"China in the World" begins publishing Chinese language lessons for beginners.

These classes offer the opportunity self-study Chinese.

A Chinese phrase with favorable content, the Russian translation of which we will learn at the end of the 1st lesson.

The image shows a modern Chinese phrase with auspicious content. You will learn the meaning of this phrase and each of its hieroglyphs at the end of the 1st lesson, consisting of three small lessons.

Subsequently, as you study, you will find that this phrase will become a kind of “formula” for memorizing Chinese characters, since it contains more than 15 semantic units (key characters).

So, since hieroglyphs are the foundation of the Chinese language, our first topic is about them. Let's start with the simplest hieroglyphs.

The simplest hieroglyphs and their meaning

Chinese characters, especially traditional ones*, are actually pictures that are thousands of years old. Once you learn to read these ancient illustrations, then the need for “cramming” will largely disappear, as some kind of ineffective tool for learning the Chinese language.

Therefore, try to look at all the hieroglyphs in our course as pictures.

Demonstrative characters

Let's start with the simplest hieroglyphs - numerals: one, two, three, ten.

Chinese character for "one". Pronunciation according to pinyin transcription: yī

Nota bene. IN initial stage acquaintance with hieroglyphs, pronunciation in “pinyin” * can (and even advisable) not be paid attention to. This pinyin will be very useful, but only from the beginning of mastering Chinese pronunciation.

Chinese character for "two". Pronunciation according to pinyin transcription: èr

In Chinese text, the characters 一二 placed together often form a single word for "several" or "little".

Chinese word: "several" or "little". Pronunciation in pinyin transcription: yīèr

A little theory. Chinese words may consist of one hieroglyph, or maybe of two, or even more than 2 hieroglyphs, say, five or six hieroglyphs. But most words still consist of two hieroglyphs.

Chinese character for "three". Pronunciation according to pinyin transcription: sān

As you can see, the depiction of these numerals is quite justified, so it is easy to remember what they mean. Do you agree?

In subsequent classes you will learn that these seemingly very simple hieroglyphs also have deeper meaning.

Chinese character for "ten". Pinyin pronunciation: shí

To understand why the hieroglyph “ten” is written this way, you can dig a little deeper.

In Chinese culture, there is an ancient expression "ten cardinal directions" or "ten-sided world" 十方世界. This ancient concept is completely consistent with modern scientific knowledge.

As you know, the plane of our Earth has four main directions: north and south, west and east; as well as four directions between them. There are eight in total. If you add up and down directions, you get the “ten cardinal directions.”

The ten cardinal directions apply both to humans, for example in martial arts, and to universal laws, for example, to the structure of the Universe.

For clarity, look at two illustrations.

The warrior realizes that he is in the ten cardinal directions. Image: athleticism.com.ua

The hieroglyph "10" represents a diagram of the "ten-sided world." Thus, the horizontal line of the hieroglyph is the horizontal 8 directions of a two-dimensional plane (in the picture there is a kung fu fighter on this plane). And the vertical line of the hieroglyph “ten” is the remaining directions up and down.

Galaxy illustration. Image: artefact-2007.blogspot.com/2012/01/blog-post.html

The galaxy is also similar to the hieroglyph “ten”. If you imagine a hieroglyph three-dimensional, then it becomes a “diagram” of the galaxy.

The author admits that the reader could feel disagreement with this explanation of the character “ten”, which, by the way, correlates with the interpretation of the authoritative dictionary Showen Jiezi*. It's nothing. Even if this is so, in any case, it’s easier for you to remember this hieroglyph, isn’t it? But you already know four simple Chinese characters and one word from two characters.

Also, you have just become acquainted with one of the methods of memorizing hieroglyphs - through the study of their origin and construction (etymology of hieroglyphs).

A little theory. All four learned hieroglyphs (1,2,3,10) can be classified as simple “ index hieroglyphs" - one of the six types of Chinese characters, according to the classification of the mentioned Shuwen Jiezi.

In the Showen Dictionary, "demonstrative characters" are referred to as "Zhyshi" (literally: [characters] "pointing to facts"). Their image indicates the meaning, as seen in hieroglyphs 1,2,3, or suggests the meaning, expressing an abstract idea, as represented with hieroglyph 10.

Simple ones also include “figurative hieroglyphs”: person, child, woman and others. We will get acquainted with these hieroglyphs in the next lesson. In the meantime...

Homework for the next Chinese lesson

1. Keep a notebook in a square from 12 to 60 sheets (depending on the seriousness of your intentions to learn Chinese 🙂). As practice shows, the most convenient is the usual school notebook in a checkered pattern or in A-5 format.

Inscription of Chinese characters in a four-by-four format. Below the line with hieroglyphs, there is also a line of 4 cells in size for “height” for your notes (translation of hieroglyphs into Russian, transcription, etc.). Photo: website

2. In the purchased notebook, draw the studied hieroglyphs. To write one hieroglyph, use the four-by-four cell format. But there may be another area if it is more convenient for you.

HIEROGLYPH. "THREE AGES - THREE MEN AND A HOMELAND."

Don't be sorry for the silver, -
The mirror man told me, -
than my mirrors
there are no straighter mirrors!

The silver that I had
gave without reserve -
everything as the master ordered,
for painting mirrors.

The work is ready
silver burns;
as if someone gave it to me
sharp knife under the rib.

I look in sadness
not finding any resemblance,
I don’t blame the masters,
only it's not me...

But it's not me!
It's someone else!
Not my mirrors
They sent it to me at home.

I didn’t spare the silver
let me look again -
the master did not prevail,
maybe curvature?

Or is it out of spite?
But the mirror man said:
- Than my mirrors,
there are no straighter mirrors.

She woke up before dark.
I tried to remember my dream. But he slipped away, leaving her confused and scared.
No matter how comfortable life was now, adapted to everyday joys, she woke up with the same feeling of loss that arose immediately after arriving in this one-story, sunny-white town on the ocean shore.
In 1985, after fifteen years of widow's peace and beggarly independence, she suddenly found herself on a cruise along the Volga, "Moscow-Astrakhan-Moscow", which ended in the first third of the journey - in Kuibyshev, from where she flew off with an assertive fellow traveler to almost foreign Tallinn...
Crazy time, incredible events of the late eighties. She didn’t even try to understand them and survived this “dislocated time”, in general, painlessly, thanks to him, Solomon.

But why did she, a Russian, all St. Petersburg down to the last vein, throw herself into his dreary Jewish adventure?
Most likely, because her Jewish husband turned out to be reverent and calculating at the same time - he knew how to give the whole world at once and earn money for such a generous gift.
He managed to package emigration in such a colorful and cheerful package that it happened easily, almost joyfully and, it seemed, somehow not seriously.
It seems that her second husband really loved her; at least his passion for her, a far from young woman, did not fade away and was, at times, fierce and endless. And this, to be honest, did not bother her at all.
Solomon died, warming her in his furry arms - in the hunting lodge they rented for the weekend.
She was left alone - in a foreign land, with poor Portuguese, among polite smiling neighbors and a wild morning longing for everything that was once herself...
The only Russian in the town is a brilliant magician, a circus legend, a rich and melancholy old man. He himself, without an invitation, came to her on Christmas Eve.
They got drunk and cried.
A couple of days later I ran into him on the beach. The old man didn't even nod to her.

"Souls were silent - like countries,
burned to the ground by enmity.

Faceted glasses came together -
parliamentarians table.

And peace, tranquility and faith poured out;
night is condescendingly kind.

She's like a wise hetaera
She received us until the morning.

And in the morning there are candles on the bottles,
cigarette butts, ashes, smoke, words...

Everything is like fun at a wake,
when the widow comes to dance.

And your wine-blurred profile,
oblique mirrors crush.

Mephistopheles winks
you from every corner."

Occasionally she received letters from Russia and Kazakhstan: from two or three old friends.
The friends' troubles and joys were surprisingly similar and long ago alien to her.
Sometimes they awakened a dull pain, but the heart, nevertheless, remained free.
Like an oversaturated salt solution, the soul accepted the crystals of pain without dissolving them. And they settled in its bottomless depressions as dead plankton.
There were enough worries and fears: for an old mother who had survived cancer surgery, lying in a small Astrakhan
hospital, for her son, who year by year became more and more intolerant of her, of himself and, in general, of the people around him. And although, no matter what happened to him in Russia, it could not in any way affect the course of the old woman’s existence here, with the ocean grumbling under the windows, fear and uncertainty lived latently in her.

The muslin of sleep, woven from half-forgotten, God knows who, spoken words, gestures, promises, someone's and for someone's hatred, love, sympathy, disbelief and faith, swayed again at her temple. Wrapping myself in this muslin was sweet and painful at the same time.

At noon she finally woke up.
The au pair, an elderly German woman from East Germany, Greta, cooked oatmeal, gave him cocoa and went out to buy groceries.
I was going through the photos.
Letters.
Documentation.
She busily looked through the financial statements - the plant for the production of food for dogs, cats and exotic animals, bought ten years ago by the prudent Solomon, was making a good profit.
“People are becoming more and more lonely and selfish, and animals allow us to maintain an emotional and sensual background,” Solomon motivated this purchase somewhat scientifically. - Believe me, dear, dogs and cats will give at least two for every dollar invested. People are more attached to creatures than creatures are to them, believe me. People want to feel, but not burden themselves with this feeling.
The worst thing is to stop wanting anything, honey.

"I wanted to smoke.
I also wanted to drink.
I wanted to invite you.
I remembered - and I didn’t want to.

Poor rhyme - “want”
The fatal verb is “wanted.”
How I wanted to want it!
How I wanted!
How I wanted..."

He, as always, turned out to be right.

Alone, in front of the TV, she plunged into the lilac twilight, completing another day; dozed surrounded by accumulated and already half-forgotten discoveries, disappointments, deaths, births, insights and vanity and someone’s never completed destinies. Swimmed from one dream to another.
And - not just one, but already several women in the room. They wrap themselves in lilac doze, hide in dark corners and stare at each other.

THE DOCTOR PLACED A SHEET ON SHIMADA'S BODY AND
CAME OUT.
SOME PARTICULARLY GIANT REPORTER MANAGED
GET YOUR WAY UP HERE TO THE THIRD FLOOR.
- JUST TWO WORDS, DOC!
THE DOCTOR KNEW FROM EXPERIENCE: THESE JACKALS WOULD NOT
GET AWAY.
- POISONING. SUICIDE APPEARS. ALL.

There, in the farthest and darkest corner of the room, lurked, perhaps, the most cruel...
The youngest. Almost a girl. A flexible body, a golden mane of hair, scarlet lacquered lips, slender and thin legs, like those of a wild animal, strong and resilient. Almost antique, Spartan beauty.
The poor student clothes did not hide this beauty – on the contrary, they outlined it in contrast.
Her friends were furiously jealous of her.
The first post-war October, rarely, rarely does a young lonely man flash in the crowd, and even he will only look at her. Only for her...
And she was starving.
In the institute's dormitory, a cramped, cold room, there are almost forty girls. The table is shared. Everyone was sent food and they shared it among themselves without damage.
They didn't send it to her.
There was no one to wait for parcels from.
And she was terribly proud.
It was like a disease.
And I had to starve. And wear such ridiculous dresses, shoes and coats that tears flowed from your eyes.
There was a day, then a second, the morning of the third, and there was not a drop of poppy dew in my mouth.
She covered her head - this habit remained with her forever. When she was hurt, hurt, scared, she would lie down and cover her head, although the fear or pain, in general, did not go away.
She covered her head. And here...

THE DOCTOR HAS NOT HAPPENED TO WASH HIS HANDS YET,
AND IN DOZENS OF PRINTING HOUSES, COMPOSITIONERS
WE CHOOSE THE LARGEST FONT AT THE BOX,
TO PICK YOUR FIRST STRIPED HAT:
"FOR UNKNOWN REASONS..."

And then Yulka from the biology department literally flew into the room.
- Are you sleeping!? Oh, listen... I fell in love! To the Japanese. Let's go look at him. Well, please, honey. Oh please!!!

"... FOR UNKNOWN REASONS, THE LEADING PHARMACOLOGIST SHIMADA..." - TYPEED IN PRINTING HOUSES, SPEAKED ON THE TAPE RECORDER BY NEWSPORDS, TV REPORTERS OF JAPAN AND INTERNATIONAL AGENCIES

November 1945.
She is literally starving to death.
Disabled people at the station.
The shiny cheeks of the quartermasters.
Gloomy faces of women in quilted jackets.
Camp of Japanese prisoners on the outskirts of Khabarovsk.
The gallant gait of the Rokosovites - a parade on Karl Marx Street.
Then - hundreds of Japanese soldiers. They wander almost without an escort to the station. They are sent home. For now only a soldier.
Dejected Japanese officers stand sluggishly in a closed formation and look after them. They remain war criminals for now. How many years of captivity await them? Almost boys - emaciated, cropped. Descendants of the samurai.
It seems to her that they, like her, want bread. And warmth. And nothing more.
- That one. Look. Wow, he's the one. Not this one...
Three people held the log vertically. One, stripped to the waist, was hitting him with a heavy sledgehammer.
He was thin.
High compared to others.
Handsome.
She didn't see his beauty, she just understood it.
A hooked nose, large wildly slanted, but warm eyes. Yes, yes, exactly warm. This is the main thing that she felt on that dank and hungry day.

"I FINISHED MYSELF." EVENING
RELEASE. EVENING EDITION. EVENING…

What are you doing!? How will I go to him? They are prisoners. You know what happens with this...
She knew.
But she saw that Russian women in quilted jackets, gloomy and unfriendly Khabarovsk women who were not generous with their words, openly walked past the guards without hiding and silently gave the Japanese bread and potatoes. And she also saw in the eyes of the guards not hatred, but vague sympathy, and in the eyes of the Japanese, a pathetic hope that the “package” would go to him.

… RELEASE. A PROMINENT COMMITTED SUICIDE
PHARMACOLOGIST AND BUSINESSMAN.
BUY Lingerie FROM...

Somewhere in the very depths of the bedroom lived another one - still beautiful, fiercely independent, but already undermined by secret despair: husband, son, humiliating poverty, her husband’s talkative and indifferent friends, vodka...
“Did you buy me cigarettes”?
"I will become a great writer."
“Run for the check.”
“Your child is sick”...
Oh, how proud my husband was that he entered the prisoner of war camp without an escort.
It was really dangerous.
The Japanese were homesick.
They sang strange sad songs.
They made souvenir swords.
We ran into a fight.
I felt sorry for them. They were understood. And swords were not taken seriously. But it was really dangerous to enter the camp. Exhausted by nostalgia, two or three Japanese could use the sword.

She was called.
"You are entrusted with an important task. The recommendation was given by the party committee of the institute. They trust you. It is necessary: ​​to teach the conscious activists of war criminals, at least the basics, the Russian language. You have two accompanying persons. The schedule is four days a week. The period is two months. Additional rations in the official military certificate. Get it done."

It was not a question, but an order.

Just two weeks later, the Japanese asked:
- Why did you marry him? - No, it was not her merit, as it turned out, the Japanese did not learn Russian in captivity, he was trained to conduct guerrilla bacteriological warfare in the territory of Primorye.
A biologist by training, he had to apply this knowledge in practice...
- Why did you marry him? It will be difficult for you with such a person.
- Lord, that’s not the point. Talk to yours. I'm afraid for him.
- Don't worry.

The husband, who learned a simple but harmful craft in a couple of months, unexpectedly - even for himself, a troubled retired front-line soldier - became a “respectable person”, an X-ray technician. The prisoners were driven to him in formation, he scanned them, separating those with tuberculosis from the healthy.

The Japanese hated him as a harbinger of black misfortune.
He could easily fall under the hot hand of a Japanese drugged with boiled fly agarics.
However, the husband continued to go to the camp alone, without security, and was proud of it. It was funny, awkward and stupid.
Later, remembering this camp, she realized that her husband really was a brave man, because he did not know what kind of guardian angel was behind him.
Cruel and sentimental, in general, not stupid, but forever a boy, he brought her only pain until his death.
First sharp, then softer.
But there is always pain. And even after death.
One day she found a diary in his old coat, where her husband wrote about her - he wrote about her, loving and hating.

9.
"Fingers of past grievances
plucked the heart pulp -
came across a diary
in a worn out coat;
just a couple of lines,
but I want to cry,
but if you tear out at least a leaf,
You'll crumble into nothing."

PROGRAM "TIME".
TODAY'S ISSUE...

Why did you marry him?
Really, why?
Oh yes, he was handsome. But that's all. Is this not enough?
He was weak. He, who had gone through war and death, was weak.

My God, how much time has passed. And the Japanese, everything is nearby.
- We are being sent.
- When?
- Tomorrow.
“How many years have passed into nothing. He’s probably aged since I saw him in that post-war November? But I don’t notice. He’s leaving. So what. Who is he to her? Japanese. Strange. Handsome. Strong. She and her husband are the same age . It’s wonderful. How scary a husband is when he drinks...”
- Tomorrow.
- Yes Yes. Have a good trip.
- I have prepared a surprise for you. For memory.
- Yes Yes. Thank you. I have to go.
- I will remember you all my life.

The youngest one looked from her corner.
Silently.
But the Japanese left and left and could not leave.
He was already quite tiny.
- …all life.

“Go away at last...” - the woman remembered that Greta asked to turn off the solar battery adapter in the evening. Solomon, literally before his death, replaced the usual power plant with this fantastic marvel. The sun provided everything - electricity, water, heating of granite floors. “My poor Solomon.”

Oh, how cruel her boyish husband was when he drank.
And how weak he was a minute before his death. Forty years, forty two... Heart attack.
The soft thud of the back of your head on the rug in the hallway.
Night.
Arrival of son.
How she wanted her boy-husband, who had brought so much pain, to come to life.
At least at the end of the world, even without her. But he lived, he lived!
She found herself at the end of the world.
With another.
For adults. Strong. Not vain. Smart and calm - even in trouble.
But - not sprouted in her, not mixed with her with all his blood.

"As opposed to just fornication
Love is as fierce as a horde.

Suddenly it swoops in - out of nowhere!
Suddenly disappears - into nowhere!

Only the twisted scourge of the evil wind
The fumes of ashes will knock off the grass,

Yes, someone erased a horseshoe
"For luck" he will pick up in the ashes."

But the Japanese does not leave.
And for some reason he is not alone. He is coming back. My husband is with him! In my husband’s hands is a matte oval - a cut of birch.
On a pale pink oval cut, with thin pastel shadows, there is a delicate, somehow especially non-Russian flower.

A gift from a Japanese person. See, they loved me.
He, of course, never understood, her weak and cruel husband, to whom this drawing was presented.
Here he is - opposite, next to the portrait of Solomon and her husband.
She never parted with him anywhere.
I tried to restore a faded flower and only ruined it
On the reverse side, write in script - a blue hieroglyph.
Already at the age of sixty-five, traveling with Solomon around South-East Asia, she got herself a tattoo, - she copied this strict hieroglyph from a birch cut.
In Naples, visiting a fellow student who had become a famous translator, she asked his Japanese wife to decipher the hieroglyph.
- Nothing special. In the Upper part - just a surname. Shimada. Very respected. But nothing more. But this knot is three men and a symbol of the homeland.
- Japan?
- No, just the place of birth. What is your tattoo associated with?
- This is an old and uninteresting story.

"FOR UNKNOWN REASONS HE DIED
WITH YOUR JAPANESE LEADER
BUSINESSMAN AND SCIENTIST SHIMADA.
TRANSMITTED FROM BEIRUT..."

Yes, she wandered around with Solomon.
He was really tired.
And she loved the Road.
Especially its beginning.
She liked to leave, leave, run away - not from anyone
or something specific. For a day, a week, an hour, a minute...
She's still on her way.
But, alas, this road ran into a bend in the gorge, where illness, insomnia, the meaninglessness of tomorrow and scraps of other people’s words, unnecessary, uninteresting, live, which need to be listened to and somehow understood.
Roads. From North to South. From west to east. All of Russia was covered.

She was thrown out to the very eastern edge, a native Leningrader, a Petersburger, followed by her parents, who were first exiled and then destroyed.

"The sorrowful path of homelessness was closing,
And the plow kept circling across the field,
Throwing souls like clods,
Into the torn mouths of the graves.

Only here, in the impersonality of the stations,
For a moment the wolfish fear was lost:
The appearance of the beginning saved
Lurking on trains.

The stations were saved by the deaf,
Suddenly rising out of the darkness,
Mother Russia saved,
From Vologda to Kolyma.

Far from shaved heads
They changed trains
Like two unaddressed parcels -
From nowhere
Going nowhere.

And once upon a time near Ryazan
I felt like I was in the melancholy of the night
Line of Scripture
His charred line."

This is about my mother and father, who were killed within the same year, three days apart.

She loved to leave. But they left.
Nobody stopped for long.
Now only the shadow of what she lived is a companion and support on this path.

...FROM TELETTYPE TAPE. FINISHED YOURSELF...

Unexpectedly, half an hour later after accidentally hearing and having difficulty translating the message, she suddenly gained firm confidence: “It was him. He. Shimada. It doesn't even matter. This is not necessary. But this is him."
And she fell asleep.
And the girl kept looking, without taking her eyes off, looking at her from her corner.
And the Japanese did not leave.
And the brave front-line soldier, her boy-husband, was silently raging somewhere near the sofa.
And Solomon cried at the crematorium furnaces in the Auschwitz concentration camp, where his mother, father, brothers and sisters were turned into dust and clouds.

Victory!
- Victory!
- Victory!

She acutely felt and, with simplicity and clarity returning to her, again accepted everything that this jubilant cry of the boy had given her.
He gave her everything for the rest of her life: Shimada, and her unlucky husband, son, and Solomon...
He gave her life - just life.

A gift for every day.

Oh, how wasteful she was!
She wasted the proud, wild girl who was now looking at her from her dark corner with hatred and contempt.
But why?

“You left Solomon. Why did you come back? Kill him with your dislike and polite gratitude?”

"When you leave, go away. Peace to any strait!
You cannot step into the same river twice.

Leaving go. Returns are false
Like a mirage in Kara-Kum at the hour of midday thirst.

Leaving go. Returns are like vodka.
Tearful paradise until the morning. Well, in the morning - a hangover.

Return... It is like a leaky boat,
There will be no salvation in it in the hour of shipwreck.

Leaving go. I'm sitting on the threshold.
I have no keys, but God has no salvation.

I'm back. I'm waiting. And I love your back
He whips me with a whip for my return!

You were afraid of Russia. The one they turn her into. From which only Solomon could save.
- Maybe you're right. I no longer had the strength.

She knew the girl was wrong. That everything was and is in her life is not as it seems to the girl with a golden mane and scarlet, feverish lips. But I didn't want to argue.
“My poor thing...” the woman thought. And, forgetting that we were talking about herself, she remembered how the girl once, almost unconscious, completely ill, had to drive through all of Primorye in the back of an army car, how she lay delirious in a shed of strangers who devoured her only wealth at that time - a jar of honey given to her by a compassionate rural paramedic for the entire long journey from her place of settlement to Khabarovsk.

My good Solomon... Well, what did he find in her, in the eternal wanderer, carrying within herself grief for the departed and only pity for him?

"What did you find in her?
Yes, in general, nothing.

Except for something
without which
and sin is not sweet -
just copulation
and life is not life,
and death is like deliverance.

What did I find in it...
Yes, in general, nothing."

She was tired of this pity for Solomon and tenderness for herself.
And - I woke up.
But it was not she who woke up, but the same girl who, having suffered on the road, finally arrived in Khabarovsk.
And another one woke up - a little old woman, with sore eyes and dry pink skin. The one she still had to be, who was already waiting for her to merge with her tired soul.
The old woman looked at her with pity and, despite this pity, apparently she no longer understood or did not want to understand anything.

WEATHER ABROAD. OVER THE COAST
SOUTHEAST ASIA HAS GONE
HURRICANE AGLAYA. IT'S RAINY IN TOKYO...

And the boy kept running along the humpbacked pavement and shouting:

U-R-R-R-A-A!

VICTORY!

WE WON!

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Chinese writing is hieroglyphic. Hieroglyphs are also found in other languages ​​influenced by China - Japanese and, to a lesser extent, Korean. In Vietnamese language hieroglyphic writing was used until the 20th century. Students of these languages ​​are especially faced with the question of how many hieroglyphs they need to know, how to remember them and, most importantly, not forget them.

Hieroglyph in classical written language wenyan文言 usually meant a whole word. In modern Chinese, words mostly consist of one or two, rarely three or more characters. Therefore, there are a lot of hieroglyphs.

In 1994, the dictionary “Sea of ​​Chinese Characters” was published. Zhonghua Zihai中華字海, which has 85568 characters! True, the vast majority of them can be found only a few times in classical literary works. Conventional bilingual dictionaries contain about 6-8 thousand hieroglyphs, among which there are also many rare ones. More complete explanatory dictionaries number about 10-20 thousand characters.

It is believed that to understand 80% of modern ordinary Chinese text it is enough to know the 500 most frequent hieroglyphs; knowledge of 1000 hieroglyphs gives an understanding of approximately 91% of the text, and 2500 hieroglyphs - 99% of the text. In order to pass the highest level Chinese language exam for foreigners, HSK 6, you need to know just under 3,000 characters. To read specialized scientific or classical literature, you need to understand a larger number of hieroglyphs.

However, you must keep in mind that even if all the hieroglyphs in the text are familiar to you, you will not always completely understand the meaning of what is written. You also need to know words—various word combinations of hieroglyphs. The Chinese language uses quite a lot of abbreviations, when stable phrases of several characters are reduced to shorter ones.

For example, the phrase “Beijing University” 北京大学 Běijīng dàxué shortened to 北大 Běida, which literally means "northern big". Another difficulty of the Chinese language is the use chengyu 成语 - idioms usually consisting of four characters. With a literal translation of each sign, the meaning of what is said may not be understood. There are special Chenyu dictionaries, as well as collections of stories that explain the meaning of the most famous idioms. Translations of chengyu can also be found in dictionaries.

IN Japanese there is a mandatory list of hieroglyphs Joyo kanji常用漢字, accepted by the Japanese Ministry of Education as sufficient for everyday use. It consists of 2136 kanji(hieroglyphs) and includes 1006 kyoiku kanji, which schoolchildren study at the age of 6 primary school and 1130 kanji who teach in high school.

Hieroglyph structure

At first glance, the hieroglyph seems to be a chaotic collection of various lines and dots. However, it is not. There are several basic elements that make up a hieroglyph. First of all, these are the features that make up graphemes. Graphemes, in turn, form a more complex sign.

Traits

Any hieroglyph consists of a certain set of features. The traits themselves have no lexical meaning or reading. There are four types of traits and more than two dozen varieties:

1. Simple (basic) features: horizontal, vertical, inclined left and right, folding left and right, special points.
2. Features with a hook: horizontal, vertical (can be with a hook to the left or a hook to the right), folding to the right.
3. Broken features: the line changes direction one or more times, has a complex configuration.
4. Broken features with a hook.

There are also slightly different classifications of traits, however general essence it doesn't change. Traits are written in hieroglyphs in a strictly defined sequence: “first horizontal, then vertical, first folding to the left, then folding to the right, first top, then bottom, first left, then right, first in the middle, then on both sides of it, first we go inside, then close the door”.

In the past, hieroglyphs consisted of large number Damn, it wasn't easy to remember them. Therefore, one of the goals of the writing reform carried out by the Chinese government in the 60s of the 20th century was to simplify the characters by reducing the number of strokes.

A similar simplification of hieroglyphs was carried out in Japan. However, simplified Japanese characters do not always correspond to Chinese ones, although knowing the full and simplified versions of Chinese characters, it is usually easy to understand the simplified Japanese ones. For example, the word "library" written in Simplified Chinese: 图书馆, Long Chinese: 圖書館, and Japanese: 図書館. In Chinese it reads túshūguǎn, in Japanese - toshokan.

In Taiwan, Singapore and some other places, the full version of writing hieroglyphs is still used. And in mainland China you can find texts written in full hieroglyphs. In addition, hieroglyphs with several dozen features have survived to this day. As a rule, they are rarely used and therefore have not been simplified.

The most difficult hieroglyph to write is considered biáng (bian), which consists of more than 60 traits. It refers to a type of noodle popular in Shaanxi Province. Outside the region, this hieroglyph is practically not used, and therefore it is absent from dictionaries and computer fonts.

The hieroglyph "byan" is considered the most difficult to write. They say that students at one of the institutes in Chengdu were systematically late for classes. And the professor, angry with them, ordered everyone to write the hieroglyph “byan” a thousand times. Not everyone was able to do this. And everyone tearfully asked for forgiveness, promising not to be late for classes in the future.

Graphemes and clues

From traits are formed graphemes– simple hieroglyphic signs with stable lexical meanings. These are the basic characters of Chinese hieroglyphic writing that make up Chinese characters. They are the most ancient and express the basic elements of the surrounding world and man.

Examples of graphemes: person 人 ren, woman 女 nǚ, child 子 zǐ, sun 日 rì, sky 天 tiān, earth (soil) 土 tǔ etc.

There are about 300 graphemes in total; linguists differ in their estimates regarding their exact number. Most graphemes are used in modern Chinese writing as the most common characters. Graphemes make up about 10% of the most commonly used hieroglyphs.

In addition to graphemes, there are keys. Keys are the main classification marks. The standard list of keys contains 214 characters. It includes many graphemes and some features that do not have a fixed meaning. Thus, not all graphemes are keys and not all keys are graphemes.

For a long time, a list of 214 keys constituted the so-called hieroglyphic index, according to which hieroglyphs were ordered in Chinese dictionaries. However, after simplified hieroglyphic writing was introduced into the PRC, some characters underwent either partial simplification or structural changes.

For students of languages ​​with hieroglyphic writing, knowledge of the key table is mandatory.

Complex signs

Most hieroglyphs consist of two or more graphemes. Traditionally, they are divided into two large groups: ideographic signs and phonideographic signs.

Ideographic signs

Ideographic signs (ideograms) consist of two or more graphemes. In them, the meaning of the hieroglyph is derived from the semantics of the graphemes included in it, but the reading of the hieroglyph is in no way connected with them. In modern Chinese, the share of ideographic signs is about 10%.

Examples of ideograms:

• 好 hǎo(good): 女 nǚ(woman) and 子 zǐ(child)
• 明 ming(understanding, enlightenment): 日 rì(sun) and 月 yuè(moon)
• 休 xiū(rest): 人 ren(person) and 木 mù(tree)
• 众 zhòng(crowd): three people 人 ren
• 森 sēn(forest, thicket, dense): three trees 木 mù

Phonoideographic signs

About 80% of hieroglyphs are so-called phonideographic signs, or phonideograms. Hieroglyphs of this type usually consist of two parts. One part is called semantic factor, or hieroglyphic key. It indicates that the hieroglyph belongs to a certain group of semantically related characters and thereby suggests an approximate meaning.

The other part of the hieroglyph is called phonetician and suggests an approximate reading. After the reform of Chinese writing, the number of phonideograms consisting of two graphemes increased significantly, which greatly facilitated the memorization of hieroglyphs.

Examples of phonoidograms:

• 妈 mā(mother): 女 nǚ(woman - key) and 马 mǎ(horse - phonetician)
• 性 xìng(nature, character, gender): 心 xīn(heart, consciousness - key) and 生 shēng(birth - phonetician)
• 河 hé(river): 水 shuǐ(water, in the hieroglyph “river” the element “water” in the position on the left changes to a flap with two dots - key) and 可 kě(modal verb of possibility or obligation - phonetician)

However, in the process of development, the reading of many hieroglyphs has changed and nowadays it is not always possible to guess even the approximate reading of a hieroglyph. Moreover, if we're talking about O .

Easy ways to remember writing hieroglyphs

I think you are convinced that the hieroglyph has a clear structure and cannot contain random elements. This makes it quite easy to remember the spelling and meaning of hieroglyphs.

Graphemes go back to pictograms, representing modified, extremely simplified and abstract drawings. On the Internet you can find many pictures showing how the image gradually became more abstract and abstract. This helps with quick memorization.

The most ancient hieroglyphs, from which modern ones are derived, date back to the middle of the 2nd millennium BC. These are Yin fortune-telling inscriptions on animal bones and turtle shells. Gradually, the images became more and more abstract until they acquired the modern spelling

• 人 ren man: two legs and a body
• 大 dà big: man spreads his arms
• 天 tiān sky: something big over a big man (option: One over a big man)
• 山 shān mountain: three peaks
• 口 kǒu mouth: keep your mouth wider
• 曰 yuē speak: tongue in mouth
• 竹 zhu bamboo: resembles two bamboos

When I first started studying Chinese at university, we first studied a list of 214 keys. I wrote them down many times, trying to write beautifully and remember the correct order of features, which is strictly fixed. This is not worth wasting your time on.

Having studied the keys, it is not difficult to remember complex signs - ideograms and phonideograms. You can come up with a story that will allow you to forever remember the full hieroglyphs with big amount crap.

Memorization examples:

• 妈 mā mother - woman 女 nǚ which works like a horse 马 mǎ
• 好 hǎo good - when a woman 女 nǚ gives birth to a child zǐ
• 江 jiāng river - water shuǐ who does the work 工 gong(the hieroglyph “river” is an example of a phonideogram where the reading of the phonetic “work” has changed over time)
• 仙 xiān holy, immortal - man 人 ren who lives in the mountains 山 shān
• 怕 pà to be afraid - heart 心 xīn turned white 白 bai because of fear
• 休 xiū rest - person 人 ren lay down to rest under a tree mù
• 难 nán difficult - difficult right hand(again) 又 yòu catch a short-tailed bird 隹 zhuī
• 国 guó state - ruler with a spear 玉 yù(jade, symbol of imperial power) behind the fence 囗 (without reading).

The main thing is to give free rein to your imagination. Over time this will become a habit and To remember a hieroglyph, it will be enough to simply remember the names of the graphemes that make up its composition.

And here is an example of memorizing the full spelling of the character “love” 愛 ài. If you break it down into its component elements, add a little humor, you get the following phrase: “the claws sank into the heart, the legs gave way, and then the lid came.”

Or here's how you can remember the hieroglyph 腻 nì. Its dictionary meanings are “grease, dirt, shiny, glossy, smooth.” It consists of the graphemes “moon” (very similar to it is “meat”), “shell”, “archery” and “two”. You can come up with a story: a man shot game with a bow (glossy meat, fatty, shiny, with a lot of fat), and sold it for two shells (in ancient times - money) to the Japanese. Just in Japanese “two” is read as neither.

The funnier and more absurd the story, the easier you will remember the hieroglyphs.

In addition, very often such an analysis of hieroglyphs helps to further clarify the meaning of complex and polysemantic categories Chinese philosophy and culture. In my lectures on Chinese philosophy, I often resort to this method of explanation.

1. way, road, tract; track, road; on the way, on the way
2. path, route; tract; astr. path celestial body, orbit; anat., med. tract
3. paths, direction of activity; way, way, method; an approach; means; rule, custom
4. technology, art; trick, cunning; trick
5. idea, thought; teaching; doctrine; dogma
6. reason, basis; rightness; truth, truth
7. philosopher. Tao, true path, highest principle, perfection
8. Taoism, the teachings of Taoists; Taoist monk, Taoist
9. Buddhist teaching.

And these are not all the meanings! However, if you break the hieroglyph into its constituent graphemes, then all the meanings will become intuitively clear. The first grapheme is 首 shǒu, “head, crown, beginning, main, main, essence.” The second is “move forward.” That is, Tao is something basic that moves forward, is in motion.

Or, another example, the most important 仁 ren- philanthropy, humanity. The hieroglyph consists of two graphemes: man 人 ren and two 二 èr. And it is read the same way as “man”. That is, philanthropy is relationships between people that are built on the basis of justice. As he said, “Only those who love humanity can love people and hate people” (“Lun Yu”, IV, 3).

One of the favorite pastimes of the Chinese is to write characters with a brush dipped in water. Moreover, here the hieroglyphs are also written in a mirror image!

How to remember reading hieroglyphs

Although in the Chinese language most of the characters fall into the category of phonoid ideograms, however, the character does not contain a direct indication of reading, like phonetic languages. Another difficulty of the Chinese language is the widespread phenomenon of homophony: due to the limited number of syllables (just over 400), different characters can be read the same, which creates certain difficulties in understanding oral speech. However, it is very convenient to memorize a whole series of hieroglyphs that have the same reading.

In the early days of my study of the Chinese language, I usually remembered the tone by some kind of line: a horizontal line at the top of the character meant the first tone, slanted to the left - the second tone, horizontal at the bottom - the third tone, slanted or tilted to the right - the fourth tone. Although there were hieroglyphs where the required line was not found.

A completely different situation arises in the Japanese language, where there are two types of reading hieroglyphs: onny, which came from the Chinese language, and kunnoe, traditional Japanese. Thus, one hieroglyph can have up to 5 or more various readings! In different phrases, hieroglyphs can be read differently.

For example, in Japanese the words “yesterday” 昨日 and “tomorrow” 明日, which contain the same sign 日 (day, sun), are read completely differently: movie: And Ashita respectively. In the phrase “every day”, “daily” 毎日 will be read mainichi, “third number”, “three days” 三日- mikka. Although, in theory, all four words should end the same.

That is why the only effective way to remember reading hieroglyphs in both Chinese and Japanese is by cramming: repeat them repeatedly to yourself and out loud, try to remember the melody. In the Chinese language, in my opinion, this is easier to do due to the presence of phonideograms and the general repetition of syllables; in Japanese it is a little more difficult.

Is it easy to learn Japanese characters after Chinese?

For those who own Chinese, the Japanese language from the outside seems simpler, at least in terms of hieroglyphs. Indeed, a significant part of the characters in Japanese are written in the same way as in Chinese or very similar. Especially if you know the full spelling of Chinese characters. However, as always, the devil is in the details. I’ll tell you what I discovered already in the early stages of my study of the Japanese language.