{"id":11644,"date":"2019-09-20T02:00:00","date_gmt":"2019-09-20T01:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saporedicina.com\/english\/?p=11644"},"modified":"2023-03-24T11:53:18","modified_gmt":"2023-03-24T10:53:18","slug":"chinese-letters-chinese-alphabet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saporedicina.com\/english\/chinese-letters-chinese-alphabet\/","title":{"rendered":"Chinese Letters and Chinese Alphabet: Why Both Terms Are Incorrect"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Chinese<\/p>\n

Click here to discover what Chinese courses
that we recommend at the moment!<\/a><\/div>\n

When people know that I can speak Chinese some common questions are:<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cIsn’t it really hard to learn Chinese letters<\/em>?\u201d<\/p>\n

To which I respond: \u201cNot as hard as you think.\u201d<\/p>\n

The next question is usually:<\/p>\n

\u201cDo you know the whole alphabet?\u201d<\/p>\n

Which I don’t know what to answer, so I just say “No, not yet.”<\/p>\n

This article is dedicated to the people that ask me these things, as well as to those who are interested in Chinese writing and don’t know where to start.<\/p>\n

When you finish reading this article, you will have a basic idea of Chinese writing and will have learned some of these incorrectly named Chinese letters<\/em> effortlessly, in such a way that you are not going to forget them easily.<\/strong><\/p>\n

If you stumbled upon this article accidentally because you want to get a tattoo with Chinese letters<\/em>, wait for a second, as you might still learn something and avoid getting a tattoo of something that your future Chinese girlfriend\/boyfriend is going to laugh at every time they see it.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Why is it incorrect to say “Chinese letters” and what is their proper name?<\/h2>\n

To make things simple, languages such as English, Spanish, Greek, Russian, or even Korean are based on letters that can be ordered into an alphabet<\/strong>, where each letter is associated with a sound and are combined to form words.<\/p>\n

Chinese does not have letters and therefore doesn’t have an alphabet<\/a>. Rather, it has characters<\/strong> that are associated with a concept and not a sound.<\/p>\n

This is similar to the meaning of numbers:<\/p>\n

If I write 1, a Spanish speaker will read “uno,” an English speaker “one,” and a French person “un,” and so on.<\/p>\n

Chinese does not have an alphabet due to the fact that Chinese does not have letters; rather, Chinese has characters. <\/strong><\/p>\n

If Chinese doesn’t have letters, how do they write?<\/h2>\n

Chinese writing can be broken down as follows:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Stroke<\/strong>: There are only 8<\/li>\n
  2. Radical<\/strong>: multiple strokes make a radical (there are 256)<\/li>\n
  3. Character<\/strong>: One or more radicals make a character (3,000 characters cover 99% of texts)<\/li>\n
  4. Word<\/strong>: One, two, or three characters make a word.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    It is soooo complicated!<\/p>\n

    It’s simpler than it seems. Let’s consider a few examples:<\/p>\n

    We will use two strokes and together they make a radical, which is both a character and a word.<\/p>\n

    \"Chinese<\/p>\n

    But what does it mean?<\/p>\n

    \"Chinese<\/p>\n

    Yes, it is a PERSON<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

    But if this person opens up their arms like this:<\/p>\n

    \"Big<\/p>\n

    He is telling us that it is this BIG<\/strong>!<\/p>\n

    And if he moves his arms?<\/p>\n

    \"Chinese<\/p>\n

    He is warning us about something. FIRE<\/strong>! FIRE<\/strong>!<\/p>\n

    What does this remind you of?<\/p>\n

    \"Chinese<\/p>\n

    Yes, it is an arch, or better said, a DOOR<\/strong><\/p>\n

    And this?<\/p>\n

    \"Chinese<\/p>\n

    Better this way?<\/p>\n

    \"Mouth\"<\/p>\n

    Yep, it’s a MOUTH<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

    These simple characters are words on their own but can be combined to form new words. For example:<\/p>\n