Questions tagged [character-identification]

Questions about the identification of Chinese characters, especially characters seen in photos and other visual materials.

417 questions
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What do Chinese people do if they forget how to write a character?

I've heard that character amnesia is becoming more and more common. What if a Chinese has to write something and he doesn't have a cellphone or computer with him, what does he do if he forgot the character he needed? Does he use another character…
Kenjo
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Which ma belongs in the phrase 我 "ma" 好的

This may be a SE dialect thing, but plenty of my friends say 我 "ma" 好的 to mean 我很好 or "ma" 好的 to mean good or I agree with you. Can someone tell me which character (if there is one) is supposed to be used here?
going
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What does 嘞 mean

I actually suspect that this character may be a typo for ”了“, but I'll ask nevertheless. What is the second character in this snippet?: I managed to write it into my pocket dictionary, it simply gave me le1 with no definition. MDBG has no entries…
jsj
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What does 塩 mean?

I've tried a number of online and paper dictionaries (Chinese-Chinese character dictionaries) and I still can't find this character. Since I don't know how it's pronounced or what the right part is called, I have attached a representation of the…
Olle Linge
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Chinese characters for "bu da jie" meaning unrelated

Can someone assist with providing the correct Chinese characters for the saying "bu da jie" which means unrelated. This saying appears in the Suzhou dialect so it is quite common in our household, but I don't know how to write this.
going
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What are these two characters?

I need a little help deciphering a document. There are two characters that I'm unsure about, and I would appreciate your expertise. The first one seems to be 鵬, with the 朋 written together, but I'm not entirely certain. The second character is a bit…
timseb
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Does anyone know what character ⿰彳⿱㚘心 is?

Someone asked me for help with this character. I could not write it down on my keyboard with handwriting, so I looked through my dictionary the old fashioned way for it (Pleco). I looked at every single entry for the radical 心, and did not see it.…
zagrycha
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Paifang inscription on a gate at the Yellow Crane Tower (Characters identified: 江山入画)

I am having a hard time trying to identify a character inscribed on this gate at the Yellow Crane Tower. I think I have been able to identify the other three characters (入山江). So the character I'd like to have identified is the character to the…
Logichy
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Help identifying characters on a memorial coin

I recently got my hands into this coin No idea how it got here, nor where it came from, I've tried to identify the text with some chinese speaking friends but we are unable to fully comprehend. So far we guess that top left character is likely…
Ignasi
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What is this character? How to identify it?

Came across this etching in a ABAC pattern as the A: The more complicated ones were easier to identify, but this one is kind of tricky. One guess was that it was the character for 今, but that doesn't check out because it would probably look more…
Mou某
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What does "a84" mean to Chinese people?

I own the Internet domain a84.com. Quite often I get unsolicited inquires from individuals in China asking if I would sell the domain. The inquiries come only from China. I'm not sure if the interest is based on the domain being a three-character…
user6284
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Hoping to identify a stamp on a bronze that I have

I am hoping someone can help me identify the stamp on what I believe is a Chinese bronze crab.
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What characters are these? ⿰食㒼, ⿰兌皮

I encountered two characters I cannot find in any database. They are side-by-side compositions of two characters that I do know, but I have not been able to use the information to find something I can copy and paste into text. I tried radical +…
Kevin Li
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Help with Lishu character recognition (Character identified: 幾)

I am practicing some Lishu characters from Deng Shiru's "Master Cheng's Admonition on Seeing, Hearing, Words, and Deeds". There is one character I'm having trouble deciphering and can't find what might be it in the Lishu dictionary I have. The…
CTurner
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Is the meaning of this symbol "longevity"?

I'm trying to determine the meaning of a particular character. Sparing the boring details, I'm trying to figure out what the meaning of this character is: As near as i can tell it might be a symbol for "longevity" but, the symbol for that "shou"…
user3148
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