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Introduction to Chinese

We hear this every day and she thought well aware of the Western vision vis-à-vis the Chinese language: they are sequences of characters that look alike and do not tell us.

In fact, unlike European languages, which we require two phases during their learning (a literal translation and then a correct translation), the Chinese language in three application, that is to say, the character translation, then a literal translation and finally a correct translation.

To give you a small example of everyday life: in China, we see very often Churu Ping'an 出入 平安 characters, they are particularly at entrances to major buildings or building areas. I even caught one on my bedroom door. Here for example a carpet:

And therefore, we say that these characters?

Chu 出 means "out"; 入 ru means "enter" Ping'an 平安 means "safe." That is the first step. This suggests the literal translation: "May you go or you go out, be safe."

Finally, we arrive at the correct translation: "Have a good trip wherever you go" (you can also use the formal mode).

Both say that in Chinese it is quite common, at first, to understand all sinograms that make up a sentence while being unable to translate.

This example is somewhat disingenuous because this turn does not match the spoken language, but it shows clearly the three levels of translation. And even if it does not match the spoken language, since we see this phrase all the time, it is still good practice to learn the meaning.

For more simple sentences, like the Chinese to European languages, with the order: subject + verb +. "I'm French" thus keeps the same order in Chinese.Previous accuracy may seem overdone for beginners, but be aware that all languages ​​have no such system. For example, in Japanese, the verb is at the end of the sentence. Arabic is read from right to left. Among other niceties.

By cons, for the use of the possessive, the "of" French, the order is the same as in English: "Mary's computer" says so "Mary of computer" (mǎlì of diànnǎo 马丽 的 电脑) in Chinese, "Marie's computer" in English. Thus, for place names, again the word order is reversed in French but is the same as in English. For example, "Mount Emei" is "Emei Mountain" (Emei Shan 峨嵋山) in Chinese, "Emei Mountain" in English. Thus, the introduction of English on road signs is easy, because the character order is the order of English which allows each character to match the English word. This is not the case more complex sentences because Chinese grammar is different.

Now for the characters themselves: they are units of meaning, whose course is the original characters for the most simple, the drawing of an action or object, or even a landscape . They are now fairly simplified and it must address the oldest forms to find what was originally represented.

Here are some examples. The first is a horse, you can see the evolution of the shape of the character to reach the current character. The second character is the general idea of ​​wheeled vehicle, so we find this character to the bike, car, rickshaw, etc.. In terms of character, the first version is a two-wheeled vehicle, the second version to a vehicle wheel, the third version on the other hand, even if it resembles the second, is actually a tank seen from above. The fourth and final version of this character is a simplified version of the third version.

The third character is the character of the fish, its first form is very recognizable. Finally, we have the characters of the Sun and Moon, who also have a very expressive form first.

There are more than six different versions of a character in his features, and five different styles. Finally, combining style and plotted lines, the same character can have up to nine different forms. Here's an example with the character horse:

At its route, there are archaic characters (characters jiǎgǔwén 甲骨文 oracle and bronze jinwen 金文 characters), then there is the signet style (zhuànwén 篆文, including dazhuan 大篆 and xiǎozhuàn 小篆, characters used on seals Chinese and derived archaic characters), the style of the scribes (Lishu 隶书, characters are written with precise rules of writing, characters from the signet style), the regular style (kǎishū 楷书, and that includes fántǐ 繁体 简体 jiǎntǐ , which are currently used on this blog and in most documents in Chinese), the current style (xǐngshū 行书 style used in calligraphy and in everyday life by many Chinese because it writes much faster while allowing still be readable and understandable) and finally the style of grass (cǎoshū 草书, a calligraphic style reserved for the realm of art, in which the character is abbreviated and reduced to its basic form, which is difficult to read for the untrained eye).

Here is the 出入 平安 all-and-by, with a different style:

Clearly, by analogy, the regular style is French in style "detached" and the current style to style "attached". Thus, foreigners in China often write in regular style that sometimes makes us laugh explain that Chinese writing as children of six years. In addition, foreigners, at least initially, difficult to read the current style. 
The Chinese, however the same problem in France, they write in detached and have difficulty reading the writing in French attached.

Whatever the country where you come from, learning a language has its challenges ...

Characters (also called sinograms) are classified into four categories: pictograms, ideograms, phonograms and ideological bonds (you can also add indicators).

Pictograms are characters who are called simple direct representations (such as the character of the mouth kǒu 口, or the character of the mountain Shān 山) or pictorial (as the king's character 王 wáng, the first horizontal line from the bottom symbolizes the earth, the middle men and the living beings, and the last upward symbolizes the sky and the gods, the king is the vertical line, it is the link between heaven, earth and men).

The ideograms are pictograms assemblies for characters with meaning most wanted, they use including key characters are reduced or shortened, and that can be used alone. For example, the sinogram which will mean "clear" or "light" will be composed of the pictogram of the sun and that of the moon (月 日 +), giving 明 (míng), which actually expresses a clear idea of light. The key to the hand matches the character of the hand both reduced and abstract, which is in many characters. The key to the mouth in turn corresponds to the reduced character of the mouth, it is not abbreviated in view of its relative simplicity to the base. Reduction in key characters once is explained by the fact that a Chinese character must obey the constraint of being content in a virtual square. So the character has more features, more characters and assembled to form the key-character words are "compressed" to meet these constraints graphs.

The ideo-phonograms must also meet these constraints graphs. These sinograms are based on the brilliant idea that is the one to associate a character who can learn about the meaning of the character (usually on the left or top) and another character who can learn about its pronunciation (usually placed at right or bottom). Many Chinese characters were formed in this way which is currently about 90% of sinograms used in everyday life are ideo-phonograms. 
If the idea is great, in practice, it is not so perfect it: the meaning is often difficult guessable and pronunciation is approximate. However, once learned these characters, the characters themselves are a sort of checklist to remember their meaning and their pronunciation. For example, starting from the key of the mouth (kǒu口), and adding the symbol of the horse (mǎ马), we obtain the ideo-phonograms used to mark the mark (my吗), which is a particle grammatical putting himself at the end of sentence and that can be translated into French as "Is that ...? ".

Borrowings are characters borrowed from the originals. The latter are seen to add graphics (or "keys") to differentiate them. For example, the sinogram neng 能 representing the bear was taken to signify the concept of "power to do something" (physical and not mental). The sinogram "bear" is now written as follows: 熊 (Xiong). It has added the key "4 legs" to indicate that this is an animal.

Finally, indicators are elements that can add other characters to make new ones. For example, mù 木 is the character that corresponds to the symbol of the tree, and if he adds a little horizontal line at the base of the vertical line, it builds character 本 bin, which means "roots", "origin" . Similarly, the character wáng 王, which means king, emperor, helped form the character 玉 yu, meaning "jade." Indeed, the line on the side is there to symbolize the jade ring that the emperors used to wear.

The ideograms are to my mind the most interesting characters. For example, the character die 得 means getting (it also has other meanings and grammatical properties, but that does not concern us here). The left side of this character is the key step left foot, top right, it's a shell and just below is one inch. In ancient China, the currency was composed of shells, then walk on the beach and collect shells "with his thumb" logically meant "get". This is a bit tricky but it's actually like that that character was formed. A simpler example: Xing 行 is made to his left and step left foot to his right step right foot. This character means and "walk". Another example: Guang 光 originally represented a torch up and down a man, with simplifications, the fact remains that the "legs". A man who carries a torch, so it makes sense that this character wants to say "light". Lou 楼 character is also interesting: The left is a tree, but in the sense "cut wood", top right, it's rice and bottom right is a woman. So we have a woman preparing rice in a "timber construction", the character therefore means "building", "floor", "flags".

The study of the origin of characters is exciting and provides a better understanding of Chinese language. The ideo-phonograms, the characters are more prevalent, can not be explained this way because a party does not serve to explain the meaning, that it is phonetic. However, only the semantic part of the character is meaningful sometimes. For example, one of my characters name is Han Chinese 瀚. The left side is the key to water, the right part is the phonetic part, Han 翰. I had explained in another article, the characters in my first name means "large", that is to say, the impression one has when looking at the ocean, hence the presence of the key water.

So it is always possible to explain the characters, but it's a little harder and a little less interesting. Indeed, one has that key with general notions, which are actually related in the sense of character, but makes much less sense in consideration of an ideogram which each party realizes.

In terms of pronunciation, the Chinese officially uses pinyin, which is the romanization of sinograms. Mao Tse-tung (Mao Zedong in pinyin) had wanted to pass this romanization of the characters instead of characters, which of course makes an outcry in mainland China, because nobody knew how to read pinyin, nobody wanted to get rid characters. Finally, he opted for a simplified characters, so that learning Chinese is easier for farmers. Simplification of characters is communist Taiwan being Republican and opposed to the Communist Party, they have never needed to adapt. In Taiwan, yet so use Traditional Chinese. Pronunciation does not change, only the handwriting changes. The Taiwanese say they write and the "real China". Indeed, Chinese traditional glue much more to character semantics where simplified characters (so some simplifications are not necessarily considered sound) are only to be easier and faster to write.

Traditional character is generally more balanced (and best) a simplified character. Here is a small example, the left part is in traditional characters, the right side in simplified characters:

Pinyin has its challenges for the novice: "zh" is pronounced "dj", "x" is pronounced "ch", among other oddities. However, others are more intuitive: "d" is pronounced "d", "sh" is pronounced "ch", etc..

The Chinese would be nothing without shades: in addition to working pinyin as some sounds do not exist in French (eg "ri" is pronounced almost like "I" in French, but with the tongue cut inside mouth, which requires a lot of practice), we must also work tones. Combine the two requires a long drive. We begin by starting work on pinyin and tones.

What is the tone? There are four tones and one neutral tone (the equivalent of the French pronunciation). The first tone is a high tone and long, a sort of "the" in music it must be one second, the second is a rising tone and the third is a rising-falling tone and the fourth is a falling tone. They are sometimes difficult to distinguish, even for Chinese.

The fact is that Chinese with few sounds through pinyin, tones allow for increased opportunities. Thus, following the tone, the sinogram is different, and therefore has a different meaning:

my吗: character moves to end of sentence to indicate that this is an issue; 
mā妈: mamma 
má麻: hemp; 
my马: horse 
mà骂: insulting.

Puns in Chinese are easy to do, but something less funny, it can, especially early learning, confuse a lot of character when we hear them orally.

Last point that I will address this introduction: word formation in Chinese. As I explained earlier, it may easily be mistaken because of the tones used.However, Chinese characters are rarely used alone to form words, we put them in pairs. Thus, it allows foreign, without too much attention to the tone early, to communicate without too much problem. Indeed, if "my" in pinyin means a lot of characters, mama 妈妈 can only refer to the word "mother", it can not be confused with any other, regardless of tones used. There are indeed cases where even associated with two there are several possibilities, but given the context, we can manage. It is obviously easier for us to understand to use the tones, especially with people unfamiliar with Mandarin, but when we do not yet know or control very well, having the characters of two or more is very useful.

I think and I hope you know more, and especially you better understand this language that at first seems so complicated!