HL SCRE I rameliage Alphabet EB Linguaphone Linguaphone Institute Limited, London eee hine.com [BLinguaphone eTWNaHODSCRA Characters L'LinguaphoneLinguaphone Institute Limited LLiongate Enterprise Park '80 Morden Road Mitcham CR4 4PH. Great Britain © MCMLXXVI Linguaphone Insitute Limited, London All rights reserved. No part ofthis publication, oF related recorded material, may be reproduced, stored in ‘aretieval system, o transmitted in any form or by auy ‘means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of ‘Linguaphone Institute Limited. ‘This impression 2004 LSN GCHENAIO Printed and bound in Great Britain by Aquatint Print & Graphies Limited Contents Section 1 What are Chinese characters? Section 2 ‘Their Evolution Section 3 ‘Types of Script Section 4 ‘Simplified characters Section 5 Radicals Section 6 Finding characters Section 7 Strokes Section 8 Stroke order Section 9 Penmanship Section 10 Characters in Lesson 1 Key to exercisesSection 1 What are Chinese characters? ‘The first thing to establish is that Chinese characters are not the same as letters of an alphabet, Each one has a sound value, but the sound is a complete syllable. More important, each conveys a meaning distinct from that of other characters. In other words, every object, action, attribute or abstraction is, represented in writing by a separate character. This means necessarily that there are in total very many characters; a comprehensive dictionary, including Classical Chinese, would run to several tens of thousands, and even a modern dictionary might include six or seven thousand, with perhaps half that number in general use. Leaving aside the few which have a purely grammatical function, it could be said that a character represents a word, but that would be to over- simplify. In ancient Chinese that was very nearly the case, but the modern language tends to put characters together to form words, without obscuring their separate identity. A paralel would be the way English words derived from Latin and Greek can be seen to have their constituent parts, such as -voke’ and ‘telephone’. So the character in modern Chinese either stands for a word or a word-clement. To learn three or four thousand signs or graphs might seem a formidable task, and indeed it does take years, but progress speeds up considerably once the basic shapes and parts are mastered, and some ‘characters will be met time and time again, thus reinforcing recognition. Section 2 Their Evolution ‘The first known characters were simplified pictures or ‘pictographs’, In their ‘earliest form, found on oracle bones and bronzes dating from 4000 years ago, these pictographs were easly recognizable, but in theit modesn form they have become quite stylized. To take natural objects as an example, the sun was drawn a8 © (now as); the moon ~ with bars of clouds — as ¥ (nowh); mountains as la (now 11); and running water as} (now ”")),Some abstract notions could also be represented by simple signs; numbers are the most obvious, ‘one, ‘two’ and ‘thre’ being writen as — = = ; and relative positions could be shown too — such as ‘above’ and F ‘below’, With the horizontal line as the point of reference ‘The writing of other words brought into association two existing pictographs, on rational bass, The word for ‘male"(aén) associated 2) (effort, strength) and) (Geta), to make ¥B ; took’ (kan) showed a hand ~ shading the eyes 1: #1; ‘while ‘east (ding) was represented as the sun @ rising behind trees #.: IR. ‘There are, however, limits to such ingenuity, and it became common to simply signify the sound of a word by borrowing the graph of an existing character ‘hich had the same sound, in other words just to use the character as a phonetic symbol. Later ambiguity was reduced by giving characters a class indicator, now usually called a ‘radical’. For example, the graph 38 , meaning Northern tribe, appears now asthe ‘phonetic’ hu in several characters which ‘occur in this course, including 38f (‘lake’), with the ‘water’ radical; 34 (gourd) ‘with the ‘plant’ radical; and #9 (‘pase’) with the ‘rice" radical, All of these axe pronounced hi. (More will be said about radicals in Section 5.) Section 3 ‘Types of Script ‘The style of writing has gone through various stages. The oldest that may stil be encountered is the script used for personal and official seals (zhuiin), which originated in the 9th Century B.C., and looks rather like trees with spreading branches. Another now only used for decorative purposes is the ancient official style, lishu, from the 3rd. Century B.C., in which the characters are drawn out breadthwise, like 5% 38 I= . The present copybook style, known as ahéngkai, which is that used in your textbook, itself dates back to the 4th. century A.D. For more informal purposes, such as letter writing, the ‘cursive’ style (xingshi) is used; this joins up certain strokes to make for greater speed of writing, eg. YE {% 2. The fastest style of all is called ‘grass script’ (Choshii); this is all flow, and is seen mainly in examples of calligraphy, cg 3 V& (2. The beginner would only be expected to cope with the standard scrip, zhénghei 2 Section 4 Simplified characters A recent innovation has been the introduction of simplified forms in printed texts, This was started in China in 1956, and atthe time of writing the process of simplifying more characters is continuing. Publishing companies outside the China mainland, however, retain the old orthodox forms. Simplification ‘essentially means reducing the number of strokes in a character, mostly by describing the outline contours of a character (eg. I+ if + 3), or by replacing a complicated element by a simple one whose sound is similar (cg. UR ji becomes H , the element AE being pronounced ju too). ‘The Linguaphone text is printed in simplified characters. Section § Radicals Every character has a “radical which indicates, ideally speaking, the clas of things to which the word belongs. For instance, those with the ‘heart’ radical Cf oF 13) designate some kind of emotional state; the ‘sickness’ r covers matters of pathology, and so on. For many characters, however, the choice of radical seems arbitrary. For orthodox characters before simplification, 214 radicals were distinguished, With simplifiation the number has so far been reduced to 189. A radical may form a complete character by itself, such as shu: hand, A. rén: person’ 7K shut: water. When used as part of a character, the shape of the radical ‘may undergo alteration, Those just illustrated, for instance, change to 4, 4, and 7 respectively (as in 3, A&,, 7). Others are just compressed a little, eg. AR becomes #, Hr becomes 4 (the complete character always aims for squareness in overall design). ‘The radical may occupy any position in composite characters. Most commonly itis on the top or on the left, but i may also be on the right or atthe bottom. For instance LLi (mountain) appears on the top in Jf, on the left in WR, at the bottom in ‘>. But some radicals always occupy the same relative position, like the ‘grass’ radical ++ which is always on the top ( #4 etc.)Section 6 Finding characters When you want to look up a character in a dictionary, you find it ina ist, arranged fist under radicals, then under the number of extra strokes. ‘The radicals have a fixed sequence, again in ascending order of strokes; simplified system Ue frst is * (a dot) and the last is 4 bi: nose (14 strokes); in the old system the fist is — (yi one), the last is yud, a kind of flute (17 strokes) To illustrate the method, say you wanted to find the character . You recognize the radical * , and where it oceurs in th lst of radicals (3 strokes) there will bea reference to a section in the main character index. You count ‘the number of remaining strokes, which is 5 (#+), and # will be located in that particular subsection. Alternatively, ome modern dictionaries are arranged alphabetically, which is useful when you know the pronunciation but want to check the meaning(s), but these dictionaries too have a radical fining list. [At present the above explanation is for information only. You won't need to equip yourself with a dictionary yet the Section 7 Strokes Itis important to know what constitutes a ‘stroke? in a character, and the ‘order in which the strokes are written, A stroke is the line or mark made between putting the pen or brush to paper and lifting it off. If you don't know the number of strokes in a character you can’t look it up in a dictionary, a8 we have seen; and if you don't follow the right order of strokes ft is very difficult to achieve the proper harmony and balance. 4) The basic strokes,as they appear in context: Tole torghe torah eC a 4 1) Supplementary strokes, in context Fo, ald SNe ee N.B. In handwriting, angles are less square than in printing. Section 8 Stroke order Rule |Top before botiom. Examples: F £, # Exceptions: When the top stroke is a rectangle (~]), the left- hand stroke comes first: a 8 Rule 2 Left before right. Examples: 38 fz 3 Exceptions: angle on right comes frst BD Pemi_ A alvays come last ‘Rule 3 Horizontals and rectangles before downstrokes which cross them Bane RF Exception: bottom stroke comes last eee Rule4 Outside frame first. Examples: |) (8) Rule 5 Inside before ‘sealing’ stroke. Bamps: 9 1H) Rule 6 Mile before two sides in balance: pram ry ah pp Rule 7 Main part may precede subordinate dts Examples: ¥& Sef ‘The above are general rules abstracted from practice. The actual determinants are facility in writing and achieving balance in a character. The rules are wseful guides, but learning to write correctly is best done by following the stroke ‘order for individual characters set out below, in Section 10.Section 9 Penmanship = OR a can on Hc ol, Ala |e 1 : only the control of the direction of the stroke, but also of the pressure which Kfwen | cota, xX a me ‘causes the line to broaden and/or narrow. Using a pen allows less scope for aa varying te thickness ofthe stroke, but we wil sil start the practice with the Fe [at |e manten | Een | ad character always used for brush training, because it contains the most common am} Tt strokes, ZR. Practise writing it until you get it to look lke the model. The stroke starts atthe end where the number i va [omnern _| Goel ale ak [ime [oom | > Plate sa Hab FS TRINY pe * 257+ [ys ss| Say 4 Ay] Axe seen 1 BR oan | macmns | Seas |* 4 4 Characters in Lesson One yi For each character we identify the radical, and give its meaning if that is 2 helpful. Then we build up the character stroke by stroke so that you can Pale ec tle + # follow the corect order. Practise writing each one until you can write it ‘besa tery win leit bak. You wi tin at ve a 3A tion on vocabulary not included in the Handbook, which does not analyse ie ake ae idea compound words. (A.W. means ‘also written as’) 4) 8 ee a Fagperte ‘ceurs only inl peombin 4 rer r FR] smi | tore Bum A > ? a 0 a ae Hw a peron Kenan i * = : x pees Ria | mome —| 12> wooo eae ea FE vn |v | P fo ay Se eel Ceneeeen eos Ne [BI Sy SSS als yy SeExercise 1 Pick out the radicals in these characters. All the radicals have occurred in the 15. characters you have learned, but the characters themselves are new to you. They are not meant to be learned at this stage. To check the answers, tum to p. 17. 1 2 3 4% 5.8 6 & 4-38 ak 9. 10. % nu 1 AE 13.4% 4.7 z VAG woke aeail Se Bilytu | ro Sa 7 AA "d the) ay ee | lege ol Fe x [fs x F ain [pac mae | aon Fold ese ld 18 [wi | room: via Siti iti /toes A poole Fa fz AR RA eS Fanny alee Iv _| one 7 HEC is ia ea He as fe PRP = s i i = je Tal = PF ides FR [ie | mewcevers] A onaveoal- ft gf F FF PP PER Aa|snt |som | Fa en 74 ea Fgfie Jenene | EK i 718 isle [RO [bo a aT 179 ing | 0 om ep Ow eno vO a Seams x K i. # WAT |ohi |uamdoo [AT ameey |) AD he Pr Aikido fran | HPD 8 BLM a Pick out the radicals in these characters as before. Answers are on p. 17. 1A 6 KR nA 2. # mae vt ab 3 A 4 5a 9 ® 10.Fi feine cate | = SEL thet wks i |e ae L a DL]& savor | JL 72 08 Fla wate | ee eateary | 8 MS we we [9 9 ome mont Bm oe fm [7S > ee ee Alne wom | A JAA An ‘seaion 5 ~ a 4 oe aS Zale (ve [a To # iP |? i pEbrie tewone | ew fl ok ok ey BL ge ke vb Bolo eas ” oe ee eet Exercise 3 A. Pick out the radicals as before, For the correct answer turn to p. 1. 1 ik ez 3.8 4 3% 6 & 7% B Count the number of strokes in these characters. For answers turn to p. 17, 1k 28 3% 4k 5. 6. je 7. 8 8. W| Fijwa | ve ae eee Te Raat enw we AQ |e [seme a See & [ain [rstoe and rs ore | a, ae are elms | mower | GE P| |powwe | S R |B x {O) ufo au oar eet (alt ye hh HRfale mw | Kaw # fo Heft ate [4 Hh} 4 aaa A, EP yin min | P & & FP FT fmm pat 4 Aree ta i Ripe wee | ed 7 7 POF ate, botany | Potcegeot, | 3 Vee em my FS Pe re Themen [TT Harter (| [Gk | deomhinl L|oing wore | 7 yo ay VE frat worse | 4 Ss fae me [gra | Gem [ef eo oe ad ea blames WD evar, Sultales Alon am |S go 4 P ame a Ken | Tine le TY tt mR ee. AT ring eo AP APN ccd Azoa Al ap Ae ‘A. Count the number of strokes, Tum to p. 17 for answers. AT es Ps ea eee Hi oe Sew mt ce ae EP |ohong missle | | ji 2 YP jefe om [Gm EP GP Pick out the radicals. Tum to p. 17 for answers. Sie | lees 2 a | Bhi we | owl? > Bw Bw 6. 8) AR + {G 4. FF 13r Ve fone bow fortunate BE |e at, yard 94 [ae [owe | Gronte 4b, ako GawZ, eiea ES 3a) Sees eee aes At this stage we suggest you make character eards. On one side of the card write the character. On the other side note the pronunciation and meaning. Go through the cards periodically, looking at one side at a time, first to test if you can remember the pronunciation and meaning, then to see if you can write it. Later on you ean write in new combinations as you meet them, To help you in your future work, here is a writing guide fox radicals we have not come across yet which you might find a little tricky: Ped ea # a'% AM Ae Aye mo) UA ee ee FOTO SUR Rh Aes tak ay va wh ak ra? eer 912 BS ho ee a ie eg ean Es eR AA Soi FES EE HH pe ga le He ea > rm AS; “toe TR OF We. mi ae t a oo Owa oe BB Wy wt OD Hm we het a Heat ~~ Be > Ss > > oF ry zB ee = aw + e - ee Be as = Ss me ar) oy BR AF moe me) ae yo 3 6 =e PRR # a he eB TTF RE Keys to the exercises Exercise | Exercise 2 65 nA Exercise 3 Tek 6 ae is 5 =Exercise 4 A 6 27 3 8 46 & 7 & & Rofl 8. 11 B rd 23 3% 44 5. 64 % 4 ak 9? 0. + a. 4 n &