狐 | hú

In Mandarin Chinese, 狐 (Pinyin: hú 🔊) means “fox”. According to Wiktionary, 狐 is a phono-semantic compound of semantic 犭, which is a radical form of 犬 (“dog”), and phonetic 瓜 (guā).

Lawrence J. Howell writes in his Etymological Dictionary of Han/Chinese Characters:

As per 瓜 (solitary) + 犬 dog/beast → fox (that, atypically for Canidae, goes about in small family units rather than in packs).

However, 瓜 means “melon” or “gourd” rather than “solitary”. I prefer to think of the whole right part of this character as of the fox’s long bushy tail — which is the first thing distinguishing a fox from other Canids that comes to my mind. Well, not just to my mind — cf. Valencian word rabosa or Portuguese raposa, both from rabo “tail”.

Since there are way too many Mandarin homonyms of hú, Chinese use 狐 in combination with other words, for example:

• 狐 + 狸 = 狐狸 (húli 🔊): a fox; (figuratively) sly person
• 赤 + 狐 = 赤狐 (chìhú): red fox (Vulpes vulpes)
• 白 + 狐 = 白狐 (báihú): arctic fox
• 沙 + 狐 = 沙狐 (shāhú): corsac fox (Vulpes corsac)
• 火 + 狐 = 火狐 (huǒhú): red fox; red panda; Mozilla Firefox

狐狸精 (húlijīng), “fox spirit” or 九尾狐 (jiǔwěihú), “nine-tailed fox” refer to mythological creatures “who can be either good or bad spirits”:

Typically fox spirits were seen as dangerous, but some of the stories in the Qing dynasty book Liaozhai Zhiyi by Pu Songling are love stories between a fox appearing as a beautiful girl and a young human male. In the fantasy novel The Three Sui Quash the Demons’ Revolt, a huli jing teaches a young girl magic, enabling her to conjure armies with her spells.

(Let’s not use 狐狸精 in its modern derogatory and misogynist sense, OK?)

狐 (kitsune 🔊) also play a prominent role in Japanese folklore...

Stories depict legendary foxes as intelligent beings and as possessing paranormal abilities that increase with their age and wisdom. According to Yōkai folklore, all foxes have the ability to shapeshift into human form. While some folktales speak of kitsune employing this ability to trick others — as foxes in folklore often do — other stories portray them as faithful guardians, friends, lovers, and wives.

...as well as in poetry:

水仙に 狐遊ぶや 宵月夜 蕪村 Suisen ni kitsune asobu ya yoizukiyo Foxes playing Among the narcissus flowers In the early evening moonlight. Buson

飯ぬすむ 狐追ひ打つ 麦の秋 蕪村 Meshi nusumu kitsune oi utsu mugi no aki Driving away with blows, A fox stealing the rice; The autumn of barley. Buson (Translated by R.H. Blyth)

More photos related to foxes, beads and sea glass @ Shutterstock.

爱 | ài

In Mandarin Chinese, 爱 (Pinyin: ài 🔊) has many meanings but all of them are related to love. It could be a verb “to love” (a person), “to like”, “to be fond of”, “to enjoy” (food, activity), “to treasure”, “to value”, “to care about”, “to respect”, “to be prone”, “to tend”, etc. It could be a noun for “love”, “affection” or “benevolence”. It could be an adjective “beloved” or “affectionate” and could also be used as a honorific for someone else’s daughter.

爱 is a simplified form of the traditional character 愛. If you look carefully at this latter, you’ll notice 心, “heart-mind”, in its middle.

On the origin of the character, Wiktionary says:

Originally 㤅, a phono-semantic compound: phonetic 旡 + semantic 心 (“heart”).

As early as the Qin dynasty, a meaningless component 夊 (“foot”) was added to the bottom of the character, as with some other characters depicting people.

Lawrence J. Howell in his Etymological Dictionary of Han/Chinese Characters provides a different explanation:

The relevant seal inscription form combines a variant form of 既 (engorgement) + 心 heart/emotions → be emotionally hindered, in the sense of feeling overladen/dragged down → love.

Weird etymology aside, this is one of the few cases where I definitely prefer the traditional character to the simplified one. I mean, how it is even possible to replace the most important element, 心, with a single horizontal line? OK, with its 13 strokes, 愛 is not the easiest hanzi to write; then again, you probably shouldn’t use this word too often anyway.

According to Wiktionary, 爱 “is not known to exist until the simplification of Chinese characters by the People’s Republic of China in 1956”. The only, I mean only, advantage of 爱 is that it’s marginally more legible on the computer screen, but they didn’t know that in 1950s, did they?

So now, I guess, is the moment you were waiting for all this time. How to say it in Chinese?

我 + 爱 + 你 = 我爱你 (wǒ ài nǐ): I love you

or

我 + 爱 + 妳 = 我爱妳 (wǒ ài nǐ): I love you

Remember the difference?

More photos related to love, hanzi and calligraphy @ Shutterstock.

美 | měi

In Mandarin Chinese, 美 (Pinyin: měi 🔊) has many meanings most of which have something to do with beauty. It could be an adjective for “beautiful”, “pretty”, “good-looking”, “fine”, “delicious” etc.; a verb meaning “to beautify”, “to praise”, “to be pleased with oneself”; or a noun for “beauty”, “beautiful things” or “good deed”.

According to Wiktionary, 美 is a pictogram of

羊 (“goat, sheep or feathers”) + 大 (“big”) — a person with a headdress of feathers or ram’s horn.

Likewise, Uncle Hanzi mentions “possibly a sheep skin hat”. Not exactly the first thing that I associate with beauty, but why not. Lawrence J. Howell writes in his Etymological Dictionary of Han/Chinese Characters:

The present form combines 大 person standing outstretched and 羊 sheep (originally, goat), but neither of these elements can supply the Old Chinese pronunciation of the character. The phonetically close term conveyed by 㒼 <mán 🔊> <...> suggests that 美, like 㒼, involved the notion “cover the body completely with an animal skin that has its head still attached”. The exact provenance of the meanings beautiful and good is uncertain, as is the identity of the element replaced by 大.

Many compounds of 美 include

• 美 + 好 = 美好 (měihǎo): fine, wonderful, glorious, happy
• 美 + 人 = 美人 (měirén): beautiful woman, lovely lady
• 美 + 甲 “nail” = 美甲 (měijiǎ): manicure and pedicure
• 美 + 容 “to allow” = 美容 (měiróng): to have a beauty treatment
• 美容 + 院 “courtyard” = 美容院 (měiróngyuàn): beauty parlour
• 美 + 工 “work” = 美工 (měigōng): art design

美 is also short for 亚美利加 / 亞美利加 (Yàměilìjiā), which is a phonetic approximation of the word “America”. So make no mistake: 美国 means “American country”, not “beautiful country”.

• 美 + 洲 “continent” = 美洲 (Měizhōu): America (as a continent), Americas
• 中 “centre” + 美洲 = 中美洲 (Zhōngměizhōu 🔊): Central America
• 北 “north” + 美洲 = 北美洲 (Běiměizhōu 🔊): North America
• 南 “south” + 美洲 = 南美洲 (Nánměizhōu): South America
• 美 + 国 “country” = 美国 (Měiguó 🔊): the United States of America

More photos related to beauty, hanzi and calligraphy @ Shutterstock.

蛙 | wā

In Mandarin Chinese, 蛙 (Pinyin: wā 🔊) is a word for frog.

According to Wiktionary, 蛙 is a phono-semantic compound of semantic 虫 (“insect; creature”) and phonetic 圭 which, in turn, is a duplication of our old friend 土. Now, English speakers think the frog goes “ribbit” (🔊). But this is only because of Baja California chorus frog who happen to live near Hollywood. For Dutch, frogs go “kwaak kwaak”, for Russians — “ква-ква” and for Chinese — 呱呱 (wā wā). If you remember “wā wā”, you’ll remember “wā” too.

Does 蛙 look like a frog? Not really, not to me. Look, here’s a frog:

And here’s a sailboat pursuing, er, two smaller boats:

In Japanese, 蛙 is pronounced kaeru (🔊) or, in poetry, kawazu. Here’s probably the most famous haiku ever:

古池や 蛙飛こむ 水の音 芭蕉 Furu ike ya kawazu tobikomu mizu no oto The old pond; A frog jumps in, — The sound of the water. Bashō

I used the classic translation by R.H. Blyth; if you don’t like it, there are at least thirty-one others.

More photos related to frogs, calligraphy and sea glass @ Shutterstock.

工 | gōng

In Mandarin Chinese, 工 (Pinyin: gōng 🔊) has a variety of meanings related to work. Apart from “work” itself, it could stand for “worker”, “working class”, “working day”, “industry”, “skill” or “project”.

According to Wiktionary, 工 is a pictogram of “a bladed tool”. What tool? Many historical forms of this character remind me of a spade or a shovel. Or maybe of an axe head — cf. 王 (which is like 工 with an extra stroke) and discussion therein. On the other hand, Lawrence J. Howell writes in his Etymological Dictionary of Han/Chinese Characters that 工 is

A depiction of a long hollow tube used as a tool both to pierce and to connect → work; construct (← work/construct using connecting pipes/tubes) → artisan; specialist; skillful.

Many compounds of 工 include

• 工 + 人 = 工人 (gōngrén 🔊): worker, labourer
• 人 + 工 = 人工 (réngōng 🔊): man-made, artificial
• 木 + 工 = 木工 (mùgōng): woodwork, carpentry; woodworker, carpenter
• 小 + 工 = 小工 (xiǎogōng): unskilled worker
• 大 + 工 = 大工 (dàgōng): (literary) skilled worker; carpenter
• 天 + 工 = 天工 (tiāngōng): (literary) work of nature

More photos related to beads, hanzi and calligraphy @ Shutterstock.

心 | xīn

In Mandarin Chinese, 心 (Pinyin: xīn 🔊) has a number of meanings, all of which are ultimately derived from “heart”. Lawrence J. Howell writes in his Etymological Dictionary of Han/Chinese Characters:

A depiction of a slender object encompassed in the heart of another object → mind; breast; center; core; thought; consideration; meaning; taste; spirit; sincerity; emotion; feelings.

In my opinion, this description (of “a slender object”) suits better to one of its radical forms, ⺖, rather than to 心 itself.

I think that 心 is much better representation of human heart than the Western symbol ♥ which does not look like heart at all. Uncle Hanzi says that 心 is “the human torso showing breasts, stomach and navel, now meaning heart”, many historical forms of this character appear to show completely different human organ. In any case, it turns out that 心 on its own refers not to anatomical heart — that would be 心脏 (xīnzàng 🔊) — but to “heart-mind”. Allow me to explain.

Western popular culture (including popular philosophy and popular psychology) tends to differentiate between “heart” (i.e. emotions) and “mind” (i.e. thought) for no good reason. This contrasts with concepts of heart-mind typical for Oriental cultures, such as Sanskrit चित्त (citta). On purely physiological level, we feel emotions with our brain, not heart; it could be that in the East they knew it all along for thousands of years.

In Japanese, 心 is pronounced kokoro (🔊).

百なりや 蔓一筋の 心より 千代 Hyaku nari ya tsuru hitosuji no kokoro yori A hundred different gourds, From the mind Of one vine. Chiyo-ni

It is said that Chiyo, the most famous of women haiku writers, was asked by the Zen Master of Eiheiji Temple to illustrate in a haiku the teaching that a thousand meanings come from one thought. The above verse is the parabolic expression of this Zen principle (which is that of Mahayana Buddhism).

R.H. Blyth, Haiku vol. 4, Autumn—Winter

More photos related to heart, hanzi and calligraphy @ Shutterstock.

们 | men

In Mandarin Chinese, 们 (Pinyin: men 🔊) is a suffix used to form plurals for pronouns and some animate nouns. This character is a phono-semantic compound of semantic 亻, a radical form of 人 “person”, and phonetic 门 (mén 🔊).

们 is a simplified form of the traditional character 們 (as 门, you may recall, is a simplified form of 門).

Important compounds of 们 include

我 + 们 = 我们 (wǒmen 🔊): we, us 你 + 们 = 你们 (nǐmen 🔊): you (plural) 妳 + 们 = 妳们 (nǐmen 🔊): you (plural, female only) 他 + 们 = 他们 (tāmen 🔊): they, them 她 + 们 = 她们 (tāmen 🔊): they, them (human, female only) 人 + 们 = 人们 (rénmen 🔊): people 孩子 + 们 = 孩子们 (háizimen): children

More photos related to hanzi and calligraphy @ Shutterstock.

妳 | nǐ

So what have we learned so far about Chinese pronouns? Like in many Indo-European languages, there are gender-specific third person pronouns in written Chinese: 他 “he” and 她 “she”. Unlike many Indo-European languages, spoken Chinese does not differentiate between “him” and “her”: both are pronounced the same (Pinyin: tā 🔊).

But that’s not all. Also unlike many Indo-European languages, written Chinese has gender-specific second person pronouns: 你 “you” (singular informal masculine) and 妳 “you” (singular informal feminine). In spoken Mandarin, there is no difference between 你 and 妳 (nǐ 🔊).

As you should have guessed by now, 妳 is derived from 你 by replacing 亻 with 女. According to Wiktionary,

This character is mostly used in traditional Chinese when referring to a female person. Although 妳 is rarely used in simplified Chinese, it may still be found in some contexts.

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她 | tā

In Mandarin Chinese, 她 (Pinyin: tā 🔊) is a personal pronoun “she” or “her”.

According to Wiktionary, 她 is a phono-semantic compound of semantic 女 “female”, “woman” and phonetic 也 (yě 🔊, which, however, sounds nothing like tā). This is the rare case when it is known who and when invented this character:

Originally a variant of 姐 (jiě, “elder sister”). Later repurposed as a feminine third-person pronoun influenced by European languages, with the glyph being the result of replacing the 人 (“person”) radical in 他 (tā) with 女 (“woman”). Linguist Liu Bannong is credited with coining this use around the 1910s.

Liu Bannong (1891—1934) also popularised its use by writing the lyrics for a 1930s “hit” song 教我如何不想她 (Jiào wǒ rúhé bùxiǎng tā, “Tell me how to stop thinking of her”) composed by Yuen Ren Chao.

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