Questions tagged [character-components]
Questions about phonetic, semantic, or other components of characters.
23
questions
6
votes
2answers
329 views
Origin of double phonetic component 静
静 is another character that has confused me. 青 (green/blue) doesn't seem to be related to quietness or stillness, unless the colors are supposed to represent quietness?
争 (fight) certainly is not ...
1
vote
3answers
256 views
校 - How did “leg-brace” come to mean “school”?
When learning Chinese characters using radicals, this character 校 always seem to puzzle me. I've always known 校 to be school, but the "wood" radical never made any sense to me. What does ...
2
votes
1answer
222 views
Besides the radical, what meaning does the rest of a Chinese character have (especially when it was originally created)?
I am a beginning student of Mandarin Chinese. There is a key thing about Chinese characters that I am trying to understand. Besides the radical, what purpose does the rest of a character have? Was it ...
1
vote
2answers
100 views
When 马 is used as the left component (e.g. in 骑), does the 一 héng stroke change to ㇀ tí?
I am thinking about the 马 character. I know that when you use 土 and 车 on the left in a composed character (like 地，场... and 较，辆 ...) the 3rd stroke in 土， and the 4th in 车 change from 一 héng to ㇀ tí.
...
2
votes
2answers
189 views
How can I get a list of all the characters containing the “flowing water” component that is in 益?
Further to this question. According to "Outlier Dictionary of Chinese Characters" (which I have as a (paid-for) add-on in the Pleco app), in the character 益, the component (top part of ...
1
vote
2answers
175 views
If 冬 in itself means winter, why add 天?
If 冬 in itself means winter, do adding 天 Impact the meaning, or perhaps refer to winter time instead of the season itself? Or is it because 冬 is monosyllabic and 冬天 has two syllables?
1
vote
2answers
187 views
What's the meaning of the hat like character on top of 尔
According to https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E5%B0%94#Chinese
It is
this character https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E2%BA%88
It simply means knife but the wiktionary entry is very short.
Google ...
0
votes
3answers
353 views
What does 尔 really mean?
That character is the right part of 你 nu, which means you.
According to https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E5%B0%94 it means you. It reads er
According to http://zhongwen.com/bushou.htm I saw this
So ...
2
votes
2answers
120 views
How do I understand Ni (you) character correctly?
It says
http://zhongwen.com/bushou.htm
If I search for you I got this
It consists of 2 characters
The first is person and you. The 2 characters are very different than the character in character ...
1
vote
2answers
103 views
“Pixelating” the character 英
I would like to include a Chinese character (英) in a knitting pattern. To do so, I need to "pixelate" the character.
Is this an acceptable representation of the character and is it easily ...
1
vote
2answers
139 views
Is the visual similarity of the simplifications 華→华 and 畢→毕 a coincidence?
華 and 畢 are very similar, the bottom is the same, and only the top 4/5 of their strokes differ.
Their simplifications 华 and 毕 are also similar, the bottom and the top rights are the same and, and the ...
3
votes
1answer
249 views
What does “GHTJK” stand for in this part of a Wiktionary: entry: “…composition ⿸丆卜(GHTJK) or ⿻丆”
I generally understand the Ideographic Description Characters (IDSes) and the Ideographic Description Sequences,for CJK strokes and components but the abbreviation GHTJK in this entry and GHTK in ...
5
votes
3answers
257 views
Why is there an 'ear' component in the character for smell? 闻 聞
Why is there an 'ear' radical in the character for smell? 闻 聞
I find this pretty confusing. Perhaps there is a fun story behind it?
2
votes
3answers
320 views
What resources can I use for learning character decomposition?
I'm developing a set of tools meant to aid in learning Chinese characters and I realized that I don't know a good dataset containing character decomposition. Ideally it should be comprehensive (or ...
1
vote
2answers
97 views
How to understand “ideographic” decomposition of characters like 不 and 与
I was recommended "character decomposition database" on this site.
I have started to explore it and found, that some decompositions I don't understand, like
U+4E0D 不 ⿱一③
U+4E0E 与 ⿹②一[GTKV] ⿻②...
4
votes
4answers
241 views
What is the meaning of 刚 in 变形金刚?
I came across the word 变形金刚 in a short children's story that I read and Pleco dictionary states that it refers to either shape-shifting warriors protecting the Buddha, or Transformers (which Google ...
4
votes
3answers
618 views
Chinese character decomposition
I found that many (most?) of chinese charaters look like composed of more primitive ones, like
做 ＝ 亻十口夂
你 ＝ 亻尔
吃 ＝ 卩乙
and so on.
I this a real phenomenon or just my europeen imagination?
If it ...
3
votes
2answers
209 views
What is the relation between 寨 (zhài, “stockade, stronghold, fort”) and 塞 (sài, “place of strategic importance; pass; fortress”)?
Most dictionaries say 寨 = 塞 + 木, but on its face, we could just as easily have 塞 = 寨 + 土.
4
votes
1answer
157 views
How do I know whether to write the written character or printed character?
I'm often finding differences in the printed form of the character than the written form, and I'm not sure which one to use. For example, in 窗, the typed character sometimes contains legs 儿, but the ...
2
votes
2answers
345 views
What's the relationship between 暖, 爱 and 愛?
I was curious when I noticed that 暖 contains the character 爱, so I thought that in the traditional form, it would have 愛, the traditional form of 爱. But it appears that 暖 has the same form in both ...
3
votes
1answer
257 views
What’s the difference between 円 and 月 as character components?
What’s the difference between 円 and 月 as character components?
If we look at 青 and 靑.
The bottom of 青 is:
月
and if we look at 靑, it's bottom is:
円
靑 is said to be an 异体字 of 青 and zisea says ...
2
votes
3answers
109 views
Why is the character 中 listed as a 嵌套结构 (nested structure) and not a 单一结构 (single component)?
I'm studying character components using guoxuedashi, a online service/dictionary where you can filter by components, and there's LOTS of them. The thing is, they use a different system of ...
11
votes
5answers
819 views
Why was the rice component added to 气 to form 氣?
气 is an ancient character that has roots in an oracle bone pictogram, but according to this, the rice radical was added in the Tang dynasty to form 氣.
What were the reasons for this? What does 气, ...
