YouTube Playlist - Chinese Roots & Affixes
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不 can express negation in a sentence. 不 can be also used as a root to form other words, phrases and Chinese idioms. The word-forming ability of 不 is very stron......
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In ancient China, people believed that heart was the organ responsible for thinking and feeling. When the character "心" is used to form different words and phras......
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"气" is a very old Chinese character. We can find its source in Oracle Bone Script. Its original meaning is cloud. During thousands of years of development, "气" h......
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Chinese character 发 (fā/fà) has multiple parts of speech, pronunciations and meanings. When used as a verb, it is pronounced as the first tone "fā". 发(fā) can b......
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* When used in numbers or ordinals, it is pronounced in the 1st tone,such as 1911年,一二三,第一; When used at the end of words, it is in the 1st tone, such as 统一, 万一.<......
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动 (dòng) can be used alone or as a root in compound words to express different meanings, such as: use, move, act or change. In HSK level 1-6, a total of 35 words......
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人 can be used alone or in compound words to express the meaning of "man, person, people". In some Chinese words, the role of 人 is the same as English suffixes li......
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生(shēng) appeared thousands of years ago. In its Oracle and Bronze script, 生 depicts grass growing from soil. The original meaning of 生 is "to grow", and it has......
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理 is a phono-semantic compound character. The left side of 理 is the meaning component which means jade, and the right side is the phonetic component representing......
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The original meaning of 实(shí) is "rich". It also has many extended meanings, such as: fruit, reality, fact, real, true, honest, solid, realize. There are 34 wor......
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The original meaning of 力 ( lì ) is "physical strength". It also means "ability, energy, power, force, strive, energetically". There are 33 words containing 力 in......
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The original meaning of 成(chéng) is "to accomplish, to succeed". When used in compound words, it can mean: succeed, accomplish, complete, become, form, achieveme......
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得 has multiple parts of speech, such as particle, verb or auxiliary verb. The structure "Verb + 不得" can form different words such as 巴不得、恨不得、怪不得 and 舍不得. In thes......
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This character has 2 components - 音 & 心. 音 means sound; 心 means heart. so the original meaning of 意 is "the sound of heart, idea". It has many other meanings, in......
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The oracle bone script of this character depicts a man standing with arms and legs stretched out, meaning big. 大 is the opposite of 小-small. It has two pronuncia......
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The character 分 consists of two parts: 八-"eight" and 刀-"knife", which means "to cut into two halves with knife(一分为二)". 分 has two pronunciations: fēn and fèn. Whe......
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The ancient form of this character depicts an open hand with 5 fingers, meaning hand. 手 has extended meanings, such as: skill, method, practice. It also can be u......
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The Chinese Character 打 uses the radical Hand. It describes the hand movements. In the structure 打 + Object, 打 has different meanings, such as:send | dispatch | ......
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The original form of 开 depicts two hands opening the door bolt. 开 was simplified by removing the "door (门)" from its glyph. The meaning of 开 was gradually extend......
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The original meaning of 时(shí) is "season". It also has other meanings like time, hour, period, opportunity, fashion, etc. 时 can be used as a word root to form o......
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事 has multiple meanings like matter, thing, affair, event, accident, business, occupation, achievement, work, and engaged in, etc. 事 can be used as a root to for......
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"学" has multiple meanings. It can be used alone as a verb or used with other roots to form compound words. When used as a root, 学 can express: "study, learn", "s......
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好 is composed of two characters: 女 and 子. 女子 itself is also a word meaning lady, female. The original meaning of 好 is "the beauty of a woman". 好 has multiple par......
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Chinese suffix character "者"--- * 者 can be used after a verb to indicate the person doing the action; * 者 can be used after an adjective to indicate a person ......
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The left side of the character "馆" is the radical "饣shí", meaning food. The right side is "官" which means official. It represents the pronunciation (Guān - Guǎ......
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