make associations, isn't it?

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jen_not_jenny
 January 05, 2011 at 09:16 AM

My point, of course, being that it is indeed fascinating the way (other people's) brains work...

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jen_not_jenny
 January 05, 2011 at 09:09 AM

A (right-handed) friend of mine used to remember that 右 you4 means right because every time she got the urge to fold in her third finger to her palm and give the standard 'Merkin "Yo, yo, yo (what up my brotha)" greeting she'd use her right hand....

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guest
 January 04, 2011 at 12:55 PM

If I call your name, you might put up your right hand and say 'yo[u]'.

Imagine the mouth radical is the strike zone in baseball. An umpire will usually signal a strike by punching to his right (to a RH batter at least).