Chinese Language Stack Exchange
Chinese Language Stack Exchange

Questions tagged [characters]

Questions about Chinese characters, called Hanzi.

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Words referring to the shape of Chinese characters

Some words in English use (capital) letters to describe the shape of the object to which they refer: A-frame, C-clamp, I-beam, O-ring, T-shirt, T-intersection, T-bone, U-turn, V-neck Chinese seems to have a few words like this (except they make…
Stumpy Joe Pete
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What's this new Chinese character which looks like 座?

I keep seeing this new Chinese character on social media: What is this?
Mou某
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List of hanzi and their components

I would like to be able to compute the distance between 2 hanzi according to their components. My idea is that a hanzi like 式 is made of 工 and 弋. 2 hanzi are close if they share common components. To be able to compute such distance, I need to be…
qdii
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Is there a difference between 夂 and 夊?

Looking at the list of Kangxi radicals over at Wikipedia, I just noticed something I haven't noticed before. Radical number 34 (夂) and 35 (夊) are virtually identical. I write these radicals in the exact same way and I've asked one native speaker who…
Olle Linge
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Is there a rule that tells what characters can be omitted?

I have a habit of using too many characters when I speak and write. For example: 我回我的家。 我的 is not needed, and we can simply say 我回家。 Is there a grammar rule for when to cut characters? A more generic example: AB + CD = AD. (A, B, C, D are…
MaoYiyi
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When and why is right to left writing used?

I have encountered characters written horizontally right to left on signs (at the top of a gate) and on vehicles. When is this used and why? Was this more common in the past? Are the individuals characters ever mirrored (e.g. "b" versus "d")? Is…
Village
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Are Chinese characters taught in school in Vietnam?

Vietnamese is a language that used to use Chinese characters, but doesn't use them in everyday language nowadays. Are they still taught in school?
Golden Cuy
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What Hanzi-Latin hybrid characters exist?

I was going through Babel Stone's PUA page when I came across, some, of the following characters. This one is Japanese: Kanji-Latin hybrid = 慶 in the name of Keiō University (慶應大学) This one is Korean: Hanja-Hangul hybrid = 圖 do "map"…
Mou某
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Why does the radical for water and ice often look so weird

When I see the radical being used in 洗 and 凉 in some books or even sougou. They break it up into a broken radical that looks nothing like it. Is it one of those things that are related only to computers and I should just ignore the difference?
aury
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Visual puns and phrases

Some characters are visual puns: 尜 (小大小), 尖 (小大); others are a phrase written as a single character: 膥 (未成肉), 籴 (入米), 汆 (入水), 奀 (不大). What are some other characters which fit into these categories?
jogloran
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着 vs 著? Is it the same

Is 着 the same as 著? Can I interchange them, for example: Is 這位着名的歌手的名字是__ The same as 這位著名的歌手的名字是__ (put a name in "__")
54D
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What characters have been politically corrected before?

In the article "Mysogyny as reflected in Chinese characters", Victor Mair wrote: In the early days of the PRC, the government changed some characters for the names of minority ethnic groups so that they no longer had "bug" (chóng 虫) or "dog"…
Mou某
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Is there really no unicode for "扌"?

（扌+方）的释义--字海网（叶典网） Getting 非unicode but it's kind of hard to believe. Is there really no unicode for "扌"?
Mou某
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What character is 刄 + 丶?

Here's a pic I took in HK today What's the 刄 + 丶 char? In 堂飲2 xxxxxxx 28元 I'm guessing its similar to mainlands 两, for alcoholic drink sizes. I tried zisea & zdic to no avail... edit: is it this: ? http://www.zdic.net/z/84/wy/20090.htm It's the…
Mou某
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Characters with only one possible next character

In English, when one encounters "q", it is almost certain that the next letter will be a "u". I am looking for a similar situation in Chinese. Is there a character A which is universally (or nearly universally) followed by some other character…
John L
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