As the fruit of ancient people' wisdom, Chinese characters has been regarded as an important part in the whole process of learning Chinese. And the word formation of Chinese characters is a difficult part of Chinese characters leaning. Then how these interesting words are formed?
As the fruit of ancient people' wisdom,
Chinese characters has been regarded as an important part in the whole process of
learning Chinese. And the word formation of
Chinese characters is a difficult part of Chinese characters leaning. Then how these interesting words are formed?
Chinese characters represent single syllables, but Mandarin is a polysyllabic language.
The meaning of Chinese words
Single meaning: Words with a single meaning, which are usually set up of two characters (sometimes one, seldom three), are written together and not capitalized: rén; péngyou, qiǎokèlì (person; friend; chocolate).
Combined meaning (2 characters): Same goes for words combined of two characters for one meaning: hǎifēng; wèndá, quánguó (sea breeze; Q&A; 'pan-national').
Combined meaning (4 or more characters): Words with four or more characters having one meaning are split up with their original meaning if possible: wúfèng gāngguǎn; huánjìng bǎohù guīhuà (seamless steel-tube; environmental protection planning).
The writing rule of Chinese words
Duplicated words (AA and ABAB)
AA: Duplicated characters (AA) are written together: rénrén; kànkàn; niánnián (everybody; to have a look; annual).
ABAB: two characters duplicated (ABAB) are written separated: yánjiū yánjiū; xuěbái xuěbái (try again; snow-white).
AABB: A hyphen is used with the schema AABB: láilái-wǎngwǎng; qiānqiān-wànwàn(go back and forth; numerous).
Nouns (míngcí): Nouns are written in one: zhuōzi, mùtou (table, wood).
Word of position is separated: mén wài (outdoor), hé li (in the river), huǒchē shàngmian (on the train), Huáng Hé yǐnán (south of the Yellow River). Exceptions are words traditionally connected: tiānshang (at the sky), dìxia (on the floor), kōngzhōng (in the air), hǎiwài (overseas).
Chinese names are separated from the given name which will be written as one: Lǐ Huá, Wáng Jiàngguó and so on.
The forms of address, Lǎo, Xiǎo, Dà and A, are capitalized: Xiǎo Liú (Young Mr. Liu), Dà Lǐ (Great Li), A Sān (Ah San), Lǎo Qián (Senior Qian), Wú Lǎo (Senior Wu).
Exceptions are: Kǒngzǐ (Master Confucius), Bāogōng (Judge Bao), Xīshī (historical person), Mèngchángjūn (historical person).
Geographical names of China: Běijīng Shì (City of Beijing), Héběi Shěng (Province of Hebei), Yālù Jiāng (Yalu stream), Tài Shān (Mt. Taishan), Dòngtíng Hú (Lake Donting), Táiwān Hǎixiá (Taiwan Strait).
Non-Chinese names translated back from Chinese will be written by their original writing: Marx, Einstein, London, and Tokyo.
Verbs: Verbs and their suffixes (-zhe, -le and -guo) are written as one: kànzhe/kànle/kànguo (to see/saw/seen), jìngxíngzhe (to implement). Le as it appears in the end of a sentence is separated though: Huǒchē dào le (The train arrived).
If verbs and their complements are each monosyllabic, they are written together, if not, separated: gǎohuài ("to make broken"), dǎsǐ (hit to death), huàwéi ("to become damp"), zhěnglǐ hǎo (to straighten out), gǎixiě wéi (rewrite a screenplay).
Adjectives (xíngróngcí): A monosyllabic adjective and its reduplication are written as one: mēngmēnglìang (dim), lìangtāngtāng (shining bright).
Pronouns (dàicí): The plural suffix -men directly follows up: wǒmen (we), tāmen (they).