Chinese, the most interesting and simple language in the world

By Lewei Shang

 

The biggest feature of Chinese is pictographs. 

 

What are pictographs? Pictographs are drawings, the simplest drawings. I have been introducing pictographic Chinese characters on my blog for many years, and readers who follow my blog should have seen many pictographic Chinese characters that I have introduced, and their evolution. Learning Chinese characters through pictographs is very interesting and easy to understand.

 

For example:

 

 

From left to right:

Shell bone script, big seal script, small seal script, clerical script.

 

The top is 目 (mù), which means eyes; the bottom is 人 (rén), which means person. Many people think that shell bone script is too difficult, and many even translate shell bone script as Oracle script (a mysterious font). This translation is incorrect; Oracle bone script should be translated as Shell bone script. Shell bone script is not mysterious. Do you think the shell bone script for "目" - an eye, and the shell bone script for "人" - the side of a human body above, are mysterious? They are much more similar to eyes and human bodies than the characters in Song typeface. They are much easier to understand than English words "Eye" and "Human being" or "People". But why don't we say Song typeface is difficult to understand, or English is difficult to understand? The reason is that you have not seriously studied shell bone script, so you think it is difficult. In addition, Oracle script - a mysterious font, Ancient Egyptian script, and Ancient Mayan script are more difficult to understand than Shell bone script. If Shell bone script is called Oracle, then what should they be called? Therefore, Shell Bone script is the most appropriate English translation.

 

Pictographic Chinese characters are mainly nouns with shapes, such as: 口 (kǒu) - mouth, 人 (rén) - person, 目(mù) - eyes, 木 (mù) - tree, 门 (mén) - door, 山 (shān) - mountain, 水 (shuǐ) - water, 田 (tián) - field, 火 (huǒ) - fire, 日 (rì) - sun, 月 (yuè) - moon, 云 (yún) - cloud, 鸟 (niǎo) - bird, 鹿 (lù) - deer, 雨 (yǔ) - rain, 鱼 (yú) - fish, etc. For adjectives and verbs without shapes, such as: 见 (jiàn) - see, 看 (kàn) - look, 明 (míng) - bright, 鸣 (míng) - sing, 沐 (mù) - bathe, 相 (xiāng) - each other, 泪 (lèi) - tears, 渔 (yú) - fish, 问 (wèn) - ask, etc., they are composed of individual pictographic characters according to their meanings, so they are called compound ideographic characters.

 

For example:

From left to right:

Shell bone script, Big seal script, Small seal script, Clerical script, Simplified Song typeface.

 

The top is "目" (mù), the bottom is "人" (rén), forming the character "见" (jiàn). This is very obvious and easy to see. Learning Chinese characters like this is undoubtedly a pleasant and easy process.

 

Each individual character is like an electronic component, and then different logical circuit boards are built according to their functions. These circuit boards can then be used to build more complex circuit boards. There are only about four hundred individual characters (the smallest, undividable, meaningful units) but they form tens of thousands of compound characters, including compound ideographic characters and phono-semantic characters. As long as you understand these four hundred or so individual characters, it is easy to understand other compound characters. You don't need to remember every character. From these individual and compound characters, phrases can be formed.

 

Simple, easy to understand, very easy to learn, and very enjoyable, without the need to memorize Chinese characters by rote.

 

But if pictographs are not discussed, all Chinese characters become meaningless symbols, and can only be memorized by rote, making learning extremely difficult.

 

 

In addition to making Chinese characters interesting and easy to understand, Chinese grammar is also extremely simple. I have previously written an article discussing "Why is Chinese Grammar Extremely Simple?", and today I will represent Chinese grammar with diagrams, which may be easier to understand.

 

 

Chinese verbs only have one tense, there is no past tense, no perfect tense, and no future tense. There are also no problems with singular or plural verbs that need to be changed, and there are no irregular verbs. There is also no subjunctive mood in verbs; as long as "如果" (rúguǒ) (if) is added, it becomes a subjunctive mood. There is no requirement for verbs in question sentences to be placed before; as long as a "?" is added at the end, it is enough.

 

So, one verb is just one word, for example: 做 (zuò) - to do, in English there are: do, does, did, doing, done, have done, will do, would have done, etc. In Chinese, it's simply 我做 (wǒ zuò) - I do, 你做 (nǐ zuò) - you do, 他做 (tā zuò) - he do, 我们做 (wǒmen zuò) - we do, 我现在做 (wǒ xiànzài zuò) - I do now, 你昨天做 (nǐ zuótiān zuò) - you do yesterday, 他明天做 (tā míngtiān zuò) - he do tomorrow, etc. Anyway, it's all "做" (zuò) – to do. Similarly, for 是 (shì) - to be, in English there are: am, is, are, was, were, have been, will be, would be, etc. In Chinese, it's 我是 (wǒ shì) - I be, 你是 (nǐ shì) - you be, 他是 (tā shì) - he be, 我们是 (wǒmen shì) - we be, 我现在是 (wǒ xiànzài shì) - I be now, 你过去是 (nǐ guòqù shì) - you be in the past, 他将来是 (tā jiānglái shì) - he be in the future, etc. Anyway, it's all "是" (shì) - to be.

 

Chinese grammar should be taught early, like the main beam of a house. Once the main beam is erected, adding other supports, doors, and windows becomes easier.

 

For example:             AB learn XY

 

AB can be nouns, pronouns, XY can be nouns, pronouns, adverbs. As long as it makes logical sense, it can form a sentence

 

I study Chinese, you study singing, they study painting, Zhang San study boxing, Li Si study martial arts, Wang Wu study very well, They study Math yesterday, She study Art tomorrow, etc.

 

It's a bit like combining individual characters into compound characters mentioned earlier, and then combining them into phrases. Here, adding verbs forms sentences, and with sentences, you can write articles.

 

But if Chinese grammar is taught according to English grammar, it complicates simple issues.

 

The third characteristic of Chinese: many homophones.

 

Having many homophones is a major disadvantage of Chinese, with one sound having multiple characters. 目(mù), 沐 (mù), 木 (mù), 幕 (mù), 穆 (mù), 墓 (mù), 慕 (mù), 牧 (mù), 暮 (mù), 募 (mù), 睦 (mù), 钼 (mù), all pronounced "mù". If tones are not considered, then there are even more characters. Which characters correspond to "Mu li ji zhong"? Is it 牡蛎及钟? 木犁几种 ? 穆立击中? 暮里挤肿 ? 目力集中? etc., you simply don't know which characters they are, because they are all pronounced exactly same. 

 

So, the path of Romanization of Chinese characters is not feasible. At the same time, the method emphasized in learning English of "listening and speaking leading, reading and writing following" cannot be applied to learning Chinese, because homophones quickly make you unable to continue. This is why many foreigners can quickly learn "hello" and "goodbye", but after a few years, they are still stuck with just these two sentences, or maybe a couple more.

 

Apart from homophones, the lack of relationship between the pronunciation and writing of Chinese characters makes learning Chinese even more difficult. The pronunciation and spelling of English are closely related; if you can say it, you have about seventy to eighty percent certainty of being able to write it. So, knowing how to say English words can help you remember them. But there is no relationship between the pronunciation and writing of Chinese characters; you can say a sentence, but you might not be able to write a single character.

 

The relationship between the writing and expression of Chinese characters and real objects is pictographic, so learning pictographs can help remember Chinese characters. English does not have this relationship, which is its shortcoming. Teaching English as "listening and speaking leading, reading and writing following" is a strategy to highlight strengths and avoid weaknesses: highlighting the closeness between English pronunciation and spelling, while avoiding the lack of pictographic characteristics of English words. Similarly, the strategy for learning Chinese is to highlight strengths and avoid weaknesses: highlighting the pictographic nature of Chinese characters, making writing characters like drawing; as long as this strength is highlighted, the weakness of rote memorization is naturally avoided, and at the same time, the problem of too many homophones is also avoided because when you speak, the corresponding Chinese characters come to mind, and you will never get confused.

 

In summary:

 

The greatest strength of Chinese characters: pictographic, characters are drawings.

 

The second greatest strength of Chinese characters: very simple grammar.

 

These two points make Chinese the simplest and most interesting language.

 

The greatest weakness of Chinese characters: too many homophones, and the pronunciation and writing of Chinese characters are unrelated.

 

The second greatest weakness of Chinese characters: individual characters are difficult to remember. But this only exists when we don't teach pictographs; if we do, this weakness naturally disappears.

 

Conclusion:

 

As long as we highlight strengths and avoid weaknesses: teach pictographs, teach grammar, and then follow up with Pinyin, Chinese is the most interesting and simplest language.

 

March 1, 2024

 

 

Why is Chinese grammar so simple?

 As we all know, compared with other languages, Chinese grammar is very simple. It may be the language with the simplest grammar in the world, or at least one of the languages with the simplest grammar.

For example, the modal verb "是" in Chinese means: 我是(I be), 你是(you be), 他是(he be), 我们是 (we be), 你们是 (you be), 他们是 (they be), 我是(I be) in the past, 你是(you be) now, 他是(he be) in the future, etc. Even if the grammar is not complicated in English, something like this be: I am, you are, he is, we are, they are, I was, you were, they were, he was, I have been, you will be, they would be, etc. There are many different forms of be.

 

The other thing is tense. For example, English has past tense, past perfect tense, present tense, present continuous tense, future tense, future perfect tense, and so on. I did, I had done, I have done, I do, I am doing, I have been doing, I will do, etc. There is also the subjunctive mood. There are also conjugations for singular and plural verbs: I do, he does, they do.

Chinese is very simple: 我做过（I do before），我早做了(I do earlier time)，我已经做了(I do already)，我正在做 (I do right now)，我一直在做 (I do all the time) ，我将要做 (I do late)，我们做 (we do)，他会做 (He do late)。 Every situation used "做"(do), no matter what tense it is, it is "做"(do), whether it is singular or plural, it is "做"(do).

 

Then you may ask: Are the English did, do, and will do more accurate than Chinese expressions? Won't. Chinese can use adverbials to resolve tenses: I 做 (do) it yesterday, you 做 (do) it now, we 做 (do) it tomorrow. Sometimes adverbials must be added in English too: We went there Friday. Without this Friday, the listener would not know when you went. Chinese also adds Friday, but Chinese does not need to change the tense of "go": we went yesterday and we will go tomorrow. In English, you need to change go into went. Chinese says the same things as “we go（去） yesterday” and “we go（去） tomorrow”. You are confused? Of course Not.

 

Another example is nominative case, object case, there are many rules in English. I love him; He loves me. English needs to distinguish between "he/him, love/loves, I/me". It's a lot of trouble. In Chinese it means "我爱他“ （I love him） and "他爱我”（he love me）. Both used Love, no loves needed.

 

There are unnecessary repetitions here in English: First of all, why do we add s to the verb after a singular noun? It seems unnecessary. Just like the Chinese saying: I love him, he love me, no one would misunderstand.

 

There is also passive voice. In English, "He was asked; the table is broken; they were moved", be asked, be broken, be moved, are all passive voice: you need to add be (was, is, were), the verb is also Change to past tense. The Chinese is simple: “他被问“（he be asked）; “桌子破了“（the table be broken）; “他们感动了“（they be moved）. People can understand.

 

Of course, there are some problems with this. For example, the most common mistake Chinese students make is to always use the present tense: We do, we do yesterday, we do tomorrow. There is also no distinction between singular and plural: We do, he do, she do. This is due to the influence of our long-term Chinese grammar. Chinese verbs are not divided into tenses, and there is no distinction between singular and plural.

 

So why did Chinese develop such a simple grammar? The main reason is that it is very difficult to create pictographic Chinese characters. Each character is the result of at least decades or hundreds of years of natural selection. For example, the word "是" was originally written in bronze.

 

 

The upper part is character Morning – 早, formed by 日- Sun, and 十 – means Grass here. In the morning the sun is very low, just like as low as grass. 

 

The lower part is character Foot – 止. Chinese proverb says "A day's plan begins in the morning." Get up early and go out to start working. The ancients believed that this was "yes", which means affirmation and the right thing that a person should do. This is still the literal meaning of "is." But later it was used in modal verbs, which means "I am, you are, he is". In fact, the meaning is similar, that is, "sure or confirm". "I am a student" is a confirmation of identity.

It is conceivable that many people should have created different "是", but in the end most people accepted the current "是" and then it was passed down. This process should have taken at least decades, probably hundreds of years. This is the process of formation of pictographs. 

 

If there are different "be" like English: am, is, are, was, were, have been, will be, etc. Then can Chinese characters create so many "是" characters? Add extra one stroke, two strokes, or remove one stroke or two strokes to the word "是" ? Where to add it? Which stroke could you eliminated? None, because if you do, the character lost its pictography completely.

 

It is precisely because Chinese characters were not enough that ancient Chinese even had made a character to have multiple meanings: for example, "乐": music, happiness; "差": bad review, errand; "行": action, or bank ; "参": participate, ginseng, etc.

 

The corresponding Chinese character for do mentioned earlier is "做".

 

Big seal script of 做

 

On the left is character Person. The middle is character Ancient, but it means here is a wine measuring vessel made of bamboo, the bottom mouth is the bamboo tube, the top is the bamboo pole and handle. People who are now over 60 years old may have seen such a wine measuring device in the grocery store when they were children. It can measure wine, vinegar, and soy sauce. Grocery stores in remote rural areas may still use it. On the right of the character, a hand (lower part) with a tool, such as a hammer (top part), a person holding the tool to make a wine measurer.

 

The ancients racked their brains to come up with such a word. It is almost impossible to divide it into present tense, past tense, present continuous tense, perfect tense, etc.

 

All in all, it is impossible to create different Chinese characters according to different tenses, singular and plural numbers like English. Too much trouble and unnecessary.

The ancestors probably never thought of doing that at all. Since there is only one "是"（be）, our ancestors used the word "是" to express all "是"s with a subject in front. Later, adding time adverbials solved all the problems. For example, "I 是 a student in the past", "past 是" = 是. The singular and plural forms of the present tense have no effect on Chinese verbs: "I 做（do）, we 做." Does it affect understanding? Absolutely not. So why should we impose restrictions on ourselves?

 

It is easy to spell words in English, such as: do, does, doing, done, did, or work, working, worked, worker, etc. "It is easy to be willful", so many rules are set, some are necessary and some maybe unnecessary, it makes the syntax very complicated. Chinese is forced to set simple grammar because it is impossible to create many forms of one verb due to different tense, and singular or plural in Chinese.

 

Will such simple grammar in Chinese cause misunderstandings? China’s thousands of years of history tells us: No. So can foreigners understand grammar like Chinese? Yes. For example, "Long time no see" is a typical Chinese expression: no subject, no object, but everyone understands it, and now it has become standard English.

 

There are many strokes in Chinese characters. If you don’t understand pictograms, it will be very difficult to learn them by rote memorization. Therefore, Chinese characters are considered to be the most difficult language in the world to learn. But if we start from pictograms, Chinese characters become very simple and interesting. The difficulty of creating Chinese characters forced the Chinese language to form a minimalist grammar. Chinese actually has a strong advantage: Chinese characters that look like paintings, plus the simplest grammar.

 

As long as pictograms are introduced into Chinese teaching, Chinese can become the most beautiful and easiest language in the world.

 

Written on January 11, 2024

Translated on January 19, 2024

Note: Update information

1, Amazing Chinese Characters blog has changed name to Learn Chinese with Pictography, and changed its URL address too, the new URL is

Learn Chinese with Pictography.blogspot.com/

2, Pictographic Chinese Calligraphy blog has changed name to Chinese Pictographic Calligraphy, and the new URL is

Chinese Pictographic Calligraphy.blogspot.com/

You are welcome to access the new sites for Chinese learning. Please update your bookmarks.

Why did ancient Chinese people write from top to bottom?

I wrote an article earlier titled "Were Chinese Characters Created by Right-Handers?" which discussed the reasons behind right-handed individuals creating Chinese characters. Today, I'd like to discuss another well-known but seldom explored topic: why did ancient people write from top to bottom? Some may ask, "What about writing from right to left?" Today, I'll address this question.

Before delving into this, I'd like to touch on Shell Bone Script.

The earliest form of Chinese characters was Shell Bone Script, which dates back over 3500 years. There's a common misconception that ancient people wrote characters on Shell bones, which is why we refer to it as Shell Bone Script. However, this is not entirely accurate. During the Shell Bone Script period, people primarily wrote characters on bamboo slips, not on Shell bones. Only during divination ceremonies were characters inscribed on Shell bones, which were then placed in a fire and cracked to predict fortunes.

Divination was conducted for predicting major events and was very rare. Moreover, the turtle shells and cattle bones used for divination were carefully selected and meticulously processed, making them scarce materials affordable only to emperors or tribal leaders.

So, why do we call it Shell Bone Script? The earliest Shell Bone Script bamboo slips, over 3500 years old, have already decayed and didn't survive. However, Shell bones, which can endure over 3500 years without decay, were discovered, so what we find are inscriptions on Shell bones. Originally, it was not called Shell Bone Script, but rather "Yinxu Script" because it was mostly discovered in the Yinxu site in Henan. However, it was later found in other places, and in great quantity. It became evident that "Yinxu Script" was not accurate, so it was changed to "Shell Bone Script."

Ancient bamboo slips were generally 6-8 millimeters in width, roughly the width of a small finger, and up to 45 centimeters long. Writing on such bamboo slips greatly restricted horizontal writing. Therefore, many Shell Bone Script characters are vertical, as horizontal writing was impractical, but vertical writing allowed for extension.

 

 

The Shell Bone Script characters above (from left to right): Dog, Pig, Tiger, Horse, Elephant, Bed. 

All of them are written vertically. Thus, writing from top to bottom on bamboo slips became the only viable option.

 

 

In the Shell Bone Script era, due to the constraints of bamboo slips, it was impossible to write horizontally, whether from left to right or from right to left.

Ancient people did not write just one bamboo slip at a time, but rather many. Since one bamboo slip could only accommodate a few characters, writing an article required dozens or even hundreds of slips. If it was a book, it could be over a thousand slips, or even more, bundled together. If someone had read more than a dozen books, they would have to use a cart to carry them.

 

 

So, how did ancient people write on bamboo slips? As I demonstrated in my earlier article, ancient people wrote with their right hands. Therefore, the right hand would hold the brush while the left hand held or supported the bamboo slip. After finishing writing on one bamboo slip from top to bottom, the left hand would move it away, and then a blank bamboo slip would be picked up to continue writing. This process would be repeated until finished. Afterwards, the written bamboo slips were strung together with fine strings, rolled up into a bundle, and became an article or a book.

Now, there's a question: Were the blank bamboo slips placed to the left or the right of the writer? And where were the completed slips placed?

If the blank bamboo slips were placed on the left, then the left hand would conveniently pick them up, and after writing, push them to the right (they couldn't be placed back on the left, as they would mix with the completed slips).

If the blank bamboo slips were placed on the right, the left hand would need to reach over the right hand holding the brush or reach underneath it to get a blank bamboo slip. This would be an awkward and difficult motion. Of course, the right hand could move closer to the body or be lifted higher to make way for the left hand. However, it would be inconvenient with a brush in the right hand dipped in ink.

You might say, placing the blank bamboo slips on the left also has the problem of where to put the completed slips, isn't that also awkward? However, after a completed slip is pushed to the right, it only needs to be pushed towards the right. But the hand picking up the blank slips must accurately pick out one from the stack of blank slips and hold it. It's very easy to take a blank bamboo slip if they are on the left. This is much easier than placing the blank bamboo slips on the right and reaching over with the left hand from the right side to get a blank slip. It can be imagined that the ancients placed the blank bamboo slips on the left and pushed the completed slips to the right.

In this case, the second completed bamboo slip would be pushed to the left of the first completed bamboo slip, the third to the left of the second, and so on. Ultimately, the completed slips would be arranged with the first completed slip on the far right and the last completed slip on the far left. They would then be strung together with string. When reading, one would start with the first slip on the far right and read from top to bottom. Once at the bottom, the eyes would move up and continue reading the second slip on the left. This process would repeat until finishing the last slip on the far left.

To summarize, traditional Chinese writing only involved writing from top to bottom and did not include horizontal writing from right to left.

 

Now, let's discuss the impact of the invention of paper on the structure and writing of Chinese characters.

It is commonly acknowledged that Cai Lun of the Eastern Han Dynasty invented papermaking. However, many signs suggest that papermaking workshops existed among the common people before Cai Lun. Cai Lun, commissioned by the court, collected and refined the folk papermaking techniques, making significant improvements and creating large-scale papermaking. This industrialized papermaking and turned paper into an affordable commodity for ordinary people. Since then, paper replaced bamboo slips, greatly enhancing social communication, productivity, and the evolution of Chinese characters themselves.

As mentioned earlier, bamboo slips severely limited horizontal writing. However, with the advent of paper, writing transformed from one-dimensional vertical to two-dimensional. "The sky's the limit" – people finally got the opportunity to spread out horizontally. Initially, people straightened out the inward-curving lines of Seal Script, creating horizontal strokes known as "Heng" or "Na." The slender Seal Script became the short and wide Clerical Script.

 

From top to bottom: wood, dragon, water, enter.

 

The images above show the impact of paper on the structure of Chinese characters: Long and narrow characters (Shell Bone Script, Seal Script, Large Seal Script, Small Seal Script) evolved into short and wide characters (Clerical Script). The inward curves of Seal Script became outward straight lines in Clerical Script. This change was a form of rebellion after enduring long-term suppression of horizontal writing in Chinese characters.

 

 

Liqi Stele – Han Dynasty

 

Following Clerical Script, the structure of Chinese characters did not change. Regular Script and Song Typeface maintain the same structure as Clerical Script; only the brush strokes' pressure and lifting differ. However, Regular Script and Song Typeface's horizontal expansion is not as pronounced as Clerical Script, appearing more balanced in both vertical and horizontal aspects. This was a return to balance after the emotional release following the suppression.

Now, let's look at the influence of the advent of paper on the way Chinese characters are written.

As mentioned earlier, during the Shell Bone Script era, people were accustomed to writing from top to bottom and then moving left one line, continuing from top to bottom. This eventually led to a format similar to bamboo slips. This was a result of habitual inertia, not necessarily a more natural way of writing.

 

 

Jiucheng Palace – Tang Dynasty

 

The emergence of paper gave rise to running and cursive scripts, as it allowed for more expressive and free-flowing strokes to convey the emotions of the writer.

 

 

Lantingxu – Sui Dynasty

 

Regardless of the font style, writing always goes from top to bottom, with vertical columns arranged from right to left. This is also the format used in traditional thread-bound printed books.

Shiji (史記), or Historical Records

After the advent of paper, the habit persisted, and people began writing from the upper-right corner, moving from top to bottom. Then, they would shift one line to the left and continue from top to bottom. This final format was consistent with the previous method of writing on bamboo slips. This was a matter of upholding the same format as bamboo slips out of habit.

In conclusion, traditional Chinese calligraphy has never involved writing horizontally from right to left. There are very few instances where Song Typeface characters are printed in a horizontal format from right to left. This is due to a lack of understanding of traditional Chinese character writing on the part of publishers, rather than an authentic historical practice. Ancient people did not write in this manner.

Conclusion: In the history of Chinese calligraphy, there has never been a practice of writing horizontally from right to left. The few instances of Song Typeface characters being printed horizontally from right to left are a result of publishers' ignorance of traditional Chinese character writing. Ancient people did not write this way.

 

Note: Update information

1, Amazing Chinese Characters blog has changed name to Learn Chinese with Pictography, and changed its URL address too, the new URL is

Learn Chinese with Pictography.blogspot.com/

2, Pictographic Chinese Calligraphy blog has changed name to Chinese Pictographic Calligraphy, and the new URL is

Chinese Pictographic Calligraphy.blogspot.com/

You are welcome to access the new sites for Chinese learning. Please update your bookmarks.

Why Chinese Characters Do Not Need Constant Creation of New Characters?

After the appearance of Chinese characters in the form of shell bone script, they continued to develop and have now formed approximately 90,000 characters. However, since the Han Dynasty, very few new characters have been added to the Chinese character dictionary. In contrast, English has approximately 600,000 defined words and continues to add 800-1000 new words each year. It is said that among the texts of various languages in the United Nations, Chinese text uses the fewest characters.

Why is it that only a few Chinese characters can express all meanings, while English requires tens of thousands of words? Why have Chinese doesn’t need to create new characters? 

Some may say, "What about new Chinese vocabulary such as tanks, lasers, and the Internet? These are new words, but they are all made up of existing Chinese characters. What I am referring to are the smallest units of the Chinese language: the characters.

So how did Chinese characters manage to avoid the need for new characters? Let's take a look at the development of Chinese characters and the Chinese language.

The development of Chinese characters can be roughly divided into three stages: pictograms-象形字, ideograms – 会意字 (associative compounds), and phrases – 词组 (including idioms).

For example, the character for fire (pictogram) evolved into characters such as 火-flame, 焚-burn, and 灾- disaster (ideograms), and then into compound words like 火苗- flame, 火柴 - match, and 火车- train, as well as phrases like 炎热- hot, 焚烧- burn, and 水灾-flood (phrases composed of individual and combined characters).

Pictograms (which are similar to Indicative character - 指事字) generally represent objects with a specific shape, such as fire – 火 (which has a visible flame), mountains – 山, trees – 木, cars – 车, earth – 土, water – 水, horses – 马, and cows – 牛.

Ideograms (which are similar to phonograms and semantic-phonetic compounds) are made up of two or more pictograms and are used to express adjectives and verbs without shape. For example, the ideograms mentioned earlier, such as hot – 热, burn – 焚, and disaster – 灾, as well as many others like red – 红, good – 好, smell – 闻, open – 张, run – 驰, drunk – 醉, and dizzy – 晕.

The transition from pictograms to ideograms was the first leap in the development of Chinese characters, expanding them from being able to only represent concrete nouns with a specific shape to being able to represent verbs and adjectives without shape, greatly enriching their expressive ability. Ancient Chinese was composed of Chinese characters and was very concise and refined.

However, Chinese characters have too many homophones, which can easily cause misunderstandings in spoken language contexts. Furthermore, some things require very detailed distinctions, such as big horse/small horse, red cloth/blue cloth, planting melons/planting vegetables, etc. It is not feasible to create a new character for every meaning, which would be difficult and time-consuming. Thus, phrases were created: two or more characters combined to express complex meanings. Phrases with more than two characters also greatly reduce the misunderstandings caused by homophones. For example, the character for rat – 鼠might be heard as 数 - count，暑 - heat，蜀 (ancient state in Sichuan)，黍 - broomcorn millet，沭 – A river name，叔 – uncle，曙 - dawn, while the phrase for mouse – 老鼠immediately eliminates any misunderstandings. This also explains why phrases in vernacular Chinese far outnumber those in classical Chinese, as vernacular Chinese originates from spoken language and phrases can reduce misunderstandings in spoken language.

The entry of Chinese characters into phrase expression marks the second leap in the expression of Chinese characters. It enables Chinese characters to cover the vast majority of meanings and express even the smallest differences in a very precise way, such as deep red – 深红, light red – 浅红, dark red – 暗红, and so on.

The other advantage of phrases is that they can be assembled. When new things appear, people can assemble phrases based on their meaning to express them. For example, in ancient times, there were no trains. When trains appeared, people added the character for "vehicle"- 车 behind "fire" – 火 to create the new word "train" – 火车 without the need to create a new character specifically for "train." Lighters – 打火机did not exist in ancient times, but they can be assembled 打，火，机 into 打火机- "lighter" to express them. Modern new nouns are all formed by assembling existing Chinese characters into phrases to express them, such as computer – 计算机, refrigerator – 电冰箱, airplane – 飞机, satellite – 卫星, laser – 激光, email – 电邮, car – 汽车, cancer – 癌症, diabetes – 糖尿病, insulin – 胰岛素, insecticide – 杀虫剂, and so on. No matter what new thing it is, Chinese characters are sufficient to assemble new phrases to express it based on its meaning. English, on the other hand, has some combined words to express new things, such as Wash-machine, Super-market, High-way, etc. but it also has to create new words to express new stuffs, which results in the need for English to constantly expand its vocabulary, especially in the fields of medicine, chemistry, biology, and computer science. Chinese characters, on the other hand, are sufficient to assemble phrases by using the Chinese characters left by the ancestors.

How many pictographic independent characters are there in Chinese? There are about more than 400, and there are probably only dozens of indicative characters. Therefore, all Chinese characters are composed of these approximately 500 characters. First, about 90,000 associative and phonetic characters were formed, and then words were composed using them. By being unchanging and adapting to everything, they can fully cope with the constantly emerging new world.

This is the power and charm of Chinese characters. Our ancestors created pictographic characters for us, and characters are just pictures. They are the most interesting and easiest characters in the world. Then, by composing phrases, any needed meaning can be expressed by phrases, and new characters are basically unnecessary, keeping the total number of characters from increasing. In addition, Chinese grammar is very simple. There are no nominative case, accusative case, no verb tense in Chinese, and there is no effect of verb inflection on singular or plural, which is simple to the extreme.

Let us take an example. In English, the modal verb "be" group have "am," "is," "are," "was," "were," "will be," "have been," etc. However Chinese has only one word "是" (shi), which can mean "I am"- 我是， "you are"- 你是， "he is" – 他是， "we are" – 我们是， "it was" – 它过去是， "it is" – 它现在是， "it will be" – 它将是， and so on. Why don't we feel confused? Because we add an adverbial phrase, such as "I was there yesterday," "you will be there tomorrow," or "we will be there next week." English also adds adverbial phrases, but it changes the modal verb and tense, which is clearly a bit redundant. In Chinese, however, we only need to add adverbial phrases without changing the tense, making it very concise.

This design is so good that Chinese should have become the most interesting, simple, and easy language in the world. So, why has it become the most difficult and boring language to learn? Where did the problem occur?

First of all, we do not teach or study Chinese characters in their pictorial form. This means that we are giving up our strengths and abandoning our own martial arts, which results in only being able to memorize characters without truly understanding them. The harm of this disadvantage has not been recognized on the mainland and Taiwan because students there have not been greatly affected by this method of learning. Although memorizing characters by rote is not very effective, the Chinese language is reinforced constantly in the Chinese-speaking environment of the mainland and Taiwan through advertisements, TV shows, movies, slogans, novels, and magazines, so students are able to memorize the characters easily. However, the situation is different overseas, where there is not the same kind of consistent exposure to the Chinese language. Children who rely solely on rote memorization will struggle to learn Chinese characters. Even adults who were born in China but have been living abroad for a long time find that they are increasingly unable to write certain characters, and when they do manage to write them, they often doubt whether they have written them correctly.

Secondly, our Chinese language teaching begins with pinyin, and students quickly learn to say 你好！- hello, 谢谢你！ - thank you, and 再见！- goodbye. Parents are pleased, teachers are happy, and children feel proud. However, they soon encounter the problem of homophones in Chinese, which can make dictation an impossible task if the teacher doesn't limit the scope to the few characters that the students have just learned. For example, when dictating the character 写 - write, a child may hear it like 斜 – incline, 鞋 - shoe, 邪 – evil, 协 - help, 歇 – rest, 胁 – threat, etc. because the all pronounced Xie. 

Students may be able to write within the limited scope of characters they know, but in reality, they will encounter Chinese characters without a specific scope, making it difficult for them to distinguish which character is which.

Not teaching Chinese characters in their pictorial form is akin to giving up one's strengths, and teaching Chinese language through pinyin from the beginning is only emphasizing its shortcomings. The only advantage left is the simplicity of Chinese grammar. However, since second-generation overseas Chinese are deeply influenced by English grammar, they may find it difficult to adapt to Chinese grammar, and this advantage is not so obvious.

Therefore, Chinese language education should focus on teaching single-body pictorial characters, making learning Chinese characters like learning to draw. This is "emphasizing our strengths," which are the pictorial characters of Chinese. Once you understand the meaning of each stroke, there is no problem with forgetting characters. Can anyone forget how to draw something they have learned? No. Once students have learned pictorial characters (which means understanding them, not just memorizing them), they can understand compound characters made up of these characters. 

This approach avoids the problem of homophones because each character's strokes or drawings are unique, and there is no problem of multiple characters sharing the same sound. Of course, pronunciation should be learned, but once you have learned the characters and, more importantly, understood them, when you pronounce a character, the image of the character will come to mind, and you will be less likely to make mistakes. Once you have mastered Chinese characters, learning words and phrases will be a breeze. Only then can the advantages of Chinese pictorial characters be fully utilized, combined with the simplicity of Chinese grammar and words and phrases, making Chinese possibly the most unique, interesting, and easiest language to learn in the world.

Note: Update information

1, Amazing Chinese Characters blog has changed name to Learn Chinese with Pictography, and changed its URL address too, the new URL is

Learn Chinese with Pictography.blogspot.com/

2, Pictographic Chinese Calligraphy blog has changed name to Chinese Pictographic Calligraphy, and the new URL is

Chinese Pictographic Calligraphy.blogspot.com/

You are welcome to access the new sites for Chinese learning. Please update your bookmarks.