Learning Chinese Characters

Hello妳好 Lain!

That's good stuff about IKEA = 宜家 and funny that they have a similar pronunciation. I don't know what IKEA means in English either... if anything. Maybe it means something in Norwegian or Swedish. A valuable thing means jade玉? -- I like it. I like how these characters touch on the familiar. Is the character for pearl similar?

宜家 means appropriate for home
宜--appropriate or fine or pleasant -- I can see this... That bit on top is like a halo of goodness... and it works for both characters.
家--home is a very complicated place! That same person character plus the three extras on the left. The woman who runs that place must be busy!


I'm honored that you'd want to share the stories. Thanks for asking! I peeked a look at Lain's Sky... that's great... it must be a really good friend who helped you. Congratulations on a successful forum! Is that related to your work, or do you just enjoy the internet?

You are right, I don't live in India... I live near Seattle. My favorite Olympic sports are diving, figure skating, gymnastics, equestrian sports, plus soccer and sailing, but I'll watch almost any of the Olympic sports... even curling!

謝謝妳 for 謝謝! It is interesting that this is a doubled character... am still trying to decide about that, but it seems funny because many cultures duplicate their thanks. The phrases "a million thanks" and "many thanks" come instantly to mind.

謝 The left-hand part of this character looks to me like the strong, unbroken lines used in the I Ching and the box at the bottom may be a sign of material goods. The right-hand part looks like two people -- maybe one receiving and one giving?

Yep, I agree that the answer to my earlier question lies in the calligraphy of Chinese characters. Beautiful stuff - can you do calligraphy?

I like the character for friend -- 朋友. The doubled character is moon... from moon to moon we are friends... it seems like a promise of loyalty and the right-hand part... looks familiar. Wasn't that in another character, too? I wish I could figure out how to make copies of the characters as I begin to learn them so I could keep them in one place. I have a hard time switching from page to page and trying to recognize them both by their shape and the BBCode. Have to think how I can do this.

妳朋友, Piffka

的 -- Candle-light? I don't think I ever quite understood what that meant, back when were were talking about starlight, moonlight and candlelight!

I don't get why IKEA = 宜家 either, Piffka. If abiding by Chinese Pinyin system, 宜家 = Yi Jia, not IKEA. But Lain might have transliterated Yi Jia into English that you didn't understand; or that is just how a certain Chinese dialect sounds for Yi Jia. I dunno.

I highly appreciate that you try to learn Chinese, Piffka. From the postings you posted in the thread, I could understand your industry and I am also a bit sad that Chinese characters look so difficult. It is hard enough for a foreigner to write Chinese with a pencil and remember them. I hope that one day the progress and breakthrough in IT (hardware and software) and AI will greatly help Chinese language learners quickly master the language system.

Hi Piffka,

Thanks for allowing me to share your stories, I'll post them in a couple of days! I'm very happy that you think it's great, I hadn't known much about a forum until I got my own, a place where I can share my feelings and thoughts. It's still a very litte one though, I hope my friends enjoy. And yes, the friend who built Lain's Sky is really a good friend, a very special friend. I've learned a lot from him and he's still doing it..

LOL, Seattle! that Sleepless in Seattle! I love Tom Hanks as well. I live near Shanghai, I bet you've heard about it. You Love Olympics dun you? Me too, I love the feeling that all the people come together and become friends- 朋友.

Hmm, actually 謝謝 are 2 characters, 謝 is one and 謝 is another one... and also "朋友", 朋 and 友. About "的", it's a very special word in Chinese, it plays different roles in different sentences. Here it means "of", for example,

you- 你
your- 你的
I- 我
my- 我的

So "your friend, Piffka" should be "妳的朋友, Piffka". You shouldn't miss this word "的"..

I dun do calligraphy, but I "draw" it, lol. I'm majoy in visual communication, currently in college.. I'd like to show your a homework I did about 2 years ago but I just dunno how to!

I tried to put the characters we'd talked about on this list, hope this is useful.

星-- star
日-- sun and day月-- moon and month
夜-- night
星月夜-- a starry night with moon
光-- light
星光-- the light of stars
歌-- song
歌星-- pop star
电-- electricity
影-- shadow
电影-- movie
花-- flower
葉-- leaf
妳-- you (as a female)
你-- you (as a male)
好-- hello, ok, alright, good, kind and nice and so on
妳好/你好-- hello
我--I
是-- is, am, are, was, were
中国-- China (Simplified)
中國-- China (Traditional)
謝謝-- thanks
謝謝你/妳-- thank you
朋友-- friend
宜-- appropriate or fine or pleasant
家-- home

When I made the list, I found I've left many questions unanswered. Some of them beyond my knowledge (though I 'm a Chinese...) and the rest I dunno how to answer due to my crappy English... And thanks for the month website, I did learn! Not all the people from the old town of Lijiang use pictographs, only a very few still keep the mysterious characters.

oristarA is right, 宜家 in Pinyin is Yi Jia, but it does have a similar pronunciation with IKEA, so in China we translate IKEA as 宜家... I think IKEA means something in Swedish also since it's from Sweden.

Off to bed now, very sleepy.

good night
Lain

好 Lain,

Thank you for explaining this 的 . It seems that there are so many other words besides the beautiful character nouns you have translated for me. All those prepositions and verbs and adjectives and more. I am looking forward to reading and studying my latest lesson, and I am so glad to see my dictionary! 謝謝! 謝謝!!

It is nice to see Mr.Oristar here, too.

Glad to know more about your forum. I hope it grows just as you want it to. If you ever add an English section to LainForum, I will gladly join. I wonder if it would be easier to go between English and Chinese there, or if I'd run into similar BBCode problems?

I like Tom Hanks very much, too. Besides his acting talent, he is known to be a nice man, faithful to his family and more humble than you might expect for being such a famous movie star. I have seen several interviews with him on television and he can be very funny. One of my favorite moments in Sleepless in Seattle is when the young son and his new girl friend are in the swivel chair together and turn to talk to Tom Hanks, then turn back. Of course, the story is very romantic.

I also like the Olympics and watching *some* athletic endeavors. I am not a huge baseball fan, so I just gave my chance on Friday to see the Seattle Mariners baseball team. I told my husband to take our son instead, I know he would enjoy it more. I did just go to a rodeo on Monday -- do you know what those are? There were lots of horses to watch and some cattle and many cowboys. Also a few cowgirls! They catch the cows with ropes or ride or speed through obstacle courses... there was an interesting event where several teams tried, at the same time, to catch an untrained horse, saddle it and get somebody to ride it around the arena and there was an amazing act by the One-Armed Bandit, a cowboy who lost his arm (his story on this website), yet he has trained a wild mustang and three American bison to do what he asks He comes into the rodeo arena with a very large truck with even larger cattle horns on top (that were, I'm sure made of wood) pulling a big stock trailer and then used it as part of his "act." He uses a long whip with a ball on the end to guide the buffalo around, all the while racing about using only his legs and weight to steer his horse. It was QUITE EXCITING!



Here is another website in color....another website!

I was visiting my sister whose neighbor has a small herd of buffalo, so I've had a close look at them. They are much larger than cattle and seem very wild. If you ever go to Yellowstone National Park, a very famous park in the USA, you can see them in the wild. (Their true name is American Bison, by the way, but nearly everyone calls them buffalo.)


More later.

妳的朋友 , Piffka

妳好, Piffka

I'm glad the "dictionary" helps, I'm here always anytime you meet a Chinese character you dunno you're welcome. just I'm starting busy these days as the autumn semester started.

It's interesting to know buffalo rodeo stuff. 謝謝! Cowboys and cowgirls? They remind me of horse opera a lot.. "The One Arm Bandit"--John S. Payne, 7,200 volts and lost an arm and soon returned to the rodeo arena! Can't image... I guess the feeling of catching an untrained horse must be great, hard to describe, like there is a special friendship exists between cowboy and the wild world?... A special and great feeling...

I'd like to visit Yellowstone National Park if I got enough money hahaha, it's very famous I've seen a lot of pictures already!

I dun have a lot of chances to see baseball game and I only know a few rules about it. Did you ever hear of the "H2" or "Touch" japan comic? They both related to baseball, I from then was intersted in baseball game. I think a good hurler is really attractive!

It'd be great if you could join in my forum, no need to add an English section you can post anywhere just as you like. But my forum comes in Chinese only, I mean you may have to learn the Chinese characters for "register" and "log in" first and so on... I once switched it into English but it gave problems when those who chose Chinese nickname tried to log in... Hmm, what do you mean by BBCode problems? I think you can read Chinese in my forum right?

Have a nice day!
妳的朋友, Lain

Hi Piffka,

I found this program which is designed in particular to help learn standard Chinese might be useful.

Download its free trial version!

Please remember, don't buy it, because the free trial version has been enough for you for the time being. I am not a salesman for promoting the software.

Link:
http://www.language-chinese.net/index.htm

Thank you Oristar, I will look at that website when I get my old computer back, it has been getting fixed all week. I am borrowing a little bit of time on another computer and it doesn't show any of the characters. This must be what Ossobuco meant... every character is just shown as a box.

Lain... I hope school is going well for you! You will be pleased to know that I was watching the China news channel. While I couldn't understand anything that was being said, of course, there are subtitles or some other kind of script that flows below the picture and I was trying to recognize characters. I didn't do so well, but I did see that 2-part character with a small moon on the left plus a "giving" sort of character. You said it showed ownership... Your, my, their, ... Anyway, you can bet I was pleased to see that in the midst of so much that was, sadly, incomprehensible.

I'll be back when I can see my dictionary and be sure that I'm writing what I meant to in Chinese.

Your friend,
Piffka