i would suggest when you start learning chinese,do not try to figure out how these charaters are formed, just repeat it and keep them in heart like chinese babies.
Agreed. Overthinking about Chinese characters would be like asking someone to study Latin and Ancient Greek affixes before learning English words. Essentially learning meanings before meanings if that makes sense. It may help, but you’re making you’re journey much longer. 想 for example, it’s something to do with feelings. I don’t break it down and think to myself “I’m using my eyes to inspect a tree, so this must convey the idea of blah blah....” I just learn the character and only when is use it in a compound form (想要）should I be thinking of the idea of “want”.
氵is water 目 is eye 忄is feeling 讠is speaking/information if these are beside or under any character it has those meanings For example: Swimming 游泳 Talk 讲 Speak 说 Emotion 心情
@@NPC-W I guess you're a person that lives in a place where traditional Chinese characters are used, so you defend them. Simplified Chinese is made so you don't break your hands writing millions of strokes to imply basic meaning (exaggerated is intentional)
@@Kitulous unluckily, some basic meaning of chinese words is mixed up after simplifying. such as: 後(back) and 后(queen), 髪(hair) and 發(happen), 幹(work), 乾(dry), and 干(interfere, and also a part of chinese calendar system) 製(make) and 制(stop) i agree that making chinese easier to learn is a good idea. but mixing up its meaning is just rediculous in making things easy and simple.
@@NPC-W just how most words are expected to be understood or comprehended by reading the whole sentence. Yet no doubt that tradition ones keep the key concept of some words that we can appreciate
3. As a side note, I also have been living in Asia and teaching elementary and middle school children for the past 6 years, and can attest that my students, along with their involved parents, loved the animations and have been very supportive of sharing the videos with their friends.
I find Chinese so complicated but the explanations of the origins of the characters is very helpful. And I'm completely in awe of the drawing skills! How does anyone draw so perfectly without any mistakes? Must take a lot of practise.
i learned chinese like 30 years ago, i can no longer write most words, but im still able to read them very easily, just a glance, i can read the entire sentence, then instantly i forget how they looks like.
:-) The character at 5:34 is a combination of 女 (woman), 口 (mouth) and 心 (heart). The combination of those three radicals is depicting the meaning "consideration" or "forgiveness". There's a nice little mnemonic in that... "heartfelt words from a woman's mouth" or something along those lines ;-)
I'm studying Chinese and try to remember all this characters. It's so hard to remember Chinese characters. Your video is so helpful :) Like your video.
As a native speaker, I absolutely love your breakdown of this intro to Chinese characters ❤️ thank you for producing these, my partner will find this very useful 👍🏻
if you want to learn native Chinese, you can come to “verbalplanet” and try Jingning Miao Chinese Class by skype. You can enjoy your first class for free.I hope you can insist learning Chinese and find its interests.
I've always told my students that Chinese characters are based on four elements (1) abstract marks adopted from oracle bones and shells, (2) pictographs, (3) ideographs, and (4) sound.
Well, if you learn just one character a day, you could be literate within 11 years. :) 4000 characters / 365 days = 10.96 years But odds are you can learn more than one word/character per day, so you could be literate much quicker than that, and certainly have some basic familiarity with the language.
As a Chinese, when people ask me how to learn Chinese, what I want to tell them is that hearing your parents and people people around u speaking Chinese everyday and having a hard time in primary school trying to memorize all the Pingyin and letters will help
You could say something in line of "Git Gud", except that you're not playing Dark Souls but instead trying to get a job done but have to deal with a stupid writing system.
You simply realise how boring English or any alphabetical language is when you know how to write Chinese. Every single words has their own meaning/stories and different pronouncation
Teoh Pin Hwa - A language is like a tool, I employ it so I can do a pratical task, like sending an e-mail to my client or employeer. I don't want it to be "fun" and I really don't care what are the etimology of the word "纠正", I want to write a message in a way that my reciever understands and I want to do it with the most quick and efficient manner possible. It don't need to be overlycomplex than it need to be, I don't have time for linguistic bs, I have a deadline to fulfill. What you cal "boringness", I call "efficiency".
lol Linguistics is how you obtained that "efficiency". The system changes all the time and without proper knowledge of etymology, your language would eventually be defunct. It's a little easier now cause more people are literate, but you still need linguists to constantly organise words and their meanings for the general populace. Just because you're ignorant of the importance of linguistics doesn't mean you're any more practical than the rest of us. The Chinese writing system has its own perks with words having multiple associative derivatives. The alphabets having no visual connection to the object they're describing has more than enough weaknesses that you simply do not care to admit lol.
I am a Taiwanese and I speak Chinese Mandarin. This is the first time that I know where those characters came from. And your Chinese characters are so beautiful.
Why is the first reply, or at least 1 of the first 3, always someone thinking they're showing how smart they are by pointing out the bloody obvious to a sarcastic comment?
This is a wonderful video that I never seen before. I can write and read Chinese. But this is so amazing to understand how these characters made of. I am showing my kids your video and they love it. Thanks.
I can't believe I'm about to say this, but this is without a doubt the most fascinating video I've ever seen in my life. All I kept saying was, "WHOA! THAT ACTUALLY MAKES A LOT OF SENSE!" Within 1:30 I hit subscribe. Thanks for making my virtual life
Its baddddd I work at a restaurant and we handwrite all of our menus in traditional (and I end up writing them because I have a degree in penmanship (I'm not entirely sure the English equivalent of this word sorry)) and this one is always just a struggle because its like what, 53 strokes? and then 3 characters? the total is like over 150 strokes probably
+Bo Bramer somehow I managed to remember how to write it in the exact stroke order. The total is 56 strokes and it's the most useless character ever exists.
It's not 3500 alphabets, it's 3500 words( some of which are also alphabets). i don’t know how many “alphabets” we have, but it's obviously not that many
English and other languages use 26 to 32 LETTERS. But they have just as many (if not more) words as Chinese. And you have already memorized 1000s of them......for example, you already memorized all words in my response. When you read this, you don't need to spell out each word because you've already memorized what it looks like.
7:35 Its hell, when typing my name on a computer sometimes, my chinese name is an old variant of a particular word and unicode doesn't have that character. Its created a lifelong problem with getting my name accepted in many electronic systems lol. Its like those parents who name their kid Abcde with accents.
So to learn Chinese, someone has to pronounce each word for you, then you memorize an arbitrary symbol for that word. No wonder it’s the most difficult language to learn. Beautiful and fascinating, but very alien to my Western mind.
As a Chinese native speaker of Taiwan, I'm really impressed by this video which provides extremely detailed information of getting to know Chinese at the first place. Well done! This video really helps lots of Chinese learners have a better grasp of it!
I study in China and I took a college course on how the "pictographic" notion is just a fable or a cool story to tell people learning Chinese. Pretty interesting class
Hello. Having taken many years worth of Chinese, I've found memorizing the characters to be quite Sisyphean. I find this methodology cogent and wonderful. For example, now I finally understand certain passages of the Three Kingdoms that deal with linguistic riddles. My only request is thus: Please make more videos!
Why I do NOT like Simplified Chinese Characters at all When I write, text or type, I always use traditional Chinese characters instead of simplified Chinese characters if the situation allows. I don’t personally use simplified Chinese, which the only type of Chinese characters that Chinese people learn from school after 1956. So some people like some of my relatives and friends asked me why I always use traditional ones, they guess that I embrace Taiwan after I met my Taiwanese girlfriend (actually I did use traditional ones before I met her, but my girlfriend does help me a lot on that). And today, when I was teaching Mandarin, I asked my students a question: “the Chinese characters are originally from...?” (I have taught them Chinese characters are from images and symbols.) And one student raised his hand very confidently and shouted his answer “Japan!” I was shocked at the first moment and I shook my head and laughed. But wait! Actually, his answer is partly right... Some of the simplified Chinese characters are brought from Simplified Kanji (Chinese characters) of Japan... Things are just becoming a little bit more complicated. Take a deep breath and let me explain… In fact, around the time of the World Wars, the nationalism became more and more popular and stronger in those former western colonies or western influenced countries. After their independence, they all wanted to show something pride and unique in their culture, so most of east Asian countries from so called "Chinese Culture Circle (Confucianism Culture Circle)", were hastening to get rid of the influence of China, such as Japan, Korea and Vietnam, started their own process to simplify, change or eliminate the Chinese characters in their written language. At mostly meanwhile, new Chinese regime was eager to build their new culture, and the scholars in the Chinese Character Development/reform Committee was strongly influenced by “the May-4th” Period dreams and values. In that period, a lot of China’s intellectuals were extremely anti-traditional cultures and moral values. They wanted to establish a new Chinese culture. These scholars were the main power of the committee we were talking about, and the new regime led them to start the processing of their characters simplifying. After these processes, the beauty of Chinese characters, the artistic connections with its imagery symbols were badly and fatally broken. For example, Simplified Chinese takes the “heart” away from the “love” (爱 instead of 愛, “心” means heart); Takes the “wheat” away from the “noodle”（面 instead of 麵，“麥” means wheat）; Takes the "seeing each other" from the “closeness” or “intimacy” (亲instead of 親，“見”means meeting or seeing )... and I have tons of examples to show if needed... Well, if someone wants to argue or defend for Simplified Chinese characters by using the point of Simplified characters are easier to write, I would say that simplified characters are easier to be written, but they are way less systematic and hard to understand by comparing to traditional characters. Why? Because after simplifying, it has so many single Chinese characters which has more than one meaning. For example, after the simplifying, 面 is noodle and also face. What the heck! If you go to China, you will read the menu for Beef Noodle, which it logically could be “beef face”, and Ramen or “La Mian” (literally twisting, stretching, folding or kneading noodle), it could logically turn to “twisting or stretching or kneading face”! Wow! That hurts! One more example which is even more distractive and misguiding, after simplifying，发 means hair and launch or produce. But in its traditional way, 發 means produce or launch, hair is another word which is 髮. You can tell the top right part which represent the hair, so 理髮(haircut) were changed to 理发(“haircut or launch-cut”). What is even worse? In simplified 发, if you teach, you have to teach different pronunciations in different cases. When they combined two different words in one, it caused one word, which has different pronunciations with different meanings. By the way, to combine different characters to one character was mostly Mao’s idea, but the thing seems weird because you can barely see him to write simplified characters. When I studied in Beijing Language and Culture University, I remember there was a plaque on the wall of the dining hall building, it has a sentence quoted from “The Literary Mind and the Carving of Dragons”(文心雕龍)，in that sentence, if you write this sentence in simplified characters, then it has a big ambiguity between “launch” and “hair”. (理發（＊理发）而文見) In this case, although I believe it is easier to write (less strokes) in simplified, but the simplified Chinese became harder to understand and also learn by heart! Sometimes, the Simplified Chinese character is way to distractive! If you are an English or some Romance languages speaker, you can be easily fooled by saying that simplified Chinese are easier to learn and write, for example, in English, you spell the words by its pronunciations, if you say “th-an-ks”, you can spell it “thanks” by the way you say it. But Chinese is totally different! It is just not working out that way. Why? Be aware of this! Chinese is the ONLY surviving language, which has logogram writing. That means if you write a Chinese character, you can probably tell some meaning of the character by the writing symbols. If you see parts like “食” ，“金” or “心”, then the character has very likely the meaning of “food”, ”metal or chemical elements”, and ”thinking or by heart”. In my opinion, the traditional Chinese is a little harder to write, but the beauty and logic of Chinese is right in it, I don’t mind to write some more strokes to make my hand writing more beautiful and making more sense. Furthermore, in nowadays, we have very few opportunities to hand write something anyway. Why not bring the beautiful traditional Chinese characters back! Speaking of bringing it back, in fact, in some aspects, it never goes away. In Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macao and so many overseas Chinese communities (like China towns in the US or Malaysia), traditional Chinese characters are still being vastly used. Even in China, Chinese calligraphy is mostly written by using traditional Chinese characters. Why? Because it is more beautiful. That it one of the most important points of making art, expressing of beauty. And so many company logo designs and business banners and signs are written by using traditional Chinese. I believe this is why the logo of the school I work, which is called East Point Academy is traditional “東”(means East) instead of simplified “东” even though most of Chinese teachers here from China teach simplified Chinese. I know in so many countries outside China, the reason for people there to learn Chinese is for communicating and business opening with Chinese people, and Chinese people in China use simplified Chinese. It sounds very practical and it’s no reason to blame to be practical. But speaking of deeper levels study and culturally understanding, why don’t I teach both simplified and traditional? I know some of top universities in the US and Europe do learn traditional Chinese in their Chinese or Sino studies, such as Columbia University in NY, etc. Even some Chinese elementary or high schools in California (where the biggest Chinese population is) provide lower graders only traditional Chinese and higher graders to choose from traditional and simplified. Why traditional first? Like what I said, it is more systematic for understanding. In the recent years of China, people can probably have the feeling that there are some more self-concentrated or culturally root searching and self-ego boosting trend are going on in China’s politic and culture field. Every time the “People’s congress” are held, there are proposals about bringing traditional Chinese characters back. None of them were approved, but I think the trend will get stronger and stronger while Chinese society turns to more and more self-concentrated and realized the treasure in Chinese culture. Hopefully by now, I have already explained clearly enough that why I don’t like simplified Chinese. By the way, that is another reason for me that I love Taiwan. 為什麼我不喜歡簡體漢字 當我寫字、發短信或者打字的時候，只要情況允許，我一定是用繁體字而不是簡化字，因為我個人並不喜歡簡體字。雖然1956年以後的幾代中國人都學簡體字，但是和別人交流時候我還是能不用簡體字我就不用。有的人問我為什麼，比如說我的家裏人，或者我的有些朋友，他們還以為我是因為認識了我來自台灣的女朋友，然後才熱烈擁抱台灣（實際上我在遇到我女朋友之前就已經開始學習和使用繁體字了）。 然後今天，我在教課的時候，我問我的學生“漢字的起源是怎樣的？”（我們之前學了漢字的起源是圖像化的符號）然後我看到一個學生自信的舉手，然後大聲說出他的答案--“漢字是日本來的！”我當時都要暈了，但是後來想想，他說的並不是全錯，因為簡體漢字的確有很多字是來自於日本的簡化漢字。 好像事情越來越複雜了！ 深吸一口氣，請聽我來解釋…… 實際上，在兩次大戰前後，民族主義的風潮越來越盛，尤其是在那些淪為殖民地或者半殖民地的國家裡。這些國家在獨立之後，都想要展示出各自文化中光榮而且獨特的東西，而不是受別人影響很多的東西。所以所謂漢字文化圈或者儒家文化圈的國家都急切地想要擺脫影響了自己太久的中國影響，這在中國被叫作“去中國化”。比如日本、韓國、越南，它們都開始了文字改革，削弱或者努力去除漢字的影響。幾乎在同一時期，中國的新政權想要建立新的文化，在中國的文字改革委員會中，很多的文字改革參與者都是五四時代的知識份子，五四時代眾所週知是一個反中國傳統文化，反傳統道德，想要破舊立新的時代。這些學者是中國文字改革委員會的主力軍，在新政府的領導下開始了漢字的簡化。在漢字簡化過後，漢字的美感大大喪失了，漢字和其源流的聯繫也被割斷了許多。比如在簡化以後，“愛”字去掉了“心”，“麵”字去掉了“麥”，“親”字去掉了“見”。這樣的例子多到不勝枚舉。 如果說有人想要和我說，或者為簡體字辯護說簡化後的漢字筆畫少了，所以比較容易寫。其實我想說，簡化字當然是好寫了些，但是簡化字破壞的是漢字的系統性，所以和繁體字相比，簡體字比較難以理解記憶，融會貫通。為什麼是這樣？ 因為簡化字不僅僅是減少筆畫，而且用合併多個漢字成為一個漢字的辦法來減少漢字數量。這就造成了一字多意的問題。比如說，簡化以後，“面”即是“麵條”又是“臉面”。什麼！？怎麼會這樣！所以說如果在中國看菜單，“牛肉麵”可以是“牛肉臉”，“拉麵”可以是“拉臉”！是不是聽起來很痛！更有甚者，簡化以後，“頭髮”的“髮”變成了“發”，所以發財、發射，也可以說是髮財、髮射，理髮可以成了理發。“髮”字代表頭髮的象形部件被減去了。如果要是教簡化字的話，你還要教給學生這個字在不同的意義時候有不同的讀音。理髮，髮是四聲，發財，發是一聲。所以說把多個漢字變成一個字的方法造成了更多的多音字。順便提一句，把多個漢字合併成一個漢字是毛的主意，但是他本人並不寫簡體字。還有一個問題，就是這麼做會造成一些歧異，比如在北京語言大學食堂的牆上（不知道現在還有沒有），有一句摘自《文心雕龍》的句子，“情動而言形,理發而文見”，這句話如果是簡體字的話，就有歧異，難道可以是因為剪頭髮才想要寫文章嗎？ 所以說在這種情形下，我承認簡體字總體上來說筆畫少，好寫一點，但是這種中國字影響人們對字意本身的理解，也比較缺少系統性。有的時候，簡體字很容易造成歧異。 很多人，也許很容易就被簡體字容易學容易寫的說法唬弄了。在英語裡，單詞的拼寫是和讀音相關的，“我手寫我口”，你知道怎麼說話，只要稍加訓練，就可以知道正確的拼寫。但是漢字可不是這樣，為什麼呢？ 因為你得知道，漢字是目前唯一存活著的語素文字，也就是說，你寫一個漢字，通過字型，你可以大概知道這個字可能的意思，繁體字在這一點上做得非常好，因為它和漢字的象形有著更加明顯的聯繫。在我看來，繁體字的確比較難寫，但是漢字的象形在裏邊，美感在裏邊，承認是炎黃子孫的人，介意多寫幾筆，而讓你的字富有本來的意義，而且帶有漢字之美嗎？更何況，現在我們都很少有手寫的機會寫字，大家都打字的話，簡繁之分並不能分出那一種字更節約時間了。為什麼我們不能把漢字之美帶回來呢？ 說到把漢字帶回來，事實上，在好多方面，繁體字並沒有離開我們太多，在港澳和台灣以及眾多海外華人社區仍然廣泛應用著。即便是在中國大陸，書法幾乎都是以繁體字來完成，為什麼？因為書法是一門藝術，藝術的要義是表現美，繁體字當然更好看啊！眾多的店鋪、商家都用繁體字來裝飾他們的店名和招牌。就連我工作的教授簡體字的中文學校的校徽都有一個繁體字的“東”，而不是簡體字。其實很明顯，就是大家覺得繁體字典雅、古樸、好看。 其實我明白在中國以外，外國人學中文就是為了和中國打交道、賺錢，所以要學中國人用的漢字。這是很實際的想法，而且也沒有錯。誰會責備實用主義呢？但是要是說到更深層次的學習和文化上更深刻的理解，那為什麼不簡繁並舉呢？我知道很多歐美的頂級大學還是在用繁體字的，好像哥倫比亞大學就是這樣，或是北歐幾所漢學很強的大學等。在美國華人最多的加州，有些中文學校要求低年級學生必修繁體，到了高年級，則可以自由選擇簡體或者繁體。為什麼要用繁體打基礎呢？因為繁體字毫無疑問的更系統，學起來更有助於對漢字的理解。 近些年來的中國，有一種社會趨勢，就是越來越著眼於傳統文化，有更強的文化尋根意識。每次的“兩會”，總有在不同程度上恢復繁體字的提案提出，雖然未有採納，但是我相信當國人越來越意識到中國文化的妙處和繁體字的優點，這種回歸繁體字的聲音會越來越壯大，也許有一天，能夠彌合這種對中國文化造成的傷害。 洋洋數語，我希望我說清楚了為什麼我不喜歡簡體字。 順便說一句，其實繁體字也是我愛台灣的原因之一。
+Mowen Yuan I just want to say that this guy do not understand the Chinese culture and Chinese history。没文化真可怕，不要出来秀下限了，也难怪，蛮夷之人，岂懂我中华之文化！简体字很多从日本引进，我也是醉了，的确有但是很少，可以忽略不计。从汉朝开始很多书法家，很多知识分子，就开始用了简体字。马王堆出土的汉墓竹简、敦煌文书和帛书，自己去看有好多简体字，那个时候这些简体就已经传人日本了！繁体字是清朝按照1875年“大清钦定正体字”搞出来的，本来汉字是可以有很多别字的，很多通假字，反而规范的这么复杂。90%的简体字实际上古代就有 ，简体字古以有之，现在的简体字很多都是以前就有的，如“从”、“众”、“礼”、“无”、“尘”、“云”等等，这些字都见于《说文解字》，比繁体字更符合“六书”，有的繁体字反而是写错了的，是满族人造的。你可以查一查《简化字始见时代一览表》，很多简体字都来源于先秦时代。汉字有简体和繁体的不同,并不是现在才有的,而是远在甲骨文时代就有的。甲骨文里的“车”字有繁有简,繁体的车有车轮、车箱、车辕、车轭等,简体 的车就只有车轮和车箱,而简体的车流传后世就成了楷书繁体字的车。东汉的《章帝千字文断简》中就有简体的“汉”字,居延汉简和敦煌汉简里就有简体的“书”。如果说把汉字繁化就是“复古”，那么汉字正字法的真正“复古”是在清 朝。古人的文章里有很多通假字，其实学术要严谨，写字就不必严谨了，把字看的那么严谨的，是从满清时代才开始的习惯，而那时是学术沦亡的时候。现在的简体字也是中国传统的汉字，残存的永乐大典，全是简化异体字书写的。你批评“简化为“后”的“後”与本来的“后”不一样，简化为“发”的“發”与“髮”不一样，简化为“并”的“併”与“並”也不一样。 ”其实本来的后就是这个后，而“後”不过是历史短得多的其中一种写法， 简体的这个后字写法可以追溯到商朝甲骨文和西周金文，汉朝说文解字里有後和后两种写法。古代的爱字，上边字头代表手，宝盖下还有个心，最下面是友，那个意思是用手去掏朋友的心，利用朋友，这是爱吗?看来，还是把爱字的心去掉为好，就像现在这样，呵呵。。。。。。。。。。。。还有很多很多。。。。。。。。人贵在有自知之明，不要无脑乱说。
Yes Chinese is super difficult for westerners, but I think Japanese is much more. Those kanji are reformed from Chinese characters.....lots of them have lost their original meanings......really crazy to learn both at the same time (⊙_⊙)
Plus Hira and Kata but Chinese has Tones... So it's a trade off I think. Japanese is easier to speak. Korean is the easiest of the three though. You don't need to know any Hanja to write and its not that hard to pronounce and no tones. Grammar is hard a f though.
@Sier Small if you learned Japanese first then learn Chinese (simplified/traditional) it will make you go insane. However if you learned Chinese letters first then learn Kanji Japanese, it’ll be so much more easier! I learned Chinese during childhood(because I’m Chinese) and then learned Japanese when I was 10 and then got fluent with it when I hit 12. A friend of mine from Japan said he used 5 years just to learn a good amount of Chinese.
@Grethel Rodríguez 네, 한국의 문법 정말 어려운 거 같아요. 하지만 한국어는 중국어보다 쉬워 생각해요. Korean grammar is more difficult. Chinese is actually really easy. Speaking Chiense is freakin hard. Korean is like 100 X easier. Japanese is easy to speak but the writing is a mess and grammar also difficult. Korean is easy. The writing is simple. I even know some Hanja and I don't find them to be very hard. It's just that Korean is so differnt and it really is like an alien language. For example Spanish is incredibly easy for an English speaker. It's almost the same shit. Good luck learning Korean ! Ive been studying off n on for a year or 2. I can say most of the basic things necessary for living. I want to actually become fluent though. I wanna be able to speak my mind at all times. It's not easy though. Good luck
@NamelessI don't know any Chiense, Just like 100 characters through Korean. But I saw a couple videos on the grammar and it seems pretty easy. Maybe you are right? Chinese is freakin hard but I heard the grammar is even easier than English. Isn't it like there is no past or future conjugations? I heard it's incredibly easy. Enlighten me. I also heard Japanese is like 10 X harder than Chinese as far as grammar and Kanji.
I randomly stumbled across this video, and I thought I had no intention of learning Chinese, but your explanations made it easy for me to understand how the language is composed; I had no idea I was looking at pictures, and as you explained the etymology of the pictographs, I can now understand and associate the two, incredible!
Chinese also has Chengyu (成語) which uses 4-character to form an "idiom". For example, 井底之蛙 means "Frog at the Bottom of a Well" and refers to a person who is ignorant beyond his own world. 飲水思源 means "Think of the Source when you Drink Water", which means a person should have gratitude. There are also about 5000+ Chengyu to study.
first minute of the presentation has a very, very serious problem. It isn't true. It isn't at all true... look it up in the encyclopedia. Modern chinese is *logographic*, not pictographic/ideographic like hieroglyphics. Ancient chinese was possibly completely, and at least significantly pictographic. Modern chinese uses single blocks to *represent syllables*, and particularly syllables of just a few forms (because that's the only forms there are in Chinese).
Wrong. I study chinese, and they can be ideographic, compounds of sound/meaning and so on, as well as pictographic. It also depends on what script you use. They also have radicals which forms other characters, and these can also be ideographic. What you are talking about is the components of characters, which is different.
64revolt classical chinese is different. with modern chinese it is strictly not true. look it up in the encyclopedia... as long as it is an encyclopedia from this _millenium_, it will say it is logographic orthography.
***** hmm, It's been months so Im not really sure what you are responding to here. according to wikipedia "Although most of the simplified Chinese characters in use today are the result of the works moderated by the government of the People's Republic of China (PRC) in the 1950s and 60s, character simplification predates the PRC's formation in 1949." so in a way we are both right.
Thank you for your amazing video, which introduces some basic cultures of Chinese and concepts of written Chinese to other peoples. And interestingly, as a Chinese, i do not know some of the examples given by you, haha, thanks for giving me a lesson.
The way I see it, you really only have to learn ~50-60 radicals and a little over 10 stroke patterns. Each character is just a combination of those radicals and strokes. People manage to memorize massive amounts of alphabet based words, but really all they're starting with is ~26 letters and an understanding of how to put them together. Much less daunting than learning 60k unique characters.
the hardest word i know now is 麤 (Cū) Three 鹿 (deer) make up 麤 (cu), which translates to being rough with someone. Just imagine three deer running into each other, then you'll get the 'rough' idea.
Chinese: We use character Korean: We used to use chinese characters, but decided to use our own "alphabet" (hangul) instead Japanese: *drinks a 5th of sake* 'bout we do both
i'm semi-fluent in chinese but terrible at writing, and this actually helped me remember how to write a lot of characters. This may be weird, but knowing how to speak, listen, and read chinese is a COMPLETELY different thing from knowing how to write it
The picture thing only works for a while. You can learn the basics of Chinese but learning how to write fluently is such a pain in the butt. The key is practice guys. Practice really does make perfect, so don’t give up.
I’ve spent about 100,000 hours studying English humor and Western culture. My native language is Chinese. I’m teaching Chinese language in jokes and pictures. It makes learning Chinese funny and much easier. Laughter can help us reduce tensions.
Because Chinese character is so stable, only 3 year old Chinese kid can read and understand the Chinese poems written thousand years ago. How is English? I think most English speaking people in west can't read their ancient classics until they go to college.
Understanding the literal meaning is one thing; a real apprehension is another. It is not too difficult to understanding the literal meaning of a poem, but it may take a whole life to apprehend the profound meaning between the lines.
"is that the purpose of language? to understand 1000 year old text? or to write down your thoughts quickly and easily?" Both? And many more... Language allows to structure thought internally. Language serves to communicate. It gives a way to persist information. It provides ways of self expression. In a poem written a thousand years ago, it served it's author to express himself and to structure his thoughts and feelings. It served to communicate with many generations. It also served to preserve the message. A quick note might be a reasonable example, but you can take quick notes in Chinese too ;)
"You can read it but do you truly understand it? How's that helping if you don't get what you are reading?" Isn't that the problem with anything you read? When are you certain that the meaning you form in your head is close enough to the authors intended meaning to say you truly understand? You have to first understand the words, then you can ask about the meaning.
1. BabyMaiya, thank you for your comment and for bringing your observations to my attention. It was *absolutely* not our intention (the Chinese female artist and myself) to convey any derogatory or disrespectful meaning towards Asian women. I deeply respect women, and love my mother, younger sister and (Asian) fiancée. I apologize if you felt the cartoon portrayal of some of the characters in our sketches came across as suggestive, but we did not mean to offend anyone.
great video. small correction though: The hieroglyphs are NOT a pictographic writing system. This was the assumption made by early historians who could not decipher the writings. Then the discovery was made that it was actually a phonetic writing system just like ours.
The English system isn't purely phonetic, though... It's been complicated over the years by pronunciation shifts and latinisations and other weird stuff. This a language that pronounces the combination "ou" in at least five different ways depending on the word... Okay okay, I know I'm nitpicking: I get the point. It's just funny. Although, actually it's kind of appropriate too, I guess? It illustrates that phonetic systems can be weird and difficult in their own ways too.
At the very beginning, it was, and that's how the oldest characters came out. After that period, it came to be more logographic, as the meaning of the characters were more and more complex. And after that, the process of creating characters stopped as they couldn't carry more meanings any more. Then Chinese characters were combined together to build up the new vacabulary. You can say most of the characters are logographic now, but at the beginning it was pictographic.
At start, Chinese is just simple pictures, but thousand years ago, is slowly turning simple,(you don't wan't draw a painting stuff when you just want to right a simple sentence)
I know Chinese and is able to translate between them relatively well (need time to translate) Yet watching this it’s much easier for non Chinese to learn the characters You don’t need all the characters to be able to speak fluently. Most of the words are seriously just more expressive and more vocabulary like how English can use certain words to make you look more Sophisticated A tip for those non Chinese speakers, is to actually speak Chinese and to read more. If you don’t know look for a dictionary to translate it. Also, Chinese grammar is very different from English. So never, direct translate into Chinese Good luck!
肆is also 4,we use it while writing cheques as not to add strokes by bad guys and change the value of the cheque, 壹貳叁肆伍陸柒捌玖拾represents1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 lol
I know around 11 characters in chinese by memory. I could recognize in the video the character for middle, woman, tree, fire and big. However I also know the characters for male, forest, 1, 2, 3, and to rest. The thing is I want to focus more on learning korean first, cause it is easier and I consider it a perfect introductory language to delve into the difficult chinese. In chinese, characters are the easy part, the difficulty comes with the pronunciation as we westeners are unfamiliar with tonal languages.
When you want to know the real meaning of chinese characters, you have to trace the ancient way of writing. Characters we use now have been changed a lot. However,the way you explain how characters were create is true.
What an amazing video. Very well made. 1. Entertaining | fun to watch 2. Well-structured 3. Easy to understand Thanks for making this video. I am working on a teaching plan of teaching 3&4 graders Chinese Calligraphy. This video really helped me understand how Chinese Characters work, even though I am Chinese. Thank you !
This is basically a 40 minute long ad, if you end up watching the following Part 2A, 2B and 3. I got through 2A and watched short bits of 2B and 3. Nothing of much value seems to be offered, just a sales pitch.
This is God tier quality mate you really sent the message to my brain inside.From what I understand , don't even need to know how pronounce Chinese to read it right ?
After years of recommendation, I finally got around to watching this lol. Chinese characters aren't really pictographic, they're logographic, however I see why people mix them up. I'd love to speak this ancient and beautiful language one day.
+Bertuğ Manavoğlu Chinese: 漢字( approximates 5000 often used char ) Japanese : 50音(100 characters ) + 漢字( approximates 2000 often used char ) Many char are the same in both char system Chinese:期。Japanese: 期 Chinese:地。Japanese: 地 Some are similar Chinese:收。Japanese: 収 Chinese:搜。Japanese: 捜 I am a native Mandarian speaker, and having learned some japanese Both character system are interesting If you know one system, It's easy to learn other character system.
can we just take a moment for the amount of pictographs he drew in one video?
just amazing. two moments if you will. :D
Matt Carnes amazing drawings indeed
QVincent Wang ofqq;1
Matt Carnes I agree
Imagine using those all the time.
i would suggest when you start learning chinese,do not try to figure out how these charaters are formed, just repeat it and keep them in heart like chinese babies.
Chuannan Hua 只是认字和认真研究是两回事吧 人家认真研究是種透彻的學，有时候还能从分拆字悟道理呢 你干嘛非要建议人家只认字
Chuannan Hua yeah thats how my teacher is doing t
I believe there is a better way of learning chinese. This video will make learning easier.
That's how any language is learned lmao. You wanna learn a language? Learn with kid style videos
Agreed. Overthinking about Chinese characters would be like asking someone to study Latin and Ancient Greek affixes before learning English words. Essentially learning meanings before meanings if that makes sense. It may help, but you’re making you’re journey much longer. 想 for example, it’s something to do with feelings. I don’t break it down and think to myself “I’m using my eyes to inspect a tree, so this must convey the idea of blah blah....” I just learn the character and only when is use it in a compound form (想要）should I be thinking of the idea of “want”.
氵is water
目 is eye
忄is feeling
讠is speaking/information
if these are beside or under any character it has those meanings
For example:
Swimming 游泳
Talk 讲
Speak 说
Emotion 心情
言 is speaking. How can u speak without your mouth “口”
@FIVE DOLLARS simplified chinese is for illiteracy
it just takes away the meaning of every single chinese character
@@NPC-W I guess you're a person that lives in a place where traditional Chinese characters are used, so you defend them. Simplified Chinese is made so you don't break your hands writing millions of strokes to imply basic meaning (exaggerated is intentional)
@@Kitulous
unluckily, some basic meaning of chinese words is mixed up after simplifying.
such as:
後(back) and 后(queen),
髪(hair) and 發(happen),
幹(work), 乾(dry), and 干(interfere, and also a part of chinese calendar system)
製(make) and 制(stop)
i agree that making chinese easier to learn is a good idea.
but mixing up its meaning is just rediculous in making things easy and simple.
@@NPC-W just how most words are expected to be understood or comprehended by reading the whole sentence. Yet no doubt that tradition ones keep the key concept of some words that we can appreciate
"When you see the letter T, you know it represents the sound 'tuh'"
Th: "Allow me to introduce myself"
czcams.com/video/_dBQrSbIjvc/video.html
3. As a side note, I also have been living in Asia and teaching elementary and middle school children for the past 6 years, and can attest that my students, along with their involved parents, loved the animations and have been very supportive of sharing the videos with their friends.
I find Chinese so complicated but the explanations of the origins of the characters is very helpful. And I'm completely in awe of the drawing skills! How does anyone draw so perfectly without any mistakes? Must take a lot of practise.
This guy : draws amazing pics
Me: struggling to draw a circle
This guy: drawing countries
Me: struggling to draw a house
😭😂😭😂
真实
czcams.com/video/_dBQrSbIjvc/video.html
Why am I watching this? I'm learning Korean😂
Me too hhh
@@fatichoco7561 same!
Same 😂
Lol same
im learning that too
i learned chinese like 30 years ago, i can no longer write most words, but im still able to read them very easily, just a glance, i can read the entire sentence, then instantly i forget how they looks like.
That's how I've come to read kanji in Japanese. It's more of a feeling and recognition
:-) The character at 5:34 is a combination of 女 (woman), 口 (mouth) and 心 (heart). The combination of those three radicals is depicting the meaning "consideration" or "forgiveness". There's a nice little mnemonic in that... "heartfelt words from a woman's mouth" or something along those lines ;-)
you can explain it in this way. but in fact, some character is much more deep story than you thought.
Beautiful
so reminiscent of karens
I`m japanese i can read most these characters:)
日本漢字的文化傳承讓日本人到今天都還讀得懂一些中文
でも中国語は読めません。
Yes, because you guys borrowed our characters...but you have anime and cats so we're even :D
追溯到唐朝的时候
yes but can you pronounce in chinese.
his writing is so pretty, like as someone with a chinese background i cannot ever write that pretty....
Well, he's actually drawing them. So....... yeah..
I'm studying Chinese and try to remember all this characters. It's so hard to remember Chinese characters.
Your video is so helpful :) Like your video.
Hey~I am a Chinese college student.I am glad to have some foreign friends.I can help you to learn Chinese~
Hi, So sorry for late.
Now you re living in Chinese or in where?
What's your Chinese name?
you can call me 金玉
@Zharas Kerimbay me too i stutter A LOT sometimes i can't even speak my mother language correctly
sad.
hello ,what cai i do for you?
祝你成功
They wrote the hànzì using the correct stroke order, I'm pleased.
As a native speaker, I absolutely love your breakdown of this intro to Chinese characters ❤️ thank you for producing these, my partner will find this very useful 👍🏻
As someone who's been studying Mandarin for about a year now, this has been tremendously helpful. 谢谢你帮我！
if you want to learn native Chinese, you can come to “verbalplanet” and try Jingning Miao Chinese Class by skype. You can enjoy your first class for free.I hope you can insist learning Chinese and find its interests.
I've always told my students that Chinese characters are based on four elements (1) abstract marks adopted from oracle bones and shells, (2) pictographs, (3) ideographs, and (4) sound.
to be literate you only need to know 4000 characters :) as if this little hahhaha
and I can't read Shakespear with 4000 English words , not even close to pass TOEFL with 60 .
Well, if you learn just one character a day, you could be literate within 11 years. :)
4000 characters / 365 days = 10.96 years
But odds are you can learn more than one word/character per day, so you could be literate much quicker than that, and certainly have some basic familiarity with the language.
@@ZenFox0 11 years is so much it's like the whole life of a fornite player
Zeno Sama El Dios Sensual 😄🎮
@@ZenFox0 learning Chinese characters are pointless.
As a Chinese, when people ask me how to learn Chinese, what I want to tell them is that hearing your parents and people people around u speaking Chinese everyday and having a hard time in primary school trying to memorize all the Pingyin and letters will help
Evan Blazkovic thats for every language tbh
You could say something in line of "Git Gud", except that you're not playing Dark Souls but instead trying to get a job done but have to deal with a stupid writing system.
You simply realise how boring English or any alphabetical language is when you know how to write Chinese. Every single words has their own meaning/stories and different pronouncation
Teoh Pin Hwa - A language is like a tool, I employ it so I can do a pratical task, like sending an e-mail to my client or employeer. I don't want it to be "fun" and I really don't care what are the etimology of the word "纠正", I want to write a message in a way that my reciever understands and I want to do it with the most quick and efficient manner possible.
It don't need to be overlycomplex than it need to be, I don't have time for linguistic bs, I have a deadline to fulfill. What you cal "boringness", I call "efficiency".
lol Linguistics is how you obtained that "efficiency". The system changes all the time and without proper knowledge of etymology, your language would eventually be defunct. It's a little easier now cause more people are literate, but you still need linguists to constantly organise words and their meanings for the general populace. Just because you're ignorant of the importance of linguistics doesn't mean you're any more practical than the rest of us. The Chinese writing system has its own perks with words having multiple associative derivatives. The alphabets having no visual connection to the object they're describing has more than enough weaknesses that you simply do not care to admit lol.
I am a Taiwanese and I speak Chinese Mandarin.
This is the first time that I know where those characters came from.
And your Chinese characters are so beautiful.
The drawing must take a lot of time! Thx!!!
Good job on the characters, I'm currently learning Chinese at my school and the drawings you made were beautiful.
it is so crazy how fast this dude can draw
Glozwell is this sarcasm?
還有人認真回復的⋯⋯⋯⋯-_-#
Made me laugh, nice one lol
@smiley wolf r/wooooosh
Why is the first reply, or at least 1 of the first 3, always someone thinking they're showing how smart they are by pointing out the bloody obvious to a sarcastic comment?
love that you share ideas on traditional chinese, not simplified one.
Yeh sometimes simplified chinese takes the meaning away for just easier to write.
This is a wonderful video that I never seen before. I can write and read Chinese. But this is so amazing to understand how these characters made of. I am showing my kids your video and they love it. Thanks.
I can't believe I'm about to say this, but this is without a doubt the most fascinating video I've ever seen in my life. All I kept saying was, "WHOA! THAT ACTUALLY MAKES A LOT OF SENSE!" Within 1:30 I hit subscribe. Thanks for making my virtual life
What about biang biang noodles? Explain that character if you dare.
Its baddddd I work at a restaurant and we handwrite all of our menus in traditional (and I end up writing them because I have a degree in penmanship (I'm not entirely sure the English equivalent of this word sorry)) and this one is always just a struggle because its like what, 53 strokes? and then 3 characters? the total is like over 150 strokes probably
+Pvaultingfenderbass idk how much it actually is but what i do know is that its horribly long and a pain to handwrite
+Bo Bramer somehow I managed to remember how to write it in the exact stroke order. The total is 56 strokes and it's the most useless character ever exists.
Yeah, pretty much I mean theres that one that has like the 4 龍 but like who reaLlllly uses it tho
+Bo Bramer There is only one with three and this is the one you meant probably 龘
Here we are after 9 years finding this hidden gem. Disappointingly, not much was offered in the channel.
8:28 one ONLY needs to recognise 3500 simplified characters, or 4800 traditional characters. PHEW!
*cough* we use 28
Ziuki I use 32 letters
It's not 3500 alphabets, it's 3500 words( some of which are also alphabets). i don’t know how many “alphabets” we have, but it's obviously not that many
English and other languages use 26 to 32 LETTERS. But they have just as many (if not more) words as Chinese. And you have already memorized 1000s of them......for example, you already memorized all words in my response. When you read this, you don't need to spell out each word because you've already memorized what it looks like.
my language uses 52
@@emiljayatileke416 chinese characters are not words.
I love the sharpness of Chinese characters... They are just awesome!
7:35 Its hell, when typing my name on a computer sometimes, my chinese name is an old variant of a particular word and unicode doesn't have that character. Its created a lifelong problem with getting my name accepted in many electronic systems lol. Its like those parents who name their kid Abcde with accents.
So to learn Chinese, someone has to pronounce each word for you, then you memorize an arbitrary symbol for that word. No wonder it’s the most difficult language to learn. Beautiful and fascinating, but very alien to my Western mind.
As a Chinese native speaker of Taiwan, I'm really impressed by this video which provides extremely detailed information of getting to know Chinese at the first place. Well done! This video really helps lots of Chinese learners have a better grasp of it!
U got a problem? Go see a doctor
痾…先生你已經讓我無言，看個醫生吧
對了~是去看心理醫師
why is 取 which means obtain contain the ear and 又 character? how does it make sense? i am chinese singaporean.
Hey, man. This is what I found, which is very interesting:) Hope it can help.
big5.hwjyw.com/resource/content/2011/11/11/22236.shtml
You can write calligraphy with a pen... amazing.
This is so true (that’s how my teacher makes our Chinese Spelling more fun to learn)
Edit: huh? I never knew we learnt so many Chinese words.
Best introduction to Chinese Characters I have seen so far (in about 12 years). Kudos!
That was amazing! Great Job! I learn so much! 谢谢您，现在我明白了！
Im learning chinese and i could read "Thank you"
GD Spam King sameeee
@@user-kx5es4kr4x me too
@@user-kx5es4kr4x he says "Thank you, I understand now!"
谢谢您，现在我明白了！
(xièxie nín, xiànzài wo3 míngbái le! )
I dont know chinese, but I'm guessing the chinese text says something along the lines of "you're bright minded" or "This is great"
I use traditional Chinese in my daily life. However, I still learned *A LOT* from your video. You really blow my mind!
who drew a six legged spider and was just like "yep, that's a tree"
I can't unsee it now..
I study in China and I took a college course on how the "pictographic" notion is just a fable or a cool story to tell people learning Chinese. Pretty interesting class
Hello. Having taken many years worth of Chinese, I've found memorizing the characters to be quite Sisyphean. I find this methodology cogent and wonderful. For example, now I finally understand certain passages of the Three Kingdoms that deal with linguistic riddles.
My only request is thus: Please make more videos!
I don’t know why, but watching someone write Chinese is just so satisfying to me.
The character wich refers to the tree is actually in berber language too (tamazight) it is called "YAZ" and it refers to the free man
Nice video 😀
dude this is awesome，thats not simple modern Chinese but ancient chinese similar as 金文 used thousands years back in history
Why I do NOT like Simplified Chinese Characters at all
When I write, text or type, I always use traditional Chinese characters instead of simplified Chinese characters if the situation allows. I don’t personally use simplified Chinese, which the only type of Chinese characters that Chinese people learn from school after 1956. So some people like some of my relatives and friends asked me why I always use traditional ones, they guess that I embrace Taiwan after I met my Taiwanese girlfriend (actually I did use traditional ones before I met her, but my girlfriend does help me a lot on that).
And today, when I was teaching Mandarin, I asked my students a question: “the Chinese characters are originally from...?” (I have taught them Chinese characters are from images and symbols.) And one student raised his hand very confidently and shouted his answer “Japan!” I was shocked at the first moment and I shook my head and laughed. But wait! Actually, his answer is partly right... Some of the simplified Chinese characters are brought from Simplified Kanji (Chinese characters) of Japan...
Things are just becoming a little bit more complicated.
Take a deep breath and let me explain…
In fact, around the time of the World Wars, the nationalism became more and more popular and stronger in those former western colonies or western influenced countries. After their independence, they all wanted to show something pride and unique in their culture, so most of east Asian countries from so called "Chinese Culture Circle (Confucianism Culture Circle)", were hastening to get rid of the influence of China, such as Japan, Korea and Vietnam, started their own process to simplify, change or eliminate the Chinese characters in their written language. At mostly meanwhile, new Chinese regime was eager to build their new culture, and the scholars in the Chinese Character Development/reform Committee was strongly influenced by “the May-4th” Period dreams and values. In that period, a lot of China’s intellectuals were extremely anti-traditional cultures and moral values. They wanted to establish a new Chinese culture. These scholars were the main power of the committee we were talking about, and the new regime led them to start the processing of their characters simplifying. After these processes, the beauty of Chinese characters, the artistic connections with its imagery symbols were badly and fatally broken. For example, Simplified Chinese takes the “heart” away from the “love” (爱 instead of 愛, “心” means heart); Takes the “wheat” away from the “noodle”（面 instead of 麵，“麥” means wheat）; Takes the "seeing each other" from the “closeness” or “intimacy” (亲instead of 親，“見”means meeting or seeing )... and I have tons of examples to show if needed...
Well, if someone wants to argue or defend for Simplified Chinese characters by using the point of Simplified characters are easier to write, I would say that simplified characters are easier to be written, but they are way less systematic and hard to understand by comparing to traditional characters. Why?
Because after simplifying, it has so many single Chinese characters which has more than one meaning. For example, after the simplifying, 面 is noodle and also face. What the heck! If you go to China, you will read the menu for Beef Noodle, which it logically could be “beef face”, and Ramen or “La Mian” (literally twisting, stretching, folding or kneading noodle), it could logically turn to “twisting or stretching or kneading face”! Wow! That hurts!
One more example which is even more distractive and misguiding, after simplifying，发 means hair and launch or produce. But in its traditional way, 發 means produce or launch, hair is another word which is 髮. You can tell the top right part which represent the hair, so 理髮(haircut) were changed to 理发(“haircut or launch-cut”). What is even worse? In simplified 发, if you teach, you have to teach different pronunciations in different cases. When they combined two different words in one, it caused one word, which has different pronunciations with different meanings. By the way, to combine different characters to one character was mostly Mao’s idea, but the thing seems weird because you can barely see him to write simplified characters. When I studied in Beijing Language and Culture University, I remember there was a plaque on the wall of the dining hall building, it has a sentence quoted from “The Literary Mind and the Carving of Dragons”(文心雕龍)，in that sentence, if you write this sentence in simplified characters, then it has a big ambiguity between “launch” and “hair”. (理發（＊理发）而文見)
In this case, although I believe it is easier to write (less strokes) in simplified, but the simplified Chinese became harder to understand and also learn by heart! Sometimes, the Simplified Chinese character is way to distractive!
If you are an English or some Romance languages speaker, you can be easily fooled by saying that simplified Chinese are easier to learn and write, for example, in English, you spell the words by its pronunciations, if you say “th-an-ks”, you can spell it “thanks” by the way you say it. But Chinese is totally different! It is just not working out that way. Why?
Be aware of this! Chinese is the ONLY surviving language, which has logogram writing. That means if you write a Chinese character, you can probably tell some meaning of the character by the writing symbols. If you see parts like “食” ，“金” or “心”, then the character has very likely the meaning of “food”, ”metal or chemical elements”, and ”thinking or by heart”. In my opinion, the traditional Chinese is a little harder to write, but the beauty and logic of Chinese is right in it, I don’t mind to write some more strokes to make my hand writing more beautiful and making more sense. Furthermore, in nowadays, we have very few opportunities to hand write something anyway. Why not bring the beautiful traditional Chinese characters back!
Speaking of bringing it back, in fact, in some aspects, it never goes away. In Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macao and so many overseas Chinese communities (like China towns in the US or Malaysia), traditional Chinese characters are still being vastly used. Even in China, Chinese calligraphy is mostly written by using traditional Chinese characters. Why? Because it is more beautiful. That it one of the most important points of making art, expressing of beauty. And so many company logo designs and business banners and signs are written by using traditional Chinese. I believe this is why the logo of the school I work, which is called East Point Academy is traditional “東”(means East) instead of simplified “东” even though most of Chinese teachers here from China teach simplified Chinese.
I know in so many countries outside China, the reason for people there to learn Chinese is for communicating and business opening with Chinese people, and Chinese people in China use simplified Chinese. It sounds very practical and it’s no reason to blame to be practical. But speaking of deeper levels study and culturally understanding, why don’t I teach both simplified and traditional? I know some of top universities in the US and Europe do learn traditional Chinese in their Chinese or Sino studies, such as Columbia University in NY, etc. Even some Chinese elementary or high schools in California (where the biggest Chinese population is) provide lower graders only traditional Chinese and higher graders to choose from traditional and simplified. Why traditional first? Like what I said, it is more systematic for understanding.
In the recent years of China, people can probably have the feeling that there are some more self-concentrated or culturally root searching and self-ego boosting trend are going on in China’s politic and culture field. Every time the “People’s congress” are held, there are proposals about bringing traditional Chinese characters back. None of them were approved, but I think the trend will get stronger and stronger while Chinese society turns to more and more self-concentrated and realized the treasure in Chinese culture.
Hopefully by now, I have already explained clearly enough that why I don’t like simplified Chinese. By the way, that is another reason for me that I love Taiwan.
為什麼我不喜歡簡體漢字
當我寫字、發短信或者打字的時候，只要情況允許，我一定是用繁體字而不是簡化字，因為我個人並不喜歡簡體字。雖然1956年以後的幾代中國人都學簡體字，但是和別人交流時候我還是能不用簡體字我就不用。有的人問我為什麼，比如說我的家裏人，或者我的有些朋友，他們還以為我是因為認識了我來自台灣的女朋友，然後才熱烈擁抱台灣（實際上我在遇到我女朋友之前就已經開始學習和使用繁體字了）。
然後今天，我在教課的時候，我問我的學生“漢字的起源是怎樣的？”（我們之前學了漢字的起源是圖像化的符號）然後我看到一個學生自信的舉手，然後大聲說出他的答案--“漢字是日本來的！”我當時都要暈了，但是後來想想，他說的並不是全錯，因為簡體漢字的確有很多字是來自於日本的簡化漢字。
好像事情越來越複雜了！
深吸一口氣，請聽我來解釋……
實際上，在兩次大戰前後，民族主義的風潮越來越盛，尤其是在那些淪為殖民地或者半殖民地的國家裡。這些國家在獨立之後，都想要展示出各自文化中光榮而且獨特的東西，而不是受別人影響很多的東西。所以所謂漢字文化圈或者儒家文化圈的國家都急切地想要擺脫影響了自己太久的中國影響，這在中國被叫作“去中國化”。比如日本、韓國、越南，它們都開始了文字改革，削弱或者努力去除漢字的影響。幾乎在同一時期，中國的新政權想要建立新的文化，在中國的文字改革委員會中，很多的文字改革參與者都是五四時代的知識份子，五四時代眾所週知是一個反中國傳統文化，反傳統道德，想要破舊立新的時代。這些學者是中國文字改革委員會的主力軍，在新政府的領導下開始了漢字的簡化。在漢字簡化過後，漢字的美感大大喪失了，漢字和其源流的聯繫也被割斷了許多。比如在簡化以後，“愛”字去掉了“心”，“麵”字去掉了“麥”，“親”字去掉了“見”。這樣的例子多到不勝枚舉。
如果說有人想要和我說，或者為簡體字辯護說簡化後的漢字筆畫少了，所以比較容易寫。其實我想說，簡化字當然是好寫了些，但是簡化字破壞的是漢字的系統性，所以和繁體字相比，簡體字比較難以理解記憶，融會貫通。為什麼是這樣？
因為簡化字不僅僅是減少筆畫，而且用合併多個漢字成為一個漢字的辦法來減少漢字數量。這就造成了一字多意的問題。比如說，簡化以後，“面”即是“麵條”又是“臉面”。什麼！？怎麼會這樣！所以說如果在中國看菜單，“牛肉麵”可以是“牛肉臉”，“拉麵”可以是“拉臉”！是不是聽起來很痛！更有甚者，簡化以後，“頭髮”的“髮”變成了“發”，所以發財、發射，也可以說是髮財、髮射，理髮可以成了理發。“髮”字代表頭髮的象形部件被減去了。如果要是教簡化字的話，你還要教給學生這個字在不同的意義時候有不同的讀音。理髮，髮是四聲，發財，發是一聲。所以說把多個漢字變成一個字的方法造成了更多的多音字。順便提一句，把多個漢字合併成一個漢字是毛的主意，但是他本人並不寫簡體字。還有一個問題，就是這麼做會造成一些歧異，比如在北京語言大學食堂的牆上（不知道現在還有沒有），有一句摘自《文心雕龍》的句子，“情動而言形,理發而文見”，這句話如果是簡體字的話，就有歧異，難道可以是因為剪頭髮才想要寫文章嗎？
所以說在這種情形下，我承認簡體字總體上來說筆畫少，好寫一點，但是這種中國字影響人們對字意本身的理解，也比較缺少系統性。有的時候，簡體字很容易造成歧異。
很多人，也許很容易就被簡體字容易學容易寫的說法唬弄了。在英語裡，單詞的拼寫是和讀音相關的，“我手寫我口”，你知道怎麼說話，只要稍加訓練，就可以知道正確的拼寫。但是漢字可不是這樣，為什麼呢？
因為你得知道，漢字是目前唯一存活著的語素文字，也就是說，你寫一個漢字，通過字型，你可以大概知道這個字可能的意思，繁體字在這一點上做得非常好，因為它和漢字的象形有著更加明顯的聯繫。在我看來，繁體字的確比較難寫，但是漢字的象形在裏邊，美感在裏邊，承認是炎黃子孫的人，介意多寫幾筆，而讓你的字富有本來的意義，而且帶有漢字之美嗎？更何況，現在我們都很少有手寫的機會寫字，大家都打字的話，簡繁之分並不能分出那一種字更節約時間了。為什麼我們不能把漢字之美帶回來呢？
說到把漢字帶回來，事實上，在好多方面，繁體字並沒有離開我們太多，在港澳和台灣以及眾多海外華人社區仍然廣泛應用著。即便是在中國大陸，書法幾乎都是以繁體字來完成，為什麼？因為書法是一門藝術，藝術的要義是表現美，繁體字當然更好看啊！眾多的店鋪、商家都用繁體字來裝飾他們的店名和招牌。就連我工作的教授簡體字的中文學校的校徽都有一個繁體字的“東”，而不是簡體字。其實很明顯，就是大家覺得繁體字典雅、古樸、好看。
其實我明白在中國以外，外國人學中文就是為了和中國打交道、賺錢，所以要學中國人用的漢字。這是很實際的想法，而且也沒有錯。誰會責備實用主義呢？但是要是說到更深層次的學習和文化上更深刻的理解，那為什麼不簡繁並舉呢？我知道很多歐美的頂級大學還是在用繁體字的，好像哥倫比亞大學就是這樣，或是北歐幾所漢學很強的大學等。在美國華人最多的加州，有些中文學校要求低年級學生必修繁體，到了高年級，則可以自由選擇簡體或者繁體。為什麼要用繁體打基礎呢？因為繁體字毫無疑問的更系統，學起來更有助於對漢字的理解。
近些年來的中國，有一種社會趨勢，就是越來越著眼於傳統文化，有更強的文化尋根意識。每次的“兩會”，總有在不同程度上恢復繁體字的提案提出，雖然未有採納，但是我相信當國人越來越意識到中國文化的妙處和繁體字的優點，這種回歸繁體字的聲音會越來越壯大，也許有一天，能夠彌合這種對中國文化造成的傷害。
洋洋數語，我希望我說清楚了為什麼我不喜歡簡體字。
順便說一句，其實繁體字也是我愛台灣的原因之一。
Mowen Yuan 楼主卓见，文字并不能用行政的手段去改变它，现今大陆与台湾书不同文，文化隔阂甚深。
great info :D
+Mowen Yuan I just want to say that this guy do not understand the Chinese culture and Chinese history。没文化真可怕，不要出来秀下限了，也难怪，蛮夷之人，岂懂我中华之文化！简体字很多从日本引进，我也是醉了，的确有但是很少，可以忽略不计。从汉朝开始很多书法家，很多知识分子，就开始用了简体字。马王堆出土的汉墓竹简、敦煌文书和帛书，自己去看有好多简体字，那个时候这些简体就已经传人日本了！繁体字是清朝按照1875年“大清钦定正体字”搞出来的，本来汉字是可以有很多别字的，很多通假字，反而规范的这么复杂。90%的简体字实际上古代就有 ，简体字古以有之，现在的简体字很多都是以前就有的，如“从”、“众”、“礼”、“无”、“尘”、“云”等等，这些字都见于《说文解字》，比繁体字更符合“六书”，有的繁体字反而是写错了的，是满族人造的。你可以查一查《简化字始见时代一览表》，很多简体字都来源于先秦时代。汉字有简体和繁体的不同,并不是现在才有的,而是远在甲骨文时代就有的。甲骨文里的“车”字有繁有简,繁体的车有车轮、车箱、车辕、车轭等,简体 的车就只有车轮和车箱,而简体的车流传后世就成了楷书繁体字的车。东汉的《章帝千字文断简》中就有简体的“汉”字,居延汉简和敦煌汉简里就有简体的“书”。如果说把汉字繁化就是“复古”，那么汉字正字法的真正“复古”是在清 朝。古人的文章里有很多通假字，其实学术要严谨，写字就不必严谨了，把字看的那么严谨的，是从满清时代才开始的习惯，而那时是学术沦亡的时候。现在的简体字也是中国传统的汉字，残存的永乐大典，全是简化异体字书写的。你批评“简化为“后”的“後”与本来的“后”不一样，简化为“发”的“發”与“髮”不一样，简化为“并”的“併”与“並”也不一样。 ”其实本来的后就是这个后，而“後”不过是历史短得多的其中一种写法， 简体的这个后字写法可以追溯到商朝甲骨文和西周金文，汉朝说文解字里有後和后两种写法。古代的爱字，上边字头代表手，宝盖下还有个心，最下面是友，那个意思是用手去掏朋友的心，利用朋友，这是爱吗?看来，还是把爱字的心去掉为好，就像现在这样，呵呵。。。。。。。。。。。。还有很多很多。。。。。。。。人贵在有自知之明，不要无脑乱说。
+Mowen Yuan ps我当然也会写会认繁体字。目测一大波弯弯和香港人要来喷我了。也是，天天跪舔美英的人，会说出类似楼主的话不足为奇。蛮夷之人，岂懂我中华之文化！
+Mowen Yuan OH MY.... You guys actually read this whole text??
I was looking for this tutorial thank you so much
so fun
I used google translate and drew some of letters you explained and I succeeded yaay
This video is a godsend! I'm about to watch it again! Thank you!!!!!
My friend in 8th grade knew Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Thai, English, Arabic, German and French. He was a genius! I wonder where is he now...
Yes Chinese is super difficult for westerners, but I think Japanese is much more. Those kanji are reformed from Chinese characters.....lots of them have lost their original meanings......really crazy to learn both at the same time (⊙_⊙)
Sier Small Yeah well more meanings were lost in simplified Chinese.
Plus Hira and Kata but Chinese has Tones... So it's a trade off I think. Japanese is easier to speak. Korean is the easiest of the three though. You don't need to know any Hanja to write and its not that hard to pronounce and no tones. Grammar is hard a f though.
@Sier Small if you learned Japanese first then learn Chinese (simplified/traditional) it will make you go insane. However if you learned Chinese letters first then learn Kanji Japanese, it’ll be so much more easier! I learned Chinese during childhood(because I’m Chinese) and then learned Japanese when I was 10 and then got fluent with it when I hit 12. A friend of mine from Japan said he used 5 years just to learn a good amount of Chinese.
@Grethel Rodríguez 네, 한국의 문법 정말 어려운 거 같아요. 하지만 한국어는 중국어보다 쉬워 생각해요. Korean grammar is more difficult. Chinese is actually really easy. Speaking Chiense is freakin hard. Korean is like 100 X easier. Japanese is easy to speak but the writing is a mess and grammar also difficult. Korean is easy. The writing is simple. I even know some Hanja and I don't find them to be very hard. It's just that Korean is so differnt and it really is like an alien language. For example Spanish is incredibly easy for an English speaker. It's almost the same shit. Good luck learning Korean ! Ive been studying off n on for a year or 2. I can say most of the basic things necessary for living. I want to actually become fluent though. I wanna be able to speak my mind at all times. It's not easy though. Good luck
@NamelessI don't know any Chiense, Just like 100 characters through Korean. But I saw a couple videos on the grammar and it seems pretty easy. Maybe you are right? Chinese is freakin hard but I heard the grammar is even easier than English. Isn't it like there is no past or future conjugations? I heard it's incredibly easy. Enlighten me. I also heard Japanese is like 10 X harder than Chinese as far as grammar and Kanji.
I randomly stumbled across this video, and I thought I had no intention of learning Chinese, but your explanations made it easy for me to understand how the language is composed; I had no idea I was looking at pictures, and as you explained the etymology of the pictographs, I can now understand and associate the two, incredible!
That symbol at the beginning is the traditional symbol for "dragon."
Although Chinese dragons are shown to be benevolent, it is still fitting.
I am a chinese filipino. I want to learn chinese. After I watched this video I can say that u did a 奇妙 video. :)
@0:09, No, writing Chinese is Not scary at all! Now you know writing Chinese is like drawing, yeah, it´s Art! ^^°^^
Chinese also has Chengyu (成語) which uses 4-character to form an "idiom". For example, 井底之蛙 means "Frog at the Bottom of a Well" and refers to a person who is ignorant beyond his own world. 飲水思源 means "Think of the Source when you Drink Water", which means a person should have gratitude. There are also about 5000+ Chengyu to study.
You are good at drawing!
Yeah
i'm just here to learn more about the language I use
感謝你的努力跟用心~
first minute of the presentation has a very, very serious problem. It isn't true. It isn't at all true... look it up in the encyclopedia. Modern chinese is *logographic*, not pictographic/ideographic like hieroglyphics. Ancient chinese was possibly completely, and at least significantly pictographic. Modern chinese uses single blocks to *represent syllables*, and particularly syllables of just a few forms (because that's the only forms there are in Chinese).
Today I learnt that 个子 ("unit of a seed") is how Chinese people picture height ;)
Wrong. I study chinese, and they can be ideographic, compounds of sound/meaning and so on, as well as pictographic. It also depends on what script you use. They also have radicals which forms other characters, and these can also be ideographic. What you are talking about is the components of characters, which is different.
and, of course, the spoken part, which is syllables.
64revolt classical chinese is different. with modern chinese it is strictly not true. look it up in the encyclopedia... as long as it is an encyclopedia from this _millenium_, it will say it is logographic orthography.
***** hmm, It's been months so Im not really sure what you are responding to here. according to wikipedia "Although most of the simplified Chinese characters in use today are the result of the works moderated by the government of the People's Republic of China (PRC) in the 1950s and 60s, character simplification predates the PRC's formation in 1949." so in a way we are both right.
As a Chinese, I really enjoy watching these videos. Good work!
Thank you for your amazing video, which introduces some basic cultures of Chinese and concepts of written Chinese to other peoples. And interestingly, as a Chinese, i do not know some of the examples given by you, haha, thanks for giving me a lesson.
The way I see it, you really only have to learn ~50-60 radicals and a little over 10 stroke patterns. Each character is just a combination of those radicals and strokes. People manage to memorize massive amounts of alphabet based words, but really all they're starting with is ~26 letters and an understanding of how to put them together. Much less daunting than learning 60k unique characters.
the hardest word i know now is 麤 (Cū)
Three 鹿 (deer) make up 麤 (cu), which translates to being rough with someone. Just imagine three deer running into each other, then you'll get the 'rough' idea.
麤=粗. 麤 is seldom used in modern Chinese.
Chinese: We use character
Korean: We used to use chinese characters, but decided to use our own "alphabet" (hangul) instead
Japanese: *drinks a 5th of sake* 'bout we do both
Dragon is my favourite kanji so that's why I clicked. 龍
龘 𪚥
@@ronaldpoon451 bruh
i'm semi-fluent in chinese but terrible at writing, and this actually helped me remember how to write a lot of characters. This may be weird, but knowing how to speak, listen, and read chinese is a COMPLETELY different thing from knowing how to write it
Great way is read repeat
The picture thing only works for a while. You can learn the basics of Chinese but learning how to write fluently is such a pain in the butt. The key is practice guys. Practice really does make perfect, so don’t give up.
Immersion. Walking around with the headphones superglued on. 😃
This video has changed my life.
"tree" is "樹", not "木“. "木" is wood. Just saying. Nice video though with inspiring ideas.
木在书面语中就是指树。风萧萧兮木叶下，木秀于林，草木不生。看形状也就是一棵树的样子。
古代就是讲木的，我们广东粤西这边也是说木，不知道为什么会变成树，形状都不对
草木皆兵，木在古语里就是树的意思。
Honestly both of them refer to tree
因学业因素，前些天读了几本繁体古籍，繁体中文确实有她的美感在。呼吸着城市快生活的空气，心躁动的时候，读一篇繁体文章可以致心静。
i want to learn chinese😢
loverdose 61 i AM Chinese.
吳杰 lucky to u ^^
loverdose 61 i can teach you and i wanna learn English as well,where are u from...
dont bahaha im chinese and its hard as heck
吳杰 please I speak English and I need to lean Chinese. I've started some months ago actually but I need a coach
as a chinese myself, I didn't even know.... thank you and the excellent drawing
Awesomely brilliant and thank you mate, great effort.
This is an amazingly, excellent video.
So well done. I couldn’t believe how well written and clear it was. What a talented artist. Just wonderful!
I’ve spent about 100,000 hours studying English humor and Western culture. My native language is Chinese. I’m teaching Chinese language in jokes and pictures. It makes learning Chinese funny and much easier. Laughter can help us reduce tensions.
Because Chinese character is so stable, only 3 year old Chinese kid can read and understand the Chinese poems written thousand years ago. How is English? I think most English speaking people in west can't read their ancient classics until they go to college.
You can read it but do you truly understand it? How's that helping if you don't get what you are reading?
Understanding the literal meaning is one thing; a real apprehension is another. It is not too difficult to understanding the literal meaning of a poem, but it may take a whole life to apprehend the profound meaning between the lines.
is that the purpose of language? to understand 1000 year old text? or to write down your thoughts quickly and easily?
"is that the purpose of language? to understand 1000 year old text? or to write down your thoughts quickly and easily?"
Both? And many more...
Language allows to structure thought internally. Language serves to communicate. It gives a way to persist information. It provides ways of self expression.
In a poem written a thousand years ago, it served it's author to express himself and to structure his thoughts and feelings. It served to communicate with many generations. It also served to preserve the message.
A quick note might be a reasonable example, but you can take quick notes in Chinese too ;)
"You can read it but do you truly understand it? How's that helping if you don't get what you are reading?"
Isn't
that the problem with anything you read? When are you certain that the
meaning you form in your head is close enough to the authors intended
meaning to say you truly understand?
You have to first understand the words, then you can ask about the meaning.
1. BabyMaiya, thank you for your comment and for bringing your observations to my attention. It was *absolutely* not our intention (the Chinese female artist and myself) to convey any derogatory or disrespectful meaning towards Asian women. I deeply respect women, and love my mother, younger sister and (Asian) fiancée. I apologize if you felt the cartoon portrayal of some of the characters in our sketches came across as suggestive, but we did not mean to offend anyone.
0:34 why are the two pieces with e different in shape? this.. puzzles me
great video. small correction though: The hieroglyphs are NOT a pictographic writing system. This was the assumption made by early historians who could not decipher the writings. Then the discovery was made that it was actually a phonetic writing system just like ours.
4:28 the word originally meant "beard" as in 胡须, meaning moustache or beard
鬍鬚，NO 胡须
Great video ! For english speaking readers, this video serves as a good introduction for chinese character or hanzi. Well done!!
The English system isn't purely phonetic, though... It's been complicated over the years by pronunciation shifts and latinisations and other weird stuff. This a language that pronounces the combination "ou" in at least five different ways depending on the word...
Okay okay, I know I'm nitpicking: I get the point. It's just funny. Although, actually it's kind of appropriate too, I guess? It illustrates that phonetic systems can be weird and difficult in their own ways too.
Haha I laugh at you, Spanish is phonetic
lol same i am not Spanish tho
This is so amazing!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! You guys are awesome!!! As a Chinese teacher, I am really thankful for the facts you elaborate.
Chinese is logographic, not pictographic.
Both.
Ellis Jones what the meaning of these two words （logo picture？）
At the very beginning, it was, and that's how the oldest characters came out. After that period, it came to be more logographic, as the meaning of the characters were more and more complex. And after that, the process of creating characters stopped as they couldn't carry more meanings any more. Then Chinese characters were combined together to build up the new vacabulary. You can say most of the characters are logographic now, but at the beginning it was pictographic.
At start, Chinese is just simple pictures, but thousand years ago, is slowly turning simple,(you don't wan't draw a painting stuff when you just want to right a simple sentence)
need to know that history，then you'll know it
I know Chinese and is able to translate between them relatively well (need time to translate)
Yet watching this it’s much easier for non Chinese to learn the characters
You don’t need all the characters to be able to speak fluently. Most of the words are seriously just more expressive and more vocabulary like how English can use certain words to make you look more Sophisticated
A tip for those non Chinese speakers, is to actually speak Chinese and to read more. If you don’t know look for a dictionary to translate it. Also, Chinese grammar is very different from English. So never, direct translate into Chinese
Good luck!
一 is 1
二 is 2
三 is 3
ME: "Oh my god this is easy!" (and than realize have to write 4...)
"Fuuuuukkk"
亖really means 4 lol
DarkAngel Kontrol is it really that hard making them different sizes?
Pretty sure 4 is 四 though?
Is it because 4 is unlucky? lol
肆is also 4,we use it while writing cheques as not to add strokes by bad guys and change the value of the cheque, 壹貳叁肆伍陸柒捌玖拾represents1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 lol
I know around 11 characters in chinese by memory. I could recognize in the video the character for middle, woman, tree, fire and big. However I also know the characters for male, forest, 1, 2, 3, and to rest. The thing is I want to focus more on learning korean first, cause it is easier and I consider it a perfect introductory language to delve into the difficult chinese. In chinese, characters are the easy part, the difficulty comes with the pronunciation as we westeners are unfamiliar with tonal languages.
I might try learning Japanese.
IMPLYING I might.
Its on a list.
A LONG LIST.
me tbh
When you want to know the real meaning of chinese characters, you have to trace the ancient way of writing. Characters we use now have been changed a lot. However,the way you explain how characters were create is true.
I am very proud as a Chinese.
我爱中国~~❤️
What an amazing video. Very well made.
1. Entertaining | fun to watch
2. Well-structured
3. Easy to understand
Thanks for making this video. I am working on a teaching plan of teaching 3&4 graders Chinese Calligraphy. This video really helped me understand how Chinese Characters work, even though I am Chinese.
Thank you !
This is basically a 40 minute long ad, if you end up watching the following Part 2A, 2B and 3.
I got through 2A and watched short bits of 2B and 3.
Nothing of much value seems to be offered, just a sales pitch.
This is God tier quality mate you really sent the message to my brain inside.From what I understand , don't even need to know how pronounce Chinese to read it right ?
outstanding
AFTER WATCHING YOUR VIDEO, I GAVE UP CHINESE LEARNING AND START LEARNING DRAWING
Love the video!
Thank you! This is so much more understandable than lots of other videos, keep it up!
家 (jia- house/family) He could look like a flying piggy.
THIS GUY IS SO GOOD AT DRAWING!!!
Amazing hard work of making the video :o
After years of recommendation, I finally got around to watching this lol. Chinese characters aren't really pictographic, they're logographic, however I see why people mix them up. I'd love to speak this ancient and beautiful language one day.
Hello! I have a question. What's the difference between Chinese Characters and Japanese Kanji?
Kanji based on traditional characters,but it has different meaning sometimes.
+Bertuğ Manavoğlu
Chinese: 漢字( approximates 5000 often used char )
Japanese : 50音(100 characters ) + 漢字( approximates 2000 often used char )
Many char are the same in both char system
Chinese:期。Japanese: 期
Chinese:地。Japanese: 地
Some are similar
Chinese:收。Japanese: 収
Chinese:搜。Japanese: 捜
I am a native Mandarian speaker, and having learned some japanese
Both character system are interesting
If you know one system, It's easy to learn other character system.
kpcixqnx Thank you! They really do look similar too.
Kanji are chinese characters used in jjapanese
We don't use THAT many.(in Japan)
i couldn't smile even more, everything in the video is indeed effective, motivating, and inspiring.