Learn Chinese Characters_Course Level 1_Lesson 01- The Knowledge & Practice of 8 Characters

Nǐ hǎo. This is Litao Chinese. My name is Zheng Tao, and I'm your Chinese teacher. Welcome to the first level of our Chinese character course, lesson 1. In the first level course, you will learn 28 Chinese character strokes, 100 commonly used Chinese characters, and more than 300 related words, phrases, and sentences. For most of the Chinese characters in this course, you will see its current and ancient written forms together, and I introduce how it was created originally and its meanings. Then we practice the character in the words, phrases, or sentences to get a better understanding of the character in context. Lastly, I show you how to write the character stroke by stroke. After working through this first level course, you will be able to master not only some commonly used Chinese characters and related vocabularies, but also the basic knowledge of Chinese characters. More importantly, with our clear and systematic instructions, you can establish a cognitive construct for Chinese characters, which will make your future learning much easier and more efficient. I believe you will enjoy this Chinese character course. Well, let's get started. A Chinese character is made of strokes, which are the smallest unit of Chinese writing, and there are six basic strokes and 22 compound strokes. They all have their names and should be written in certain directions. In today's lesson, we are going to learn the first two basic strokes and eight Chinese characters. This is the first basic stroke, the horizontal stroke. We call it Heng. The horizontal stroke Heng is written from left to right. You cannot write it in the opposite direction, which means it cannot be written from right to left. Remember that all the strokes should be written in certain directions. Now, let's look at how to write the numbers 1, 2, 3 in Chinese characters. We use one horizontal stroke to represent number 1, Yi. The character Yi goes straight forward from left to right. We use two horizontal strokes for number 2, Er. When you write the character Er, first write the top shorter horizontal stroke, then the longer one underneath. We use three horizontal strokes for number 3, San. The character San should be written from top to bottom. So first we write the top two short horizontal strokes. Actually, the second stroke is a little bit shorter than the first one. Then we write the third horizontal stroke, which is the longest. The space between the three strokes is the same. Well, you can see the Chinese characters for 1, 2, 3 are so simple and logical. This is the second basic stroke, the vertical stroke. We call it Shu. The vertical stroke Shu is written from top to bottom. You cannot write it from bottom to top. In today's lesson, we are going to learn five Chinese characters that have the vertical stroke Shu. This character is Shi, Shi, which is number 10. Sometimes Chinese people use this hand gesture for number 10. Now you know it does make sense. So far, we know the Chinese characters 1, 2, 3, Shi for number 1, 2, 3, and 10. Let's combine them to practice more numbers. 20, 21, 22, 23, 30, 31, 32, 33. I'm sure you can read and write these numbers in Chinese characters now. Here is the correct stroke order of Shi. The horizontal stroke Heng should go before the vertical stroke Shu. One more time, write Heng first, then Shu is Shi, number 10. This character is Shang, and here are two ancient versions of the character Shang. Ancient Chinese people add a short horizontal line or a vertical line over a long horizontal line to indicate the meaning of above in position. The character Shang can be used after a noun to say above, on top of, or on the surface of. For example, Tou Shang. The character Tou means the head, so Tou Shang means above the head. The character Shan means mountain, so the meaning of Shan Shang is on top of the mountain. Men means door, so Men Shang means on the surface of the door or just on the door. In this course, every time I give you the examples, I will always show you the pinyin and translation of the characters that we haven't learned yet. Like the character Tou, Shan, Men here. But once I finish introducing a character, like the character Shang, it will be shown without pinyin. Well, the character Shang has some other different meanings. We are going to learn them in our future lessons. Here is the correct stroke order of Shang. The vertical stroke Shu should be written first, then the short horizontal stroke Heng and the long horizontal stroke Heng. Three strokes in total. One more time, Shu, Heng, Heng, Shang. It can be used after a noun to say above, on top of, or on the surface of. This character is Gong. Before I tell you its meaning, I want to show you something very interesting. This is how the character Gong looked like when ancient Chinese people created it. And this is a kind of tool used by ancient Chinese people. Now you can see, the character Gong is originally made by outlining the rough shape of this tool with simple lines. So the character Gong originally means tool. And one of its extended meanings is to work. Because people use tools to work. It does make sense. Here is a word with the character Gong, Gong Ren. Gong here means to work. The meaning of the character Ren is person. So Gong Ren means worker, a person who works. Here is the correct stroke order of Gong. Write the top short Heng first, then the vertical stroke Shu. The last is the bottom Heng, which is longer than the top one. Three strokes in total. One more time, Heng, Shu, Heng, Gong. Tool or to work. This is the character Tu, Tu. The ancient written form of the character Tu looks like a lump of soil. So Tu originally means soil. And one of its extended meanings is land. Here is a word with the character Tu, Guotu, Guotu. The meaning of the character Guo is country. Tu here means land. So Guotu means country's land or country's territory. Here is the correct stroke order of Tu. Write the short Heng first, then the vertical stroke Shu goes across the short Heng. The second Heng is longer. Three strokes in total. One more time. Heng, Shu, Heng, Tu, soil or land. This character is Wang, Wang. This is the ancient written form of the character Wang. And in this picture, you can see it's a big X, which is a symbol of the king's power. So based on the shape of the big X, ancient Chinese people created the character Wang to indicate the meaning of king. Here is a word with the character Wang, Wang Zi, Wang Zi. Wang means king. The meaning of the character Zi is son. King's son is prince. So the word Wang Zi means prince, Wang Zi. Here is the correct stroke order of Wang. The top and the middle horizontal strokes Heng are written before the vertical stroke Shu. The last stroke is the bottom Heng, which is longer. Four strokes in total. One more time. Heng, Heng, Shu, Heng, Wang, king. Many students ask me, do all Chinese characters come from pictures? My answer is yes and no. Let me explain the yes part first. Take the three characters we have just learned as an example. Ancient Chinese people look at the tool they use, a lump of soil on the ground, and the big X that represents king's power. Then they created the three ancient characters by outlining the rough shape of the three things with simple lines to symbolize tool, soil, and king. Over thousands of years, Chinese characters have evolved several times. The current version of the three characters is quite different from their ancient version. But you can still find some clues and connection between them. So many early Chinese characters were indeed made by drawing the rough shape of concrete things and objects. We call them pictographic characters. And some of them are still in use today in simplified and stylized forms. Pictographic characters are the foundation of the whole Chinese writing system. Although they make up only around 5% of total modern Chinese characters, to study and master them, you can better understand the origin of Chinese characters and feel much easier in your future learning. However, many things that have abstract meanings can hardly be drawn out. For example, numbers or positions. So ancient Chinese people used abstract symbols to indicate their meanings. Take the character 上 as an example. As we know, its original versions show that ancient Chinese people add a short horizontal line or a vertical line over a long line to represent the meaning of above in position. We call these type of characters indicative characters. They make up only roughly 1% of total modern Chinese characters. So far, we have learned two types of Chinese characters. Pictographic characters were originally made by drawing the rough shape of concrete things and objects, such as 公, 土, 王. Indicative characters were made by some symbols to indicate abstract meanings, like 一, 二, 三, 十, 上. There are another two types of Chinese characters. We are going to learn them in our future lessons. Well, that's all for today's lesson. Thanks for watching. See you next time. 再见!