Learning Chinese: writing the traditional characters of Unit 6

Please choose how the character breakdown is displayed:

liǎng : two (used for counting — units of measurement, hours, etc.).

Stroke order:

Components : one (top stroke); jiǒng boundary, outline; to enter (present twice inside).

Etymology : liǎng originally represents a pair of identical objects placed side by side: two ("to enter") arranged symmetrically under a common boundary and topped by a horizontal stroke . This character means "two" and is used for pairs or quantities (as opposed to èr, the abstract digit).

Character evolution :

Bronze Seal script Clerical script Regular script Simplified
: (mom)

Stroke order:

Components : woman; horse. The character combines the idea of a female figure (mother) with the pronunciation "ma" carried by . It evolved to specifically designate the mother, often used affectionately.

Character evolution :

Oracle bone Seal script Clerical script Traditional Simplified
女馬

: general classifier (the most common one for counting people, objects, etc.).

Stroke order:

Components : rén person (variant of in compounds); firm, solid (phonetic indicator).

Etymology : is a phono-semantic compound composed of the person radical on the left and of on the right, which provides the pronunciation. It is the most general classifier (or measure word) in Chinese, used to count a wide variety of nouns: 一個人 yí gè rén "one person", 兩個孩子 liǎng gè háizi "two children". The simplified form keeps only the lower part of .

Character evolution :

Bronze Seal script Clerical script Regular script Simplified

ér : son, child; suffix (often softened to r in the pronunciation).

Stroke order:

Components : jiù mortar (here depicting the fontanelle of a newborn, an opening at the top of the skull); rén human legs (variant of the person character at the bottom of a compound).

Etymology : ér is a pictogram representing a child. The upper part depicts the opening of the fontanelle on the head of a newborn, and the lower part represents the legs of a figure. By extension, means "son, child" and also serves as a suffix in many words, such as 哪兒 nǎr "where?".

Character evolution :

Oracle bone Bronze Seal script Clerical script Regular script Simplified