#traditional chinese characters

[scstudy]

public transport related chinese vocab (traditional characters/taiwanese mandarin)

[kumad0rii]

Sun Wukong traditional style art

I love the game btw I am so bad at it but I love it

[eroosensei]

[ichverdurstehier]

If you want to describe your characters as autistic without explicitly saying they are autistic, you csn say they have the lonely disorder.

In China, the word for mild autism (higher functioning autism, level 1, low support needs, whatever you call it, you know what I mean) literally translated to "lonely disorder" which I love so much. So damn accurate 🥲🥲🥲🥲🥲 狐独症 gū dú zhèng

The word for a more severe autism is 自闭症 self enclosed disorder, zì bì zhèng. My autism is more mild so I can't speak as to whether I like that, as a translation.

A bit of writing tips!

[don-dake]

On Standards, Variants & Mix-ups

標準、異體以及混亂字

Stumbled upon this picture ↑ and this interesting, albeit, rather old webpage (article's from 2007) recently, where the author touches on the topic of “Standardised” and Variant Characters and some examples of the differences between Hong Kong and Taiwan style 繁體字 (Traditional characters).

“Standardised”, put in quotes because what's considered a Standard may be subject to changes any time.

What caught my eye was the characters for 「茨」、「丸」 and 「遨」 in particular, because while I knew about the other characters and their 異體 (variants) shown here, I never noticed/knew about the slight differences between the “Standard” (標準字體) and Popular (俗寫字體) variants for 「茨」、「丸」 and 「遨」 before, (no) thanks too to the added confusion brought on by font styles sometimes!

I realise in the grand scheme of things, especially as we go farther still into this digital age (and not forgetting about changing Standards every now and then), minor discrepancies in font styles are not going to really matter. But if one feels like being pedantic; wanna be “more correct” and all that…then this is something worth taking note of! (笑)

While I'm taking notes, I only realised now too that technically, characters like 「讀」、「續」、「犢」、「竇」 and 「櫝」 should be written with a

「*𧶠」 [🇭🇰🇲🇴 juk⁶; 🀄 ㄩˋ/yǜ]

*n.b.: in case it still can't be seen clearly, the 「罒」 is actually a compressed 「四」.

phonetic component rather than a

「賣」 [🇭🇰🇲🇴 maai⁶; 🀄 ㄇㄞˋ/mài]

This revelation certainly makes it clearer now why 「讀」、「續」、「犢」、「竇」 and 「櫝」 are pronounced with an ‘ㄨ/u; ㄩ/yü’ sound!

So have I been writing 「讀」 (and all other relevant characters) “wrongly” all this while?! (囧) Depending on what “Standards” one goes by I guess, confusing computer font styles notwithstanding! (笑)

[xiangqiankua]

I was trying to talk about yaks to a guy and didn't know the word so I said 有很多毛的牛 and he was like yeah, máoniú (毛牛, I thought), and I was like no, but not just a hairy cow, a...let me look this up... opened Pleco, lo and behold 'yak' is 氂牛 máoniú.

[linghxr]

10 traditional characters that I didn't know existed

In 2023 I started learning to write traditional characters by hand, so I've been paying extra attention to differences between traditional and simplified forms. In some cases, I didn't even realize the traditional and simplified forms were different!

Here are 10 sets of simplified and traditional characters with subtle differences, 8 of which I only discovered recently. Definitions are adapted from MDBG.

（1）抛 | 拋 pāo

The difference is SO subtle with this one. I have to hold the screen 3 inches from my face to see it. The simplified version has 7 strokes, but the traditional version has 8.

抛 | 拋 pāo - to throw / to toss / to fling / to cast / to abandon

抛弃 | 拋棄 pāoqì - to abandon / to discard / to renounce / to dump (sb) 抛开 | 拋開 pāokāi - to throw out / to get rid of 抛物线 | 拋物線 pāowùxiàn - parabola

（2）滚 | 滾 gǔn

I actually prefer the traditional version, particularly when I'm writing by hand. When I write the simplified version, the 衣 strokes on the bottom always looks awkward under 公 to me.

滚 | 滾 gǔn - to boil / to roll / to take a hike / get lost!

摇滚 | 搖滾 yáogǔn - rock 'n' roll (music) / to rock / to fall off 滚开 | 滾開 gǔnkāi - to boil (of liquid) / boiling hot / Get out! / Go away! 滚烫 | 滾燙 gǔntàng - boiling / scalding 打滚 | 打滾 dǎgǔn - to roll about

（3）匀 | 勻 yún

I think these look pretty much the same when handwritten, but on the computer they are distinct. I definitely prefer how the simplified one looks.

匀 | 勻 yún - even / well-distributed / uniform / to distribute evenly / to share

均匀 | 均勻 jūnyún - even / well-distributed / homogeneous / well-proportioned (figure, body etc)

（4）叙 | 敘 xù

叙 | 敘 xù - to narrate / to chat

叙述 | 敘述 xùshù - to relate (a story or information) / to tell or talk about / to recount / narration / telling / narrative / account 叙事 | 敘事 xùshì - narrative

（5）奥 | 奧 ào

奥 | 奧 ào - obscure / mysterious

It really bugs me that 奥 has a different traditional form, but 澳 (as in 澳门 Macao) does not!

深奥 | 深奧 shēn'ào - profound / abstruse / recondite / profoundly 奥运会 | 奧運會 Àoyùnhuì - Olympic Games; the Olympics (abbr. for 奥林匹克运动会 | 奧林匹克運動會) 奥利给 | 奧利給 àolìgěi - come on, you can do it!

（6）厨 | 廚 chú

厨 | 廚 chú - kitchen

厨房 | 廚房 chúfáng - kitchen 厨师 | 廚師 chúshī - cook / chef 厨艺 | 廚藝 chúyì - cooking skills / culinary talent

Other similar cases: 厮 | 廝 sī - (bound form) together; each other / (bound form) male servant / (bound form) dude; so-and-so 厢 | 廂 xiāng - box (in theater) / side room / side 厦 | 廈 shà - tall building / mansion / rear annex / lean-to / also pr. xià

（7）刹 | 剎 chà/shā

Whether the bottom looks like 朩 or 木 seems to be somewhat stylistic and can vary by font. But the little 点 is a consistent difference.

刹 | 剎 chà - used to transcribe several words originally from Sanskrit

刹那 | 剎那 chànà - an instant (Sanskrit: ksana); split second; the twinkling of an eye

刹 | 剎 shā - to brake

刹车 | 剎車 shāchē - to brake (when driving) / to stop / to switch off / to check (bad habits) / a brake

（8）侣 | 侶 lǚ

侣 | 侶 lǚ - companion

伴侣 | 伴侶 bànlǚ - companion / mate / partner 情侣 | 情侶 qínglǚ - sweethearts / lovers

Other similar cases: 宫 | 宮 gōng - palace / temple / castration (as corporal punishment) / first note in pentatonic scale 吕 | 呂 lǚ - pitchpipe, pitch standard, one of the twelve semitones in the traditional tone system / surname Lǚ

（9）别 | 別 bié

I've known about the traditional form of this character for a while now, but to be honest, it still looks like 别 written incorrectly to me...sorry.

别 | 別 bié - to leave; to part (from) / (literary) to differentiate; to distinguish / (bound form) other; another; different / don't …! / to fasten with a pin or clip / to stick in; to insert (in order to hinder movement) / (noun suffix) category

差别 | 差別 chābié - difference; distinction; disparity 分别 | 分別 fēnbié - to part; to leave each other / to distinguish; to tell apart / difference; distinction / in different ways; differently / separately; individually 区别 | 區別 qūbié - difference / to distinguish / to discriminate / to make a distinction 性别 | 性別 xìngbié - gender / sex 个别 | 個別 gèbié - individually; one by one / just one or two; exceptional; rare

（10）丢 | 丟 diū

OK, I literally just realized there are separate simplified and traditional forms for this character while working on this post 😭 I feel utterly betrayed.

丢 | 丟 diū - to lose / to put aside / to throw

丢脸 | 丟臉 diūliǎn - to lose face / humiliation 丢人 | 丟人 diūrén - to lose face 丢掉 | 丟掉 diūdiào - to lose / to throw away / to discard / to cast away 丢失 | 丟失 diūshī - to lose; to misplace 跟丢 | 跟丟 gēndiū - to lose track of

See similar posts: Characters I used to write incorrectly Characters that look TOO similar Traditional characters that haunt me

[lixuanlaurant]

[wigglybunfish]

my ocs + traditional media ✍️

(first one in watercolor, later two in chinese painting!)

[karppie]

A Chang’e concept art I made a while ago. I really like how it turned out.

[wangxian-the-zhijis]

Just wanna add this bit of information to the long list of parallels between WangXian and XiYao.

WangXian = 知己 zhījǐ | XiYao = 知音 zhīyīn

Lan Wangji: 你把我當成什麼人？(What do you take me for?) | Wei Wuxian: 我曾經把你當做我畢生知己。(I once thought of you as my soulmate in this lifetime.)

Interviewer: 你怎麼理解金光瑤和藍曦臣之間的關係? (How do you understand the relationship between JGY and LXC?) | Zhu Zanjin (JGY’s actor): 我覺得他們是知音關係。 (I think they are soulmates.)

知己 and 知音 are synonymous and can be used interchangeably. Both are translated to “best friend” “intimate friend” “bosom friend”. Both also mean “someone who understands you very deeply” and is considered “very hard to find” and, can also mean “soulmate”.

The Lan brothers’ partners soulmates really be labelling them as soulmates without them knowing. But I’m sure no one’s complaining.

Anyways, I present to you: the soulmates Nie Huaisang reunited; and the soulmates Nie Huaisang broke up.

[liliran]

在银行 At the bank

some vocabulary i taught my student the other day

银行 yínháng, bank

取款机 qǔkuǎnjī, ATM

汇率 huìlǜ ，兑换率 duìhuànlǜ, exchange rate

柜台 guìtái, counter

出纳员 chūnàyuán, teller

换钱 huàn qián, to exchange money

收到钱 shōudàoqián, to receive money

提款 tí kuǎn ，取钱 qǔqián, to withdraw money

存款 cúnkuǎn, to deposit money

账户 zhànghù, bank account

开户 kāi hù, open a bank account

货币 huòbì, currency

外汇 wàihuì, foreign currency

硬币 yìngbì, coin

纸币 zhǐbì, note

找零 zhǎolíng, change

零钱 língqián, small change

现金 xiànjīn, cash

支票 zhīpiào, check

信用卡 xìnyòngkǎ, credit card

借记卡 jièjìkǎ, debit card

刷卡 shuā kǎ，划卡 huákǎ, to swipe card

[kumad0rii]

GOD OF THE WEST art

Hello sorry for not posting so much I made this for you to make him less scary bye bye have a nice day

Reference ⤴️. Traditional version ⤴️

[19silvermirrors]

Oh fandom joy of translating random characters! Here I was translating 灣 [wān] — bay, gulf — getting down to 彎 [wān] — to bend, to flex, curve — and then to 䜌 [luán] — chaotic, confused —which is a compound of many beautiful words like 鸞 [luán]. At that moment the golden light of divine revelation poured all over the place and I felt this gorgeous luan MUST have to do smth with LQG's Cheng Luan. Guess what🔥 It's written precisely as 乘鸞 and means smth like 'riding a phoenix'? How epic is that??

乘 [chéng] — to travel, to ride, take a chance, multiply 鸞 [luán] — luan, a mythical phoenix-like bird

[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)!

[xiangqiankua]

相思 xiāngsī / to pine or yearn (for love)