The Most complex Chinese characters

[Bonehelm]

Here they are,



It means "The motion of a flying dragon", and has 52 strokes. Pronounced "Zhe", in 2nd intonation Mandarin.



It means "poor enunciation due to snuffle", and has 36 strokes. Pronounced "nang", in 4th intonation Mandarin.

And here it is, the most complex of all....



It is simply a kind of noodle,popular in China's Shaanxi province. Has 57 strokes. Pronounced "Biang", in 2nd intonation Mandarin.


This is just a sidekick: A Japanese kanji that has an astounding total of 84 strokes.



It also describes the motion of a flying dragon, and in Japanese it is pronounced "taito". The character consists of three "cloud" chracters layered on top of three "dragons". It is pretty fascinating to imagine three dragons flying in three pieces of clouds, don't ya think?

Now let's all learn to write these 4 amazing characters!   

[Gustav]

Here they are,



It means "The motion of a flying dragon", and has 52 strokes. Pronounced "Zhe", in 2nd intonation Mandarin.



It means "poor enunciation due to snuffle", and has 36 strokes. Pronounced "nang", in 4th intonation Mandarin.

And here it is, the most complex of all....



It is simply a kind of noodle,popular in China's Shaanxi province. Has 57 strokes. Pronounced "Biang", in 2nd intonation Mandarin.


This is just a sidekick: A Japanese kanji that has an astounding total of 84 strokes.



It also describes the motion of a flying dragon, and in Japanese it is pronounced "taito". The character consists of three "cloud" chracters layered on top of three "dragons". It is pretty fascinating to imagine three dragons flying in three pieces of clouds, don't ya think?

Now let's all learn to write these 4 amazing characters!   

It is also interesting that the 4 dragon character has a mandarin pronunciation, I wonder whether the same script is used (in mainland China) using the simplified version of "Dragon" as opposed to the traditional version.

"Nang" is a quite common word, it's one of those more "medical" terms. Interesting, that in Chinese language the more obscure a word is, the more complex it gets (makes sense right?).

"Biang" is seldom (or never) used in books. I think you can figure why that is. But, you tend to see that only in restaurants where they serve noodles, I think it functions less as a writing tool, but more as a business sign.

The last one, I have never seen this one. It's interesting, I have never seen it in any text nor on signs or anywhere. In fact, this is the first time i have seen this unique character. Again, this is probably never used in a practical way.

Nowadys, with simplified Chinese, you seldom see these types anymore. It's perhaps easier for people to learn the language.

[BachQ]

We can assume, then, that flying dragons are quite abundant in China?

[Gustav]

We can assume, then, that flying dragons are quite abundant in China?

quite, they all sort come out during Chinese New Year celebrations.

[12tone.]

Here's a big question:

I know they do do it, but how can a picture make a speakable word?  In English, you make a 'D' sound when you see the 'D'.  You can't make mouth movements to those characters, or can you?

How does it work?

[Gustav]

Here's a big question:

I know they do do it, but how can a picture make a speakable word?  In English, you make a 'D' sound when you see the 'D'.  You can't make mouth movements to those characters, or can you?

How does it work?

well, it doesn't

That's why it is a very difficult language to learn. You must memorized the pronunciation character by character. I remember when I was in elementary school, we used to learn nothing but characters, it's pronunciations, usage, meaning, etc...  about 150-200 a year, at the end of 6th grade, average students have probably memorized more than a thousand characters. Of course, it varies, some are more prodigious than others, some like to read more, and hence they get to learn more characters.

This is also why, if you travel in China, you get all sort of confusing dialects. The extreme example is Beijing dialect (mandarin) and the Guangdong dialect (Cantonese), you basically need an interpretor if both people are going to have a conversation. The less extreme example is say, two villages in the Jiangsu province for instance. Even though they are only 100 km away from each other, they have different pronunciations for certain words, or even in many cases, different words that exists only in that particular dialect, confusing right?

[Bonehelm]

well, it doesn't

That's why it is a very difficult language to learn. You must memorized the pronunciation character by character. I remember when I was in elementary school, we used to learn nothing but characters, it's pronunciations, usage, meaning, etc...  about 150-200 a year, at the end of 6th grade, average students have probably memorized more than a thousand characters. Of course, it varies, some are more prodigious than others, some like to read more, and hence they get to learn more characters.

This is also why, if you travel in China, you get all sort of confusing dialects. The extreme example is Beijing dialect (mandarin) and the Guangdong dialect (Cantonese), you basically need an interpretor if both people are going to have a conversation. The less extreme example is say, two villages in the Jiangsu province for instance. Even though they are only 100 km away from each other, they have different pronunciations for certain words, or even in many cases, different words that exists only in that particular dialect, confusing right?

Gustav you seem to be quite knowledgeable on the Chinese language...are you a native?

[Gustav]

Gustav you seem to be quite knowledgeable on the Chinese language...are you a native?

no, I lived there for the early part of my life, that's all.

[Bonehelm]

no, I lived there for the early part of my life, that's all.

One thing though, you said all characters' pronounciation must be memorized separately. That is not entirely true. Pictophonetic compounds (形聲字) represents the largest group of characters in modern Chinese. Characters of this sort are composed of two parts: a pictograph, which suggests the general meaning of the character, and a phonetic part, which is derived from a character pronounced in the same way as the word the new character represents. Examples are 河 (hé) river, 湖 (hú) lake, 流 (liú) stream, 冲 (chōng) riptide, 滑 (huá) slippery. All these characters have on the left a radical of three dots, which is a simplified pictograph for a water drop, indicating that the character has a semantic connection with water; the right-hand side in each case is a phonetic indicator. For example, in the case of 冲 (chōng), the phonetic indicator is 中 (zhōng), which by itself means middle. so it can be seen that the pronunciation of the character has diverged from that of its phonetic indicator; this process means that the composition of such characters can sometimes seem arbitrary today. Further, the choice of radicals may also seem arbitrary in some cases; for example, the radical of 貓 (māo) cat is 豸 (zhì), originally a pictograph for worms, but in characters of this sort indicating an animal of any sort.

You can guess a lot of word's pronounciations by looking at what phonetical compounds are present in it.

[BachQ]

if you travel in China, you get all sort of confusing dialects. The extreme example is Beijing dialect (mandarin) and the Guangdong dialect (Cantonese), you basically need an interpretor if both people are going to have a conversation. *** Even though they are only 100 km away from each other, they have different pronunciations for certain words, or even in many cases, different words that exists only in that particular dialect, confusing right?

How utterly frustrating. 

(((I think I'll scrap my plans of learning Cantonese and Mandarin Chinese ............)))

[12tone.]

How utterly frustrating. 

(((I think I'll scrap my plans of learning Cantonese and Mandarin Chinese ............)))

On to Norwegian!

[BachQ]

On to Norwegian!

First on my list: FINNISH ........

[12tone.]

First on my list: FINNISH ........

Seriously?  Cool. 

I went through Youtube listening to all the Scandinavian Languages and heard Finnish.  I know it's not related to them but what a sound!  Some really strange sounds go on there which to me sounds extremely hard to mimic.  Finnish sounds nice though.  My favorite is Icelandic. 

So what's after Finnish then?

[BachQ]

After Finnish comes Icelandic ..........

[12tone.]

After Finnish comes Icelandic ..........

Yaaaaay!!!!  Hvernig segir maður "That is sweet!" á íslensku?

[Gustav]

One thing though, you said all characters' pronounciation must be memorized separately. That is not entirely true. Pictophonetic compounds (形聲字) represents the largest group of characters in modern Chinese. Characters of this sort are composed of two parts: a pictograph, which suggests the general meaning of the character, and a phonetic part, which is derived from a character pronounced in the same way as the word the new character represents. Examples are 河 (hé) river, 湖 (hú) lake, 流 (liú) stream, 冲 (chōng) riptide, 滑 (huá) slippery. All these characters have on the left a radical of three dots, which is a simplified pictograph for a water drop, indicating that the character has a semantic connection with water; the right-hand side in each case is a phonetic indicator. For example, in the case of 冲 (chōng), the phonetic indicator is 中 (zhōng), which by itself means middle. so it can be seen that the pronunciation of the character has diverged from that of its phonetic indicator; this process means that the composition of such characters can sometimes seem arbitrary today. Further, the choice of radicals may also seem arbitrary in some cases; for example, the radical of 貓 (māo) cat is 豸 (zhì), originally a pictograph for worms, but in characters of this sort indicating an animal of any sort.

You can guess a lot of word's pronounciations by looking at what phonetical compounds are present in it.

Yes, what you say is correct. You still need to memorize the basic character though.

You can guess a lot of word's pronounciations by looking at what phonetical compounds are present in it.

That's true, but often times, the more obscure/difficult the meaning of a character is, the less it is likely for that character to follow this rule.

[greg]

I went through Youtube listening to all the Scandinavian Languages and heard Finnish.  I know it's not related to them but what a sound!  Some really strange sounds go on there which to me sounds extremely hard to mimic.  Finnish sounds nice though.  My favorite is Icelandic. 

no, not too hard, really- just 2 odd vowels not similar to English which may make it sound strange. Besides that, not extremely difficult to speak compared to something like Mandarin (Finnish even has the same stress- first syllable- on each word!) So the difficulty has more to do with the difficult case system and fact that it's a non-IndoEuropean language.

One thing though, you said all characters' pronounciation must be memorized separately. That is not entirely true. Pictophonetic compounds (形聲字) represents the largest group of characters in modern Chinese. Characters of this sort are composed of two parts: a pictograph, which suggests the general meaning of the character, and a phonetic part, which is derived from a character pronounced in the same way as the word the new character represents. Examples are 河 (hé) river, 湖 (hú) lake, 流 (liú) stream, 冲 (chōng) riptide, 滑 (huá) slippery. All these characters have on the left a radical of three dots, which is a simplified pictograph for a water drop, indicating that the character has a semantic connection with water; the right-hand side in each case is a phonetic indicator. For example, in the case of 冲 (chōng), the phonetic indicator is 中 (zhōng), which by itself means middle. so it can be seen that the pronunciation of the character has diverged from that of its phonetic indicator; this process means that the composition of such characters can sometimes seem arbitrary today. Further, the choice of radicals may also seem arbitrary in some cases; for example, the radical of 貓 (māo) cat is 豸 (zhì), originally a pictograph for worms, but in characters of this sort indicating an animal of any sort.

You can guess a lot of word's pronounciations by looking at what phonetical compounds are present in it.

that's exactly what i think of when i want to cheat to look up a Japanese word 
i remember a character just like the new one i see, but with a different radical/no radical.... then i type in the reading, scroll down the list, and it's almost always there! 

[BachQ]

Yaaaaay!!!!  Hvernig segir maður "That is sweet!" á íslensku?

I was going to learn Greenlandic (Kalaallisut), but since Greenland will virtually disappear in roughly 50 years (because of global warming), there isn't much future in that language ........

[greg]

I was going to learn Greenlandic (Kalaallisut), but since Greenland will virtually disappear in roughly 50 years (because of global warming), there isn't much future in that language ........

that's a hilarious observation
(applause)

[12tone.]

no, not too hard, really- just 2 odd vowels not similar to English which may make it sound strange. Besides that, not extremely difficult to speak compared to something like Mandarin (Finnish even has the same stress- first syllable- on each word!) So the difficulty has more to do with the difficult case system and fact that it's a non-IndoEuropean language.

Cool stuff.  Know anything about Danish, Norwegian, Swedish or Icelandic?