#Pinyin

[mapsontheweb]

European country names in Chinese (pinyin, not hanzi)

[literaryvein-reblogs]

A List of "Beautiful" Chinese Words

for your next poem/story

Pinyin - English

Àn - dark

Ān quán - safe

Bēi cǎn - tragic

Dú tè - unique

Fàng sōng - relaxed

Hài xiū - shy

Huā shào - flowery

Jiāo - burnt

Jiāo ruò - delicate

Jīng diǎn - timeless

Jīng zhì - exquisite

Kǔ tián - bittersweet

Měi (lì) - beautiful

Méng lóng - misty, hazy

Mó hu - vague

Nài xīn - patient

Qí guài - strange

Róu hé - soft

Sī huá - silky

Tián - sweet

Xī yǒu - rare

Xiāng - fragrant, aromatic

Yǒu jià zhí - valuable

Yù - rich, strong

Zì xìn - confident

Hanyu pinyin

The phonetic symbols for Chinese characters.

The system to transcribe Mandarin Chinese sounds into a Latin alphabet.

It was invented in the 50s, and adopted officially in mainland China in 1958.

Pinyin is used for several purposes:

It can help learners of Chinese (including native speakers) to read Chinese characters and/or words.

To transcribe names and places into words accessible to Romanized language speakers, and it can be used as an input method for typing Chinese characters.

If any of these words make their way into your next poem/story, please tag me, or send me a link. I would love to read them!

Sources: 1 2 ⚜ More: Word Lists

[fuckyeahchinesefashion]

my thought: don't prounce x in chinese as shee in english

[don-dake]

So I've been playing around with Cāngjié…

And I thought a post like this (similar to a post on Zhùyīn done by linghxr) may be of interest to some.

Edited: 10 Sep 2023

This post has gotten a little popular lately and on scrutinizing my own post again, I've come to the conclusion that I had made some mistakes in my given character examples.

Amended now. Namely, 「唔」 and 「龍」 have now been swapped over in the examples.

「唔」 is really the “3-parts”, and 「龍」 is indeed a “2-parts” character! Amendments are reflected in orange.

What (and who) is Cāngjié?

For those who may not know, Cāngjié is another way to input 漢字/汉字 (Hànzì — Chinese characters). It is way less popular than Pinyin (or even Zhuyin) but it still has its fans, and has a few advantages over the other two.

Cāngjié is also the name of the mythical figure in Chinese legend who is said to have been the inventor of 漢字/汉字, for which Cāngjié (the input system) was named after.

Would I recommend it?

Yes, if you think you have already acquired a good (enough) understanding of 漢字/汉字, and/or just like a new challenge.

(TL;DR at the end)

Why am I learning Cāngjié (and why you may like to, too)?

1. Mostly for fun.

Have long been intrigued by both Cāngjié and Zhùyīn, and since I finally mustered up the courage to tackle Zhùyīn not too long ago, I thought I'd finally give Cāngjié a try.

While learning Cāngjié does require more effort than learning Pinyin or Zhuyin, it can also be really fun! Inputting 漢字/汉字 with the Cāngjié method is almost like doing a jigsaw puzzle.

The euphoria derived from figuring out and piecing together the radicals that make up a word is something that learning Jyutping (Cantonese equivalent of Pinyin), Pinyin or Zhuyin can't quite match.

And while I know I'll never be as adept with Cāngjié — my knowledge of 漢字/汉字 is nowhere near good enough to ever use Cāngjié efficiently — as I do Jyutping or Pinyin (or to some extent, Zhuyin), it'll still be fun to use Cāngjié every once in a while!

2. Helps with thinking and typing in Chinese.

The upshot of relying too much on using Jyutping/Pinyin/Zhuyin is, I'd tend to think in Roman letters or ㄅㄆㄇㄈ before I'd even think about the actual 漢字/汉字.

But with Cāngjié, because it's based on knowing radicals and joining them together to form actual characters, it'll encourage thinking of 漢字/汉字 first, so I think that would help some with 漢字/汉字 memory retention.

Now you may be thinking, why not just you know, practise actually writing then? That is the tried and proven method to better remember 漢字/汉字 after all?

Yes, of course I can do that — and am doing so occasionally — but we live in a digital age now, and the probability and opportunity to type things out is much higher than actually writing stuff by hand.

The idea here is, more looking to think of and envision characters fully in my head, and trying to lessen over-reliance on Jyutping/Pinyin/Zhuyin.

And this is where I find Cāngjié can be useful, which leads to my next point…

3. Haunted by “What if” scenario.

What if there comes a day (however improbable) where I'm presented with only a Cāngjié keyboard to use for typing Chinese? It has happened with Zhùyīn for me!

That means, no Pinyin or Zhuyin keyboards, no Handwriting tools/touchscreens to write with fingers/mouse, no speech-to-text, and no option to copy-and-paste characters from somewhere else either! What then?

4. Able to type without knowing pronunciation, and with more accuracy.

Cāngjié is shape-based. Unlike Jyutping/Pinyin/Zhuyin, where you have to know what a character sounds like before you can type it out, with Cāngjié, you can type out (again assuming no Handwriting or other tools available) characters without needing to know how to pronounce them at all.

With shape-based typing, you'd also get more accurate hits in the first few 漢字/汉字 that show up, versus sound-based methods like Pinyin where for e.g., typing out “wan” will get you a whole list under the same sound and you may have to scroll through a whole lot to get the exact “wan” you need.

You can also type both Traditional and Simplified characters without having to toggle something or switch keyboards.

So how does one begin learning Cāngjié?

Install a Cāngjié keyboard.

Duh…but of course! Heh! Gboard offers one, banded under Cantonese language input (Android user here, don't know about iPhones, sorry).

There are two versions of Cāngjié that are prevalent currently. Cāngjié 3 and Cāngjié 5. Cāngjié 5 is supposed to be an improvement over version 3 but I don't find there's much; having a slightly altered version just adds to the confusion and unnecessarily complicates matters, in fact!

If you have a choice, I'd recommend selecting Cāngjié 3 as that is more supported. Some operating systems may not be too compatible with Cāngjié 5 still, for some strange reason.

You may also come across something called “Quick” (速成) aka, “Simplified Cāngjié”.

This is simply a scaled down version of Cāngjié, it's still based on Cāngjié's formula. So you still need to know how Cāngjié works in order to use “Quick” efficiently.

You'd then need a chart like this. ↓

* the 重 (Z) key doesn't really come into use. I don't really know what it's for, but it seems to be used (paired with other keystrokes) mainly to type out various punctuation marks.

There are variants out there, some having a little more, or less, radicals shown than in the above example, but I'll say the chart here is one of the more comprehensive ones I've found so far (and sufficient enough) — other charts often fail to highlight the 難 (X) key and what it corresponds to.

You don't have to memorize the chart all at once. Just always have a chart like this on hand to refer to and with enough typing practise, you'll eventually remember which key corresponds with which radicals.

Remember the rules. ↓

“1 part” character (e.g. 寫) = first 3 & last (radical).

“2 parts” character (e.g. 唔龍) = first & last, first 2 & last.

“3 parts” character (e.g. 難) = first & last, first & last, last.

e.g. 寫 ↓

With radicals 宀，丿，臼 (first 3) and 灬 (last).

Corresponding keys: 十，竹，難 and 火。

寫 → 写 ↓

With radicals 冖，卜，㇆ (first 3)，一 (last).

Corresponding keys：月，卜，尸 and 一。

e.g. 龍 ↓

With radicals 亠，月 (first & last), 卜，コ (first 2)，ヒ (last).

Corresponding keys: 卜，月，卜，尸，and 心。

龍 → 龙 ↓ (Simplified 龍 → 龙，a “1 part” character)

With radicals 丶，ナ，ヒ (first 3).

Corresponding keys: 戈，大，and 心。

e.g. 難 ↓

With radicals 廿，人 (first & last)，亻(first & last)，土 (last).

Corresponding keys: 廿，人，人 and 土。

難 → 难 ↓

With radicals ヌ (first & last)，亻(first & last)，土 (last).

Corresponding keys: 水，人，and 土。

Occasionally, you may get a character that looks like a “2 parts” but is actually a “3 parts”. ↓

e.g. 唔 ↓

With radicals 口 (first & last)，一，一 (first & last)，口 (last).

Corresponding keys: 口，一，一 and 口。

Or looks like a “1 part” but really a “3 parts”. ↓

e.g. 奪 ↓

With radicals 大 (first & last)，亻，土 (first & last)，丶 (last).

Corresponding keys: 大，人，土，and 戈。

奪 → 夺 ↓(Simplified 奪 → 夺，a “1 part” character)

With radicals 大，寸 (first 3; the 丶 is the 3rd component).

Corresponding keys: 大，木，and 戈。

But these are exceptions, and don't occur that often.

And you can start practising!

You can try out this pretty good app called 『五色學倉頡』 (learning Cāngjié with 5 colours), for practise. It's on Playstore, just search for “Cangjie Dictionary” and it should show up.

You have to pay to unlock higher levels, unfortunately. ↓

Anyway, each character comes with colour coded hints and you can opt to turn them off if you like more of a challenge. There are also hints (提示) and the chart (字根表) to refer to if you're really stuck. Also has a dictionary component (查字典) to check out the Cāngjié input for characters.

Another option would be a website called HKCards. ↓

You can use it to check the Cāngjié input for any 漢字/汉字, and there's section for practise (倉頡輸入法練習) as well. After inputting your answer with Cāngjié keys (手田水口廿卜), you can click on the “Answer” (答案) button to see how right or wrong your answers were. ↓

There are 8 characters each time, and you can just hit “Practise Again” (再做練習) to refresh for another 8 to practise with. I've yet to hit a limit.

Unfortunately, this website has lots of ads popping up. And it only supports searching in Traditional characters (Cāngjié was initially catered more for Traditional).

Or you can just try practising randomly with a Cāngjié keyboard and check for mistakes with a Cāngjié dictionary (『五色學倉頡』 app's dictionary comes in really useful here — it appears to support searching in Simplified too).

TL;DR

Cāngjié could be useful (and fun) to know if your 漢字/汉字 knowledge is already adequate, and/or you just like a new challenge.

And if watching videos is more your thing, here's a really helpful YouTube tutorial on how to use Cāngjié (has English subs)!

[blackpointgame]

[ichverdurstehier]

in like svsss fanfictions when characters refer to themselves as 'this one' what exactly are they saying? Like the hanzi, the pinyin, etc.

[safije]

Islamic Holidays in Chinese

• Ramadan - 斋月 - zhāi yuè

• Ramadan Mubarak - 斋月快乐 - zhāi yuè kuài lè

• Eid Al-Fitr - 肉孜节 - Ròu zī jié

• Eid Al-Fitr (Ningxia Region Mandarin) - 开斋节 - kāi zhāi jié

• Eid Al-Adha - 古尔邦节 - gǔ ěr bāng jié

If you would like to greet someone Happy Eid, just add 快乐 (kuài lè) at the end of the sentence.

[slavic-roots-western-mind]

The V for Ü trick

I only recently discovered that you can type in v to get the letter ü when typing in the pinyin for chinese characters.

[dkniade]

It’s… strange. I type Chinese names in pinyin since I type in English most of the time, but the more pinyin I type the more I forget about the meaning of the name

Before I switched to Mandarin subtitles, I didn’t know which hanzi Zhongli’s name uses so I thought his name was written as 重礼 (roughly respectful etiquette or grand/solemn ceremony depending on context) and thought he was a very devoted mortal to some sort of deity

So when I learned it’s actually 钟离 and that he’s a god, it suddenly became even more sad… (the etymology section of his lore page on the wiki discusses allusions in his name), because though I couldn’t quite tell exactly what his name alluded to, I recognize 钟 that meant bell (along with some other things) and 离 is departure.

(Same 离 character as 归离原, the Chinese name for Guili Plains. Of course, making it “Field of Returning and Departure”)

[ranfused4ever]

Does anyone know of an app that can translate hanzi into pinyin? Or even just read a text in hanzi out to me? I'm not looking for a translation, that doesn't help me understand the individual character. Google and pleco are only helpful when you can copy/paste the hanzi in, but I'm trying to read from magazines/books and every time I run into a character I don't know, I need ten minutes to figure out what the hell it is with that pleco puzzle thingy or trying to draw it (which never works because I don't know the stroke order). I get so frustrated with it, surely I'm not the only one struggling?

Somebody help please. Thank you.

[ngocngadotnet]

Check out Vietnamese and Chinese versions: https://ngocnga.net/smart-dining/?utm_source=tumblr&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=quote 🍽️🎓🗣️ When dining with educated people, if you bring up a topic they excel at, all the dishes on the table will be yours. // Hé y��u wén huà de rén yì qǐ chī fàn, nǐ zhǐ yào tí chū yī gè tā shàn cháng de huà tí, yī zhuō zi cài jiù dōu shì nǐ de le.

[renegade-hierophant]

One of the reasons why I always wanted to learn Classical Chinese with Korean pronunciation is because in the Korean Hangul each syllable takes exactly one unit of space just like a Chinese character, unlike with Mandarin Pinyin or Zhuyin, or Japanese Kanas, which can vary in length.

For example:

度　도　dù　ㄉㄨˋ　ど　ド

but:

生　생　shēng　ㄕㄥ　じょう　ジョウ

So the Korean transcription of a Chinese text can fit into the same exact space, like this:

四弘誓願　사홍서원 眾生無邊誓願度　중생무변서원도 煩惱無盡誓願斷　번뇌무진서원단 法門無量誓願學　법문무량서원학 佛道無上誓願成　불도무상서원성

[jaes-veganworld]

To be honest, I stopped wanting to make content. I'll wait until the year is over to design my book. I have been working on needlework crafts, designing my island in animal crossing, and learning Chinese. ❤️

[learningg-mandarin]

I am very seriously struggling with deciding on learning traditional or simplified first 🥲 pls lmk if y’all have any insight! I understand the pros and cons of both mostly, except from other people’s experiences. I’ve heard regrets on both sides of learning whichever first, I’ve heard people say learning one first makes the other easier on both sides, etc. I just have no idea!

[don-dake]

As a Cangjie (倉頡) advocator…😻 (per Pleco, 齾 means “gap-toothed”, “chipped”, “dented” or “toothless” by the way, and is pronounced ngaa³ in 🇭🇰🇲🇴 Cantonese. “yà” is 🀄 Mandarin.)

[sl33py-g4m3r]

《忘羡》 WANGXIAN Mo Dao Zu Shi [Eng/Pinyin Lyrics]