Traditional characters 5

們 men : (plural marker)

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Graphic components: 亻 man (variant of 人) ; 門 mén door.
Etymology : 們 men is a phono-semantic compound. It is formed from the 'human' component 亻 and the 'door' 門 mén which gives the pronunciation indication.

國 guó : country.

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Graphic components: 囗 wéi enclosure, border ; 或 huò (inside) a hand armed with a halberd protecting a territory.

Etymology : 國 guó is a compound ideogram. The outer square 囗 represents the fortified enclosure of a territory or a city. Inside, 或 there is a hand holding a halberd 戈 to defend a delimited place (口 representing a city, 一 a border). The whole thus evokes an armed and protected territory: the country.

漢 hàn : Han (people, dynasty, Chinese language).

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Graphic components: 氵 shuǐ water (water radical) ; 𦰩 phonetic element (a man holding an object above the fire).

Etymology : 漢 hàn originally referred to the Han River (漢水 Hàn shuǐ), an important tributary of the Yangtze in central China. The Han dynasty (漢朝 Hàn cháo, 206 BC – 220 AD) took its name from this region, and by extension, the majority Chinese people is called 漢人 Hànrén, their language 漢語 Hànyǔ, and their writing 漢字 Hànzì. The character is a phono-semantic compound formed from the water radical 氵 on the left and a phonetic complex on the right.

語 yǔ : (language)

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Graphic components: 訁 speech ; 五 five ; 口 mouth.

Etymology : 語 a phono-semantic compound composed of speech 訁 and the phonetic component 吾 wú. Originally, 語 symbolized verbal exchange, associating speech (言) with a phonetic element evoking the pronoun "we" (吾).

說 shuō : to speak
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Graphic components: 訁 speech ; 八 inverted eight ; 口 mouth ; 儿 human legs (radical at the bottom of the character). It is a phono-semantic character composed of speech 訁 and the component 兌 duì. The latter, originally meaning "to exchange" or "to convert", brings both a phonetic indication and the idea of a verbal exchange. The character 說 thus refers to the action of speaking, explaining or convincing, reflecting the link between communication and linguistic transaction.

寫 xiě : to write.

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Graphic components: 宀 mián roof ; 舄 xì (the magpie, a bird that arranges objects; serves here as phonetic).

Etymology : 寫 xiě is a phono-semantic compound. The radical 宀 mián represents a roof (a house). Originally, the character meant "to arrange, to place (something) under a roof", hence the derived meaning of "to record in writing, to write". The lower part 舄 xì serves as a phonetic indicator.

會 huì : to be able, to know (how to do); to gather.

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Graphic components: 亼 jí lid / to gather (at the top) ; 曾 céng stacking (in the middle and bottom).

Etymology : 會 huì is originally a pictogram representing a container with its lid closing over stacked food. The top 亼 evokes a lid that gathers, and the lower part elements that come together. From this original meaning of "to gather, to come together" derive the modern meanings: "to meet, to encounter", then "to be able, to know how to do" (implied: having gathered the conditions to succeed).