Learning Chinese R/W way - Lesson 13

In the last lesson, we learned how to associate the first set of the Chinese components and the keys which covered the Chinese philosophy of Yin/Yang and the Five elements. In this lesson, we skip the keys H to N because they associate with the shape of the Chinese characters which has to be covered in more details later. We will study the keys which associate with the human body part.

The first one is the key O which associates with the Chinese character 人 which means human or people. 人 is a pictograph with the central line denoting the trunk of the body and the two slant sides denoting the legs. The head is absorbed in the trunk in simplification of the writing. Peter uses the Italian word Omo which means man. I tend to use Ourself which is also people 人. Anyway. Now O is associated with Ourself who are people 人. By pressing the O key in Changjie, you get 人 displayed on the screen.

The next one is P which associates with the Chinese character 心, which means the heart. 心 is also a pictograph with the lower curve denoting the ventricles and auricles and the three strokes denoting the valves of the heart. Peter uses Pump to associate the function of the heart 心 with the key P. By pressing the P key in Changjie, you get 心 displayed on the screen.


The following one is Q which associates with the Chinese character 手, which means hand. 手 is also a pictograph with the fingers and the hand. Peter uses the word Quintet(te) which is an ensemble with five elements. In fact Quint is the Latin root for Five. So associating the hand with Five fingers with the Latine root Quint is very natural, isn't it? By pressing Q in Changjie, you get 手 displayed on the screen.

The final key is R which associate with the Chinese character 口, which means mouth. 口 is also a pictograph. This is quite obvious. Peter uses the word Round to associate R with 口. In fact, in Changjie, whenever a Chinese character with a rectangular shape enclosing other components inside the rectangle, the component 口 can be used. Thus by pressing R in Changjie you get 口 displayed on the screen.

As a summary, here are the associations again:
O for Omo or Ourself which means 人, people.
P for Pump which is 心, heart.
Q for Qunitette which is 手, hand.
R for round which is 口, mouth.

Now is the time to learn more combinations using what we have learned.
One O is people 人.
OAA, 人日日 is 倡, to propose or to lead.
OB, 人月 is 內, which is the word for inside. Please note here 月 has been extended to include the forms which are bounded by three sides in a rectangular shape without the two strokes inside.
OBO, 人月人 is 肉, which means meat. It can be regarded as a pictograph with a piece of meat hanging. the line at the top is the string to hang the meat.
OD, 人木 is 休, which means rest.
OF, 人火 is 伙, which means a gang of people
OG, 人土 is 仕, which is a respectful name for a learned person.
OGG, 人土土 is 佳, which means good.
OGD, 人土木 is 集 , which means gather.
OGR, 人土口 is 售, which means sell. Please note the upper part of the two characters. That is how Chinese hcaracters are formed. They use the same part 佳 as the top part and use other components below to form different characters with different meanings.
OOG, 人人土 is 坐, which means sit, with two people sitting on the ground.
OP, 人心 is 化, which means change. Please note that the character 心 has a variant shape simplified with only the ventricles and auricles. This shape will be used often.
OPD, 人心木 is 他, which means he. In older Chinese writing, people did not differentiate the male and female, but now this character is used mainly for male he. the female she is 她, put here as a reference.
OPP, 人心心 is 仳, which means separate or divorce.
OPPA, 人心心日 is 偕, which means a person together.
OPR, 人心口 is 佝, which means rickets.
OQ, 人手 is 年, which means year, a word you learned before.
OQO, 人手人 is 伕, which means porter or chauffeur
ORD, 人口木 is 保, which means guarantee. Please note that many of these word has the same left component which denotes human being or related to human being.

P, 心, which means heart.
PA, 心日 is 旨, Depending on the other characters forming different phases to mean different things, it can mean aim, purpose, Emperor’s desire.
PA, 心日 is 旬, means ten days. 上旬, 中旬 and下旬 are used to refer to the first, second and last ten days of the month. When it comes to mention about age, 旬 also means ten years. Please also note that 旬 and 旨 share the same code. There are many Chinese characters with the same Chnagjie code. That makes blind-touch typing a bit difficult.
POG, 心人土 is 惟, means only. It combines with other characters to mean different things, but always has the meaning of only. Say 惟一means the only one. Please note the variation of heart which is 心 originally is now the left side with a vertical stroke and two dots on both sides. This is called the vertical heart in Chinese characters.
POGF, 心人土火 is 憔, has the meaning of weary or worried. Note also the variant of the heart on the left side.
PP, 心心 is 比, means compete with two people competing. Note here the second variant of the heart 心.
PR, 心口 is 句, means sentence.

QC, 手金 is 扒, means climb. Note that the hand 手 has changed to a variant similar to this one才 but with the tick going from bottom left to top right. This is called the hand component which is always on the left hand side. In Chinese characters, you can see a lot of the characters are grouped according to the left side component. One example is the vertical heart in the previous paragraph. Other examples are the mouth component in the next paragraph.
QFQ, 手火手 is 拌, means mix
QGR, 手土口 is 拮, means puncture
QO, 手人 is 夫, means husband. This is the second variant with two vertical lines and a slant side. The lower slant side is a variant of the component 人. Only the right stroke is used. These two components form the character 夫.
QOA, 手人日 is 替, means replace. Two husbands are replaced in a daily basis.
QPA, 手心日 is 指, means finger.
QR, 手口 is 扣, means knot or button.
QRB, 手口月 is 捐, means donate.

R, 口
RAA, 口日日 is 唱, means sing. It has a mouth and uses the sound of the character 昌 which you learned in the previous lesson (12).
RC, 口金 is 只, means a piece when used as a particle, or only when used as an adverb. Note that only the upper two strokes of the character 金 is used. This is a simple variant using the upper part.
RC, 口金 is 叭, imitates the sound Ba. When used with 喇叭, it means loudspeaker or trumpet. Note that this is a character sharing the same Changjie code with 只. The 八is now put on the right side instead of below the mouth.
RD, 口木 is 呆, means stupid
RG, 口土 is 吐, means to spit. Note that we have learned some words with 土 on the right side. Can you still remember some of them?
RGG, 口土土 is 哇, also imitates the crying sound of a baby Wa.
ROB, 口人月 is 吶, means slow in speech when used in repetition 吶吶, or loud shouts in support吶喊.
ROD, 口人木 is 咻, to hush a baby.
ROG, 口人土 is 唯, A yes man saying yes, yes. 唯唯諾諾.
RP, 口心 is 叱, shout or yell.
RRR, 口口口 is 品, with many combinations to mean different things. It can mean product 產品, 作品. It can also mean taste 品嚐. It can refer to quality品質.
RRRD, 口口口木 is 噪, means noise or noisy.

As you can see, when you learn more Changjie components, you will be able to display more Chinese characters on the screen. This is a long lesson. Hope you will spend a bit more time on learning and memorizing the components and their variations.