Here the infinitive marker is -ta/-tä, if the vowel before the marker is an i. The t stays, but is followed by -se- and the personal ending.
häiritä
häiritsen - häiritsemme
häiritset - häiritsette
häiritsee - häiritsevät
tarvita
tarvitsen - tarvitsemme
tarvitset - tarvitsette
tarvitsee - tarvitsevat
lukita
lukitsen - lukitsemme
lukitset - lukitsette
lukitsee - lukitsevat
NOTE:I am leaving out hän (3.ps. sg) and he (3.ps. pl) here, but in written/spoken Finnish there needs to be a subject going with the third person (both singular & plural)
Here the infinitive marker is -ta/-tä, if the vowel in front is any vowel other than i. The t is removed, thus resulting in two vowels following after each other. The personal ending is added after both vowels
tavata
tapaan - tapaamme
tapaat - tapaatte
tapaa - tapaavat
juoruta
juoruan - juoruamme
juoruat - juoruatte
juoruaa - juoruavat
hypätä
hyppään - hyppäämme
hyppäät - hyppäätte
hyppää- hyppäävät
määrätä
määrään - määräämme
määräät- määräätte
määrää - hyppäävät
NOTE:I am leaving out hän (3.ps. sg) and he (3.ps. pl) here, but in written/spoken Finnish there needs to be a subject going with the third person (both singular & plural)
ends in KK+a/ä, K+a/ä is the infinitive marker, meaning that the first K belongs to the stem; to form the present tense, K+a/ä is removed and an e is added after the stem and then the personal endingfollows
mennä
menen - menemme
menet - menette
menee - menevät
kävellä
kävelen - kävelemme
kävelet - kävelette
kävelee - kävelevät
urheilla
urheilen - urheilemme
urheilet - urheilette
urheilee - urheilevat
purra
puren - puremme
puret - purette
puree - purevat
NOTE:I am leaving out hän (3.ps. sg) and he (3.ps. pl) here, but in written/spoken Finnish there needs to be a subject going with the third person (both singular & plural)
NOTE 2: K stands for consonant, thus KK stands for two of the same consonant following after each other
with tehdä/nähdä, which belong to verbityyppi 2, the forms are built slightly differently. for one, the h disappears, and for two, the 3rd ps. singular/plural are in strong form (seeastevaihtelu), and they dotake the -V ending. other than that, though, they are conjugated like the rest of group 2 verbs
tehdä
teen - teemme
teet - teette
tekee - tekevät
nähdä
näen - näemme
näet - näette
näkee - näkevät
NOTE:I am leaving out hän (3.ps. sg) and he (3.ps. pl) here, but in written/spoken Finnish there needs to be a subject going with the third person (both singular & plural)
ends in -da/-dä, which is the infinitive marker; the infinitive marker disappears and instead the personal ending is added (see here)
example:
syödä
syön - syömme
syöt - syötte
syö - syövät
löydä
löyn - löymme
löyt - löytte
löy - löyvät
saada
saan - saamme
saat - saatte
saa - saavat
voida
voin - voimme
voit - voitte
voi - voivat
NOTE:I am leaving out hän (3.ps. sg) and he (3.ps. pl) here, but in written/spoken Finnish there needs to be a subject going with the third person (both singular & plural)
NOTE 2: in this group of verbs, the ending -V is notadded to the 3rd ps. singular, except for in tehdäandnähdä, which are formed slightly differently than the rest (see here)
Kumpi means which of both, and can be found in singular and plural. As with the other question words it can be declinated into almost all cases to fit the meaning of the sentence.
Kumpi - Kummat(Nominatiivi)
Kumman - Kumpien(Genetiivi)
Kumpaa - Kumpia(Partitiivi)
Kummassa - Kummissa (Inessiivi)
Kummasta - Kummista(Elatiivi)
Kumpaan - Kumpiin(Illatiivi)
Kummalla - Kummilla(Adessiivi)
Kummalta - Kummilta(Ablatiivi)
Kummalle - Kummille(Allatiivi)
Kumpana - Kumpina(Essiivi)
Kummaksi - Kummiksi(Translatiivi)
NOTE: I am not sure if there is also an Abessiivi or an Instruktiivi form of kumpi, please do tell!
NOTE 2: Kumpi shows the same flexion as the comparativeof adjectives!
NOTE 3: kumpi in singular is which of both when it is about singular concepts, and in plural forms when it is about concepts which include only two groups of things, but the group includes several. an example my finnish friend gave me:
kumpi hevonen? this- or this- as opposed to these- or these- - kummat hevoset?
helloooooo. so in this post i will be explaining you all how to use multiple verbs in the same sentence.
before learning this, make sure you already kinda master how to conjugate verbs in past, present and future tenses and also know how to use basic sentence structure:)
it will look like Verb stem+고+Verb
-고 is added to verbs you want to link together in order to form your sentence
a simple way to say “and” is using the word “그리고” :
One time this man approached me in a bar talking in Spanish. So I assumed he was Spanish and we started speaking, we had a whole ass conversation and at some point he was like. So what part of Spain are you from? And I said well I’m Italian actually. What part of Spain are you from? And he was like. I’m Greek.
One time I was in Argentina and I was so tired of trying to speak Spanish because I’m not very good at it lmao so I broke into exasperated English and the retail seller girl quickly understood me and engaged me in conversation. We talked for a while, she introduced me to a makeup brand, and then I decided to buy it. While she was packaging the purchase, she asked me if I were from the US or perhaps the UK and I just said “oh no I’m Brazilian hahah” and she looked me straight in the eyes and said, in clear Portuguese, “I’m Brazilian too”
When my dad went to China on a work trip, his Mandarin speaking wasn’t great but his listening was fine (his first language is Cantonese) and he encountered a German guy who had moved to China to work. My dad knew how to speak German because he studied it in university (but wasn’t great when it came to listening to new vocab he hadn’t studied before), and the German guy knew Mandarin because he lived and worked in China, so they had a conversation where my dad spoke to the German guy in German and the guy responded in Mandarin. I’m sure it confused a lot of their coworkers who just saw the Asian guy speaking German and the white guy speaking Mandarin.
Some years ago, I worked for a manufacturing company that had a service depot in China. One of the engineers from the main office here in the US spent most of his time at the depot. The problem was that he didn’t speak *any* of the various Chinese languages, and no one at the depot spoke any English.
They all, however, spoke Spanish.
This reminds me of the time when I visited an exchange office in Vienna, trying to get some Romanian cash for my upcoming holiday. I have no idea if I spoke English or tried with my broken German, but I’ve told the lady all my demands, she went to get that money, came back and recounted the stack in front of me, very quietly saying the numbers in Czech. I (because I have literally no filter) practically screamed at her “You are also Czech!!!”. She was quite confused, because she didn’t realise that she was counting audibly. Anyway, after few moments of utter chaos we switched to Czech and finished the transaction in our mother tongue. Still think I caused her some mental damage…
Ohhh that reminds me of the time we were in Italy and a woman tried to ask dad in quite broken Italian where either the beach or a shop were. We continued walking, when dad caught up with us, he told us they had tried to communicate using hand and feet until…they found out they were both Germans
More recently I have wanted to revisit the idea behind those posts but with a different, more in-depth approach. I also made some decisions while compiling data for those posts that I now regret. So in late summer 2021, I set out to completely redo my data collection with the eventual goal of creating this very post.
About the Data
I will include more information about my data collection process at the end of this post for those interested.
I gathered 3,277 names (1602 male, 1675 female) from idol shows and groups. In the grand scheme of things, this is not a lot of names at all. But I think it’s enough that we can explore names, observe some generalities, and have fun! These names belong to individuals roughly 15-30 years old. Most names belong to individuals from Mainland China, but there are some Hong Konger and Taiwanese names as well.
Some of the name sources include:
偶像练习生/青春有你
创造101/创造营
明日之子
以团之名/少年之名
SNH48
快乐女声/快乐男声
菱格世代DD52
Various groups like 时代少年 and SING女团
I also wanted to note something important: the definitions I am using (via MDBG) are only the surface. For example, a name containing a character meaning jade might also have implications of beauty and virtue. So the meaning is more than just “jade.” However, it just isn’t practical to go into all the nitty gritty here. I encourage you to seek out more resources if you are interested.
Some Thanks
Thanks so much to @liu-anhuaming,@meichenxi, and my friend Tiffany for their help and advice during the process of creating this post! 非常感谢你们，你们是最棒的！
Given Names (Overall)
First let’s look at the most common characters for ALL the given names in the dataset. There were 1093 total unique characters across all the given names. I’m going to include more characters (almost rounding out the top 100) at the bottom of this post for those interested. There is also some information broken down by gender below.
Top Given Name Characters
宇 yǔ - room, universe / 87
子 zǐ - son, child, seed, egg, small thing, 1st earthly branch, midnight, 11th solar month, year of the Rat, fourth of five orders of nobility, ancient Chinese compass point / 82
佳 jiā - beautiful, fine, good / 68
雨 yǔ - rain / 63
嘉 jiā - excellent, auspicious, to praise, to commend / 59
泽 zé - pool, pond, (of metals etc) luster, favor or beneficence, damp, moist / 43
琪 qí - fine jade / 40
婷 tíng - graceful / 39
鑫 xīn - prosperity / 38
晓 xiǎo - dawn, daybreak, to know, to let sb know, to make explicit / 35
浩 hào - grand, vast (water) / 35
晨 chén - morning, dawn, daybreak / 34
恩 ēn - favor, grace, kindness / 33
博 bó - extensive, ample, rich, obtain, aim, to win, to get, plentiful / 32
慧 huì - intelligent / 32
明 míng - bright, clear, to understand, wise / 32
轩 xuān - pavilion with a view, high, tall / 32
辰 chén - 5th earthly branch, 3rd solar month, year of the Dragon, ancient Chinese compass point / 32
Top Given Name Characters (Female)
佳 jiā - beautiful, fine, good / 56
雨 yǔ - rain / 50
欣 xīn - happy / 49
怡 yí - harmony, pleased / 44
婷 tíng - graceful / 39
嘉 jiā - excellent, auspicious, to praise, to commend / 37
琪 qí - fine jade / 35
思 sī - to think, to consider / 33
慧 huì - intelligent / 31
梦 mèng - dream, to dream / 30
Top Given Name Characters (Male)
宇 yǔ - room, universe / 68
子 zǐ - son, child, seed, egg, small thing, 1st earthly branch, midnight, 11th solar month, year of the Rat, fourth of five orders of nobility, ancient Chinese compass point / 55
There were 668 single-character names, which is about 20% of the total names. I know that 单名 are pretty rare in Taiwan (I’m not sure about Hong Kong), so that’s something to keep in mind. More of the top 单名 are at the bottom of this post.
Top Single-Character Names
鑫 xīn - prosperity / 12
欣 xīn - happy / 10
洋 yáng - ocean, vast, foreign, silver dollar or coin / 9
静 jìng - still, calm, quiet, not moving / 7
丹 dān - red, pellet, powder, cinnabar / 6
娜 nà - graceful, elegant, beautiful / 6
恩 ēn - favor, grace, kindness / 6
敏 mǐn - quick, nimble, agile, clever, smart / 6
昕 xīn - dawn / 6
雪 xuě - snow / 6
颖 yǐng - head of grain, husk, tip, point, clever, gifted, outstanding / 6
Female Single-Character Names
欣 xīn - happy / 9
鑫 xīn - prosperity / 8
静 jìng - still, calm, quiet, not moving / 7
丹 dān - red, pellet, powder, cinnabar / 6
娜 nà - graceful, elegant, beautiful / 6
敏 mǐn - quick, nimble, agile, clever, smart / 6
雪 xuě - snow / 6
倩 qiàn - pretty, winsome / 5
洁 jié - clean / 5
颖 yǐng - head of grain, husk, tip, point, clever, gifted, outstanding / 5
Male Single-Character Names
洋 yáng - ocean, vast, foreign, silver dollar or coin / 7
超 chāo - to exceed, to overtake, to surpass, to transcend, to pass, to cross, ultra, super / 4
鑫 xīn - prosperity / 4
鹏 péng - large fabulous bird / 4
Two-Character Names (双名)
For the lists below, I removed all 单名 and just looked at 双名 characters. One of the things I was most excited to examine in this post was what characters tend to be found in the first vs. second positions. As you will see reflected below, some common characters used in names tend to occur more in one position, like 子 which is more prevalent in the first position. Others are more balanced. I bolded characters appearing in both positions.
Additional top 双名 can be found at the end of this post.
Top Two-Character Names
俊杰 jùnjié / 7
佳怡 jiāyí / 5
嘉欣 jiāxīn / 5
天宇 tiānyǔ / 5
浩然 hàorán / 5
婷婷 tíngtíng / 4
子杰 zǐjié / 4
安琪 ānqí / 4
Top First Characters
子 zǐ - son, child, seed, egg, small thing, 1st earthly branch, midnight, 11th solar month, year of the Rat, fourth of five orders of nobility, ancient Chinese compass point / 72
嘉 jiā - excellent, auspicious, to praise, to commend / 49
佳 jiā - beautiful, fine, good / 48
思 sī - to think, to consider / 44
一 yī - one, 1, single, a (article), as soon as, entire, whole, all, throughout / 40
俊 jùn - smart, eminent, handsome, talented / 40
雨 yǔ - rain / 36
天 tiān - day, sky, heaven / 34
宇 yǔ -room, universe / 34
晓 xiǎo - dawn, daybreak, to know, to let sb know, to make explicit / 34
子 zǐ - son, child, seed, egg, small thing, 1st earthly branch, midnight, 11th solar month, year of the Rat, fourth of five orders of nobility, ancient Chinese compass point / 54
俊 jùn - smart, eminent, handsome, talented / 35
一 yī - one, 1, single, a (article), as soon as, entire, whole, all, throughout / 26
浩 hào - grand, vast (water) / 24
泽 zé - pool, pond, (of metals etc) luster, favor or beneficence, damp, moist / 22
宇 yǔ - room, universe / 20
明 míng - bright, clear, to understand, wise / 20
天 tiān - day, sky, heaven / 19
嘉 jiā - excellent, auspicious, to praise, to commend / 18
泽 zé - pool, pond, (of metals etc) luster, favor or beneficence, damp, moist / 14
鑫 xīn - prosperity / 14
龙 lóng - dragon, imperial / 14
Comparing Characters by Position
After examining the most popular characters by position, I was curious to look more specifically at which characters appear in one position but not the other. In this section I decided not to include lists separated by gender because it was getting to be too much information.
Exclusively First Characters
Below are the top characters that never appeared in the second position.
晓 xiǎo - dawn, daybreak, to know, to let sb know, to make explicit / 34
小 xiǎo - small, tiny, few, young / 24
紫 zǐ - purple, violet / 16
美 měi - beautiful, very satisfactory, good, to beautify, to be pleased with oneself / 15
若 ruò - to seem, like, as if / 14
智 zhì - wisdom, knowledge / 13
书 shū - book, letter, document, to write / 11
婉 wǎn - graceful, tactful / 11
振 zhèn - to shake, to flap, to vibrate, to resonate, to rise up with spirit, to rouse oneself / 11
永 yǒng - forever, always, perpetual / 11
秋 qiū - autumn, fall, harvest time / 11
Largest Deltas (First Position)
I also wanted to see characters that were found in both positions but for which there was a big difference in occurrence. I bolded characters that appeared both here and in the list above.
The math is formatted: # times first position - # times second position = difference
子 zǐ - son, child, seed, egg, small thing, 1st earthly branch, midnight, 11th solar month, year of the Rat, fourth of five orders of nobility, ancient Chinese compass point / 72 - 10 = 62
思 sī - to think, to consider / 44 - 4 = 40
嘉 jiā - excellent, auspicious, to praise, to commend / 49 - 10 = 39
晓 xiǎo - dawn, daybreak, to know, to let sb know, to make explicit / 34 - 0 = 34
佳 jiā - beautiful, fine, good / 48 - 15 = 33
一 yī - one, 1, single, a (article), as soon as, entire, whole, all, throughout / 40 - 9 = 31
This section is more experimental and exploratory. There are probably better ways to examine the gender association for characters, but I just wanted to take a quick look for fun, not develop a whole new analysis technique.
Gender Neutral Characters
Here I simply took the average of the ranks of each character for male names and female names. If a character was only found in male names or only found in female names, it would just end up with the overall rank of N/A.
The math is formatted: (Female names rank + male names rank) ÷ 2 = average rank
子 zǐ - son, child, seed, egg, small thing, 1st earthly branch, midnight, 11th solar month, year of the Rat, fourth of five orders of nobility, ancient Chinese compass point (12th + 2nd) ÷ 2 = 7th (82 times)
嘉 jiā - excellent, auspicious, to praise, to commend (6th + 18th) ÷ 2 = 12th (59 times)
For this section, I looked at characters in female names that did not appear in male names. This isn’t a perfect technique, but I think it is still interesting to see the results.
依 yī - to depend on, to comply with or listen to sb, according to, in the light of / 35th (17 times)
妍 yán - beautiful / 36th (17 times)
媛 yuán - beautiful / 40th (16 times)
月 yuè - moon, month / 41st (16 times)
紫 zǐ - purple, violet / 43rd (16 times)
Male-Leaning Characters
Likewise, for this section I chose characters that appeared in male names but not female names. I actually know women with 龙 and 伟 in their names, so it’s important to remember that leaning male =/= only found in men’s names. There are always exceptions!
豪 háo - grand, heroic / 3rd (48 times)
浩 hào - grand, vast (water) / 7th (35 times)
龙 lóng - dragon, imperial / 28th (17 times)
伟 wěi - big, large, great / 36th (14 times)
峻 jùn - (of mountains) high, harsh or severe / 38th (13 times)
成 chéng - to succeed, to finish, to complete, to accomplish, to become, to turn into, to be all right, one tenth / 48th (12 times)
振 zhèn - to shake, to flap, to vibrate, to resonate, to rise up with spirit, to rouse oneself / 53rd (11 times)
飞 fēi - to fly / 54th (11 times)
While looking at gender was fun, in the future I’d really like to look at tones/tone combinations, open vs. close syllables, and more. I’m still thinking about the best way to do this.
Surnames
Since surname rankings are actually known, I thought it would be interesting to briefly compare my dataset to the true populations.
What stood out to me most was 林 making #7 on my list. I suspect this is due to the inclusion of Taiwanese names. In Mainland China it actually ranks around #16 I believe. 赵 didn’t make the top 10, but I think it was actually #11, so that’s not too far off.
About the Data Cont’
For my original posts 1.5 years ago, I had difficulty maintaining a gender balance and decided to add male names from other types of sources as a supplement. I have since regretted that choice, so this time I worked hard to maintain balance without using unrelated sources. One result of this is that there are names in the original dataset that do not appear in this dataset, so even though the new dataset has more names, it’s possible that there could be fewer occurrences of some characters.
I did my best to remove duplicate individuals (not duplicate names!) and remove stage names that do not sound like real names (or replace them with real names). However, I did not try to swap out all stage names for birth names because that would have been too difficult and time consuming. I also made the assumption that any four-character name could be segmented into two surname characters and two given name characters.
It’s important to note that these names are not necessarily representative of the 15-30 population as a whole. Idols or trainees might change their names to something sounding more cool or hip, and like I mentioned, it simply wasn’t feasible for me to find everyone’s birth name. And my data collection didn’t take into account things like geography/population spread or keep track of ages (but I did for the most part avoid any shows older than 5 years and groups with members 30+).
Extended Lists
Top Given Name Characters
28 星 xīng - star, heavenly body / 31 29 梦 mèng - dream, to dream / 31 30 倩 qiàn - pretty, winsome / 29 31 涵 hán - to contain, to include, culvert / 29 32 艺 yì - skill, art / 29 33 雅 yǎ - elegant / 29 34 雪 xuě - snow / 29 35 君 jūn - monarch, lord, gentleman, ruler / 28 36 翔 xiáng - to soar, to glide / 27 37 霖 lín - continued rain / 27 38 哲 zhé - wise, a sage / 26 39 梓 zǐ - Catalpa kaempferi (type of tree), printing blocks / 26 40 羽 yǔ - feather, 5th note in pentatonic scale / 26 41 诗 shī - poem, poetry, verse / 26 42 凯 kǎi - triumphant, victorious / 25 43 家 jiā - home, family / 24 44 小 xiǎo - small, tiny, few, young / 24 45 洋 yáng - ocean, vast, foreign, silver dollar or coin / 24 46 铭 míng - to engrave, inscribed motto / 24 47 奕 yì - abundant, graceful / 23 48 柏 bó - cedar, cypress / 23 49 静 jìng - still, calm, quiet, not moving / 23 50 馨 xīn - fragrant / 23 51 丹 dān - red, pellet, powder, cinnabar / 22 52 安 ān - content, calm, still, quiet, safe, secure, in good health, to pacify, to harbor (good intentions), security, safety, peace / 22 53 洁 jié - clean / 22 54 然 rán - correct, right, so, thus, like this / 22 55 瑶 yáo - jade, precious stone, mother-of-pearl, nacre, precious / 22 56 心 xīn - heart, mind, intention, center, core / 21 57 扬 yáng - to raise, to hoist, scattering (in the wind), to flutter / 21 58 玉 yù - jade / 21 59 阳 yáng - sun, male principle / 21 60 源 yuán - root, source, origin / 20 61 琦 qí - curio, valuable stone / 20 62 瑞 ruì - lucky, auspicious, propitious, rayl / 20 63 莹 yíng - luster of gems / 20 64 丽 lì - beautiful / 19 65 宁 níng - peaceful, to pacify / 19 66 语 yǔ - dialect, language, speech / 19 67 云 yún - cloud / 18 68 敏 mǐn - quick, nimble, agile, clever, smart / 18 69 琳 lín - gem / 18 70 睿 ruì - astute, perspicacious, farsighted / 18 71 菲 fēi - luxuriant (plant growth), rich with fragrance / 18 72 辉 huī - splendor, to shine upon / 18 73 颖 yǐng - head of grain, husk, tip, point, clever, gifted, outstanding / 18 74 依 yī - to depend on, to comply with or listen to sb, according to, in the light of / 17 75 妍 yán - beautiful / 17 76 希 xī - to hope, to admire / 17 77 昊 hào - vast and limitless, the vast sky / 17 78 超 chāo - to exceed, to overtake, to surpass, to transcend, to pass, to cross, ultra, super / 17 79 龙 lóng - dragon, imperial / 17 80 东 dōng - east , host / 16 81 凡 fán - ordinary, commonplace, mundane, temporal, of the mortal world, all, whatever, altogether, gist, outline, note of Chinese musical scale / 16 82 媛 yuán - beautiful / 16 83 宏 hóng - great, magnificent / 16 84 志 zhì - aspiration, ambition, the will / 16 85 昕 xīn - dawn / 16 86 月 yuè - moon, month / 16 87 瑜 yú - excellence, luster of gems / 16 88 紫 zǐ - purple, violet / 16 89 航 háng - boat, ship, craft, to navigate, to sail, to fly / 16 90 钰 yù - treasure, hard metal / 16 91 雯 wén - multicolored clouds / 16 92 元 yuán - currency unit, first, original, primary, fundamental, constituent, part, era / 15 93 廷 tíng - palace courtyard / 15 94 承 chéng - to bear, to carry, to hold, to continue, to undertake, to take charge, owing to, due to, to receive / 15 95 晴 qíng - clear, fine (weather) / 15 96 美 měi - beautiful, very satisfactory, good, to beautify, to be pleased with oneself / 15 97 言 yán - words, speech, to say, to talk / 15 98 逸 yì - to escape, leisurely, outstanding / 15
Well, if you made it to the end, congratulations! You are a brave soul. But seriously, thanks so much for reading all of this monster of a post. I hope you leave knowing at least a bit more about Chinese names.
In your Chinese studies you’ve probably learned: 红色、橙色、黄色、绿色、蓝色、紫色、灰色、白色、黑色、咖啡色、粉红色
But there are so many beautiful colors out there! Let’s learn some more. These are color terms I’ve come across outside Chinese class.
In general you can indicate a light shade with 浅 and a dark shade with 深. I have also seen 墨 for dark and 淡 for light, but when I Googled various color terms, there were more results for 浅 and 深 than 淡 and 墨.
I spent way too much time messing with HTML to color the text to match (except for the shades of white).
褐色 hèsè - brown
橘黄色 júhuángsè - orange
奶油色 nǎiyóusè - cream
金黄色 jīnhuángsè - gold color
朱红色 zhūhóngsè - vermilion
米色 mǐsè - beige
棕色 zōngsè - brown
青色 qīngsè - cyan / blue-green
灰白 huībái - light gray / ash-colored
蔚蓝 wèilán - azure / sky blue
纯白 chúnbái - pure white
雪白 xuěbái - snow white
洁白 jiébái - spotlessly white / pure white
漆黑 qīhēi - pitch-black
铜色 tóngsè - copper
乌黑 wūhēi - jet-black / dark
靛色 diànsè - indigo (color)
金色 jīnsè - golden / gold (color)
银色 yínsè - silver (color)
Here are some single characters I’ve seen as well. Some of these are commonly used in names, like 彤 and 丹.
彤 tóng - red
丹 dān - red / pellet / powder / cinnabar
缇 tí - orange-red silk / orange-red colored
赤 chì - red / scarlet / bare / naked
碧 bì - green jade / bluish green / blue / jade
翠 cuì - bluish-green / green jade
皓 hào - bright / luminous / white (esp. bright white teeth of youth or white hair of old age)
颢 hào - bright / white
玄 xuán - black / mysterious
彤, 丹, and 缇 are all described as a red-orange color. I’m not really sure of the difference, so I just made them all the same shade. I’m also unclear on exact distinction between 褐色 and 棕色. Image search results certainly suggest that they are used differently. Not sure how 咖啡色 fits in either.
I stumbled across this giant Wikipedia table with many beautiful colors that you can check out to learn more!
Recently I was doing a little light research on the rarest syllables in Chinese.* I discovered that I didn’t know any characters for some of the rare syllables I found, so I started wondering what syllables are the most common and the rarest in my vocabulary. I decided to undertake the unnecessary task of chronicling how many characters I know for each possible Chinese syllable.**
There are apparently 400+ possible Chinese syllables, and I only have so much time, so I’m sure I missed a character that I know here or there. However, the top 5 most common syllables (which I’m showing below) had a substantial lead over #6, so I’m fairly confident they are my true top 5. And for all the syllables presented below, I checked MDBG to confirm I wasn’t forgetting any characters.
*Rare in this case meaning how many characters exist for a syllable, not how often a syllable is used in the language. The latter would be an interesting but very different question. Also, I’m not taking into account tones here, and I am only considering simplified characters.
**I don’t have a perfect definition for what characters I “know.” I basically tried to include only characters I’m fairly confident I can write. There are definitely more characters out there that I recognize, but I didn’t want to include any that I believe I can’t read correctly out of context. I was a little more liberal for the rare category though.
I was not surprised to see yi, ji, qi, and shi make the top 5. That lion-poet-rock verse exists for a reason, and I feel like yi, ji, and qi are just everywhere. Yu was a bit of a surprise, but it makes sense since I like to research Chinese names, and a lot of the characters I listed for yu are used in names.
Rarest
For the sake of brevity, I’m only showing 25 syllables max for each category. There were simply too many for me to list them all.
First are syllables for which I only know 2 characters:
ang：昂、肮
cang：藏、苍
ceng：曾、层
gen：跟、根
geng：更、庚
gun：滚、棍
hei：黑、嘿
ken：肯、恳
kuan：款、宽
niang：娘、酿
pen：喷、盆
qun：群、裙
re：热、惹
reng：仍、扔
rou：肉、柔
ruan：阮、软
ruo：若、弱
sai：赛、塞
shua：刷、耍
sun：孙、损
te：特、忑
wai：外、歪
zhua：抓、爪
zhui：追、坠
zun：尊、遵
Next are syllables for which I only know 1 character:
ca：擦
cen：岑
dei：得
diu：丢
fo：佛
fou：否
gei：给
luan：乱
lve：略
nen：嫩
neng：能
nin：您
nuan：暖
nv：女
nve：虐
qia：恰
ri：日
run：润
sen：森
shei：谁
shuan：拴
tuan：团
weng：翁
zen：怎
zhuai：拽
What I find really interesting is how some of the syllables above are ones I encounter all the time while others are ones I only even heard relatively recently. For instance, I was a bit surprised that I only know one character each for luan and nv. I guess since 乱 and 女 are very commonplace, I feel like those syllables are everywhere, and it never occurred to me that I only know one luan and one nv character. But I remember furrowing my brow when I first learned 拴 and 虐. They feel unnatural to say honestly! I have to think about it for a sec.
Lastly, here are syllables for which I didn’t know any characters.
chua
chuai
chuo
cou
cuan
den
dia
ei
kei
keng
nou
pou
seng
zei
zuan
Some of these definitely elicited a “what? This is a legit Chinese syllable?” reaction from me. When I think about it more carefully, it makes sense that some, like chuo, exist. After all, I encounter zhuo and shuo all the time. But since I’ve never heard chuo, I guess it surprises me! Zei and dia strike me as the most unusual. Were you surprised by any of the syllables on this list?
If you’re interested in learning about the rarest syllables in general (not for me specifically), here’s some of the stuff I read:
Some of my past posts about Chinese names seem to have become popular among people in the writing community (writeblr???) as references. I’m very happy that people are interested in learning about Chinese names to name their original characters! However, I’m sure some people are also interested in creating characters of the Chinese diaspora. The diaspora is HUGE, but I wanted to shed some light on Chinese American names.
Disclaimer: I am just one Chinese American drawing on the stories of my family, friends, and classmates. This can’t certainly represent all Chinese Americans, so keep that in mind. My focus is primarily on people born and/or raised in the US as opposed to adult immigrants. I imagine a lot of this post also applies to Chinese Canadians, Chinese Australians, etc.
Name Formats
Our lovely “model” for today will be the fictional character of Jane/Jiayi Wang (王佳怡). Here are some basic name structures I’ve encountered throughout my life:
Jane Jiayi Wang One very typical name format would be Western first name, Chinese middle name, last name. I don’t have any actual data on it, but if you told me that this format was the most common for US-born Chinese Americans, I would believe you. Today, it feels like I’m seeing more and more people use their Chinese middle names alongside their Western first names professionally or on social media.
Jiayi Wang Some Chinese Americans do not have a Western-style name. This could be the case for someone born in the US or someone who immigrated. Often people with this name format may go by a Western name like Jane even if it’s not part of their legal name. They could also go by an abbreviation of their Chinese name or a nickname derived from their Chinese name.
Jane Wang / Jane Amelia Wang Not all Chinese Americans have a Chinese name as part of their legal name. Some might have Western first and middle names. Someone without a Chinese name as part of their legal name might still have a Chinese name that just isn’t “official,” or they might not have a Chinese name at all.
Jiayi Jane Wang I don’t think this name format is as common as the ones above. I’ve definitely seen people who immigrated as adults use this format, maybe if they adopted a Western name for convenience but still want to use their native name. However, the name they go by may not reflect their legal name.
Jane Li-Wang / Jane Li Wang These examples (which are rarer in my experience) incorporate both parents’ surnames, one by hyphenating and the other by making one parent’s surname the middle name. I’ve read that recently in China, a growing number of parents (but still a small number) are passing on both surnames (like 李王佳怡).
While I don’t personally know many people who fit this description, sometimes parents will select Chinese and Western names that are similar. This could be a loose similarity like Jane/Jiayi or a closer similarity like Lynn/Lin(g). Take for example the pair Eileen/Ailing, as in Eileen Chang (张爱玲) or Eileen Gu (谷爱凌). Another example of a close match is Wilber Pan/Pan Weibo (潘玮柏).
Another option is a Chinese name as a first name that was picked to be easy for English speakers to pronounce. Names like Ming or Kai are short and easy to pronounce.
More on Chinese Names
As I said, not all Chinese Americans have a Chinese name. For some, this might not be a big deal, but for others, it could be a sensitive issue.
Some have a Chinese name but may not know how it’s written, what it means, etc. A lot of Chinese Americans are mostly illiterate in Chinese and may not feel very comfortable speaking the language either. In my experience, it’s not uncommon for Chinese Americans to only be able to write their Chinese name and nothing else. There’s literally a whole song about this phenomenon.
Sometimes one may not know their Chinese name at all. Some Chinese Americans rarely if ever use their Chinese name. They may even feel little or no connection to the name. If their parents were born in the US or immigrated at a young age, it’s likely the Chinese name was given by grandparents. In this situation, it’s possible the parents don’t know the Chinese name of their child either.
Some Chinese Americans are interested in reclaiming their Chinese name. I’ve seen people add their Chinese names to their social media or even consider switching to going by their Chinese name.
Others don’t like being made to feel like a Western name such as Jane isn’t their real name (perpetual foreigner stereotype, anyone?). Acting like Jane isn’t someone’s “real name” and you must uncover their “more authentic” Chinese name is very icky. Jane and Jiayi are both real and valid.
Important: Due to some of the reasons above (and probably others) some Chinese Americans may not like it when others ask them about their Chinese names. It may be something very personal that they prefer to keep private, something they feel no connection to, something they don’t have in the first place, etc.
Also, someone isn’t turning their back on their heritage because they prefer going by Jane over Jiayi. While it’s true that some people feel pressured into going by a Western name that’s easier for others to pronounce (and this SUCKS), no one should be forced to go by their Chinese name if they don’t want to. People should respect and learn to pronounce others’ names, but as I’ve seen pointed out on Twitter, some people would rather go by Jane than have to hear Jiayi butchered day after day. So always respect personal choice and don’t pressure others to adopt a Western name or go by their Chinese name against their will.
Adopting Mispronunciations: Liu, Wang, Zhang, Zhao, etc.
I know Chinese Americans who pronounce their names or surnames “incorrectly” to conform with American English pronunciations of these names. For example, take Bowen Yang (杨伯文) or Lucy Liu (刘). I’ve also observed bearers of common surnames Wang, Zhang, and Zhao going by the Americanized pronunciations of their surnames.
Sometimes this can be a little confusing because I’m honestly not sure if I should pronounce their name the Americanized way or the native Chinese way. For instance, I had a classmate who reluctantly pronounced her surname Liu more like Lu but wished people would say it more accurately. But I also had another classmate with the last name Wang who didn’t seem to care about the pronunciation.
Romanization
This post wouldn’t be complete without mentioning that Chinese American names are diverse when it comes to romanization system used. First of all, there are many Chinese languages. Secondly, you have people immigrating from different countries with different romanization standards. Additionally, practices change over time, so people whose ancestors immigrated decades ago might have a name that uses a romanization system no longer in use. I’m sure there are even people whose full names contain traces of multiple romanization systems.
After writing most of this post, I came across an interesting piece by Emma Woo Louie, Name Styles and Structure of Chinese American Personal Names. (She also has a whole website about Chinese American surnames!) The article is almost 30 years old, but it was an interesting read and still relevant today. It includes a discussion on the different ways to write two-syllable names.
Separated by a space
With a hyphen between
No separation
For our example Jane Wang, you might expect to see:
Jane Chiayi Wang
Jane Chia Yi Wang
Jane Chia-yi Wang
Jane Chia-Yi Wang
I used Wade-Giles style romanization above because that’s what I typically see used alongside hyphens. Learn more about it by reading another post of mine!
Emma Woo Louie’s article also mentions the use of initials (like J.Y. Wang/C.Y. Wang for our example). I initially did not think to include this name format—I think it’s less in style now and it didn’t occur to me—but I have encountered it before.
I have also met Chinese Americans whose surnames were altered accidentally during the immigration process, thus leaving families with “misspelled” surnames. Certainly makes for an interesting family story!
Adoptees
Disclaimer: I’m not an adoptee and do not want to speak over adoptees. But I wanted to add a section on adoptee names. Thinking back, most Chinese adoptees I’ve met do not have anything in their legal name that is Chinese, but there are exceptions to this—I do know some who have names of the format Jiayi Smith or Jane Jiayi Smith.
A former classmate of mine knew the story and meaning behind her name (it was given by the workers at the orphanage she was adopted from), but I don’t know how common her experience is. My assumption is that most adoptive parents don’t know Chinese, so they probably won’t know much about their child’s Chinese name, and thus the child might not know much either.
I’ve read some essays and other thoughts by adoptees about their relationships with their Chinese names that I’ll link below. I encourage you to check them out!
For multiracial Chinese people, there is a whole world of other possibilities for names, but a lot of what I wrote above can apply as well. Every person and family is different! Here are just a few general trends I’ve observed:
Non-Chinese first name plus legal Chinese middle name *
Has Chinese name that isn’t part of legal name *
No Chinese name at all *
Has mother’s maiden name as a middle name +
Hyphenated surname
I’m sure there are multiracial Chinese people with Chinese given names, but in my experience, it’s not common here
*Surname may or may not be of Chinese origin +If mother is Chinese and father is not
Following typical naming conventions here, it’s more likely someone has a Chinese surname if their father is Chinese, but this isn’t true in all cases. In the case that someone has their father’s non-Chinese surname, they might use their mother’s Chinese surname in situations where they are going by their Chinese name. Like Jane Jiayi Smith might use her mother’s surname 王 and go by 王佳怡 in Chinese class, even thought Wang doesn’t appear in her legal name.
Fellow Chinese diaspora folks, feel free to add on with contributions about names of the diaspora in your country/community/family/etc.!
Whoops! I accidentally published a draft of this post early a few weeks ago, and some people liked and reblogged it. If you saw it…pretend you didn’t.
I’ve kind of inadvertently started a Cross-Strait series on this blog comparing Mandarin Chinese in Mainland China and Taiwan. This post is a continuation of this unofficial series. It is NOT intended to be comprehensive. For example, some of the characters below can be surnames but are not marked as such because I’ve never encountered them (meaning they are likely very rare). More obscure variants aren’t indicated either.
Definitions are from MDBG. Please let me know if you notice any errors.
發、髮 → 发
发 | 發 fā - to send out / to show (one’s feeling) / to issue / to develop / to make a bundle of money / classifier for gunshots (rounds) >> 发送 | 發送 fāsòng - to transmit / to dispatch / to issue (an official document or credential)
只 zhǐ - only / merely / just / but >> 只要 zhǐyào - if only / so long as
只 | 隻 zhī - classifier for birds and certain animals, one of a pair, some utensils, vessels etc >> 一只猫 | 一隻貓 yì zhī māo - one cat
游、遊 → 游
游 yóu - to swim / variant of 游 | 遊 >> 游泳 yóuyǒng - swimming / to swim
游 | 遊 yóu - to walk / to tour / to roam / to travel >> 游览 | 遊覽 yóulǎn - to go sightseeing / to tour / to visit
塗、涂 → 涂
涂 | 塗 tú - to apply (paint etc) / to smear / to daub / to blot out / to scribble / to scrawl / (literary) mud / street >> 糊涂 hútu | 糊塗 hútú - muddled / silly / confused
当 | 當 dāng - to be / to act as / manage / withstand / when / during / ought / should / match equally / equal / same / obstruct / just at (a time or place) / on the spot / right / just at >> 相当 | 相當 xiāngdāng - equivalent to / appropriate / considerably / to a certain extent / fairly / quite
当 | 當 dàng - at or in the very same… / suitable / adequate / fitting / proper / to replace / to regard as / to think / to pawn / (coll.) to fail (a student) >> 适当 | 適當 shìdàng - suitable / appropriate
別、彆 → 别
别 | 別 bié - to leave / to depart / to separate / to distinguish / to classify / other / another / don’t …! / to pin / to stick (sth) in >> 离别 | 離別 líbié - to leave (on a long journey) / to part from sb
别 | 彆 biè - to make sb change their ways, opinions etc >> 别扭 bièniu | 彆扭 bièniǔ - awkward / difficult / uncomfortable / not agreeing / at loggerheads / gauche
胡、鬍 → 胡
胡 hú - surname Hu / non-Han people, esp. from central Asia / reckless / outrageous / what? / why? / to complete a winning hand at mahjong (also written 和) >> 胡说 | 胡說 húshuō - to talk nonsense / drivel
面 miàn - face / side / surface / aspect / top / classifier for objects with flat surfaces such as drums, mirrors, flags etc >> 面对 | 面對 miànduì - to confront / to face
干 | 乾 gān - dry / clean / in vain / dried food / foster / adoptive / to ignore >> 干脆 | 乾脆 gāncuì - straightforward / clear-cut / blunt (e.g. statement) / you might as well / simply
干 gān - to concern / to interfere / shield / stem >> 干扰 | 干擾 gānrǎo - to disturb / to interfere / perturbation / interference (physics)
干 | 幹 gàn - tree trunk / main part of sth / to manage / to work / to do / capable / cadre / to kill (slang) / to fuck (vulgar) / (coll.) pissed off / annoyed >> 树干 | 樹幹 shùgàn - tree trunk
余、餘 → 余
余 yú - surname Yu / (archaic) I / me / variant of 余｜餘, surplus >> Author 余华 (Yu Hua)
余 | 餘 yú - extra / surplus / remaining / remainder after division / (following numerical value) or more / in excess of (some number) / residue (math.) / after / I / me >> 多余 | 多餘 duōyú - superfluous / unnecessary / surplus
于、於 → 于
于 yú - surname Yu / to go / to take / sentence-final interrogative particle / variant of 于 | 於 >> Singer 于文文 (Yu Wenwen/Kelly Yu)
于 | 於 yú - in / at / to / from / by / than / out of >> 对于 | 對於 duìyú - regarding / as far as sth is concerned / with regards to
台 | 臺 tái - platform / stage / terrace / stand / support / station / broadcasting station / classifier for vehicles or machines >> 舞台 | 舞臺 wǔtái - stage / arena / fig. in the limelight
里 lǐ - ancient measure of length, approx. 500 m / neighborhood / ancient administrative unit of 25 families / (Tw) borough, administrative unit >> 公里 | 公里 gōnglǐ - kilometer
範、范 → 范
范 | 範 fàn - pattern / model / example >> 模范 | 模範 mófàn - model / fine example
范 Fàn - surname Fan >> Actress 范冰冰 (Fan Bingbing)
並、併 → 并
并 | 並 bìng - and / furthermore / also / together with / (not) at all / simultaneously / to combine / to join / to merge >> 并且 | 並且 bìngqiě - and / besides / moreover / furthermore / in addition
并 | 併 bìng - to combine / to amalgamate >> 合并 | 合併 hébìng - to merge / to annex *合并 also exists as a variant
丑、醜 → 丑
丑 chǒu - clown / 2nd earthly branch: 1-3 a.m., 12th solar month (6th January to 3rd February), year of the Ox / ancient Chinese compass point: 30° >> 小丑 xiǎochǒu - clown
松 sōng - pine >> 松树 | 松樹 sōngshù - pine / pine tree
松 | 鬆 sōng - loose / to loosen / to relax / floss (dry, fluffy food product made from shredded, seasoned meat or fish, used as a topping or filling) >> 放松 | 放鬆 fàngsōng - to loosen / to relax
准、準 → 准
准 zhǔn - to allow / to grant / in accordance with / in the light of >> 不准 bùzhǔn - not to allow / to forbid / to prohibit
准 | 準 zhǔn - accurate / standard / definitely / certainly / about to become (bride, son-in-law etc) / quasi- / para- >> 标准 | 標準 biāozhǔn - (an official) standard / norm / criterion
曆、歷 → 历
历 | 曆 lì - calendar >> 日历 | 日曆 rìlì - calendar
历 | 歷 lì - to experience / to undergo / to pass through / all / each / every / history >> 历来 | 歷來 lìlái - always / throughout (a period of time) / (of) all-time
吁、籲 → 吁
吁 xū - sh / hush >> 吁吁 xūxū - to pant / to gasp for breath
吁 | 籲 yù - to implore >> 呼吁 | 呼籲 hūyù - to call on (sb to do sth) / to appeal (to) / an appeal
須、鬚 → 须
须 | 須 xū - must / to have to / to wait >> 必须 | 必須 bìxū - to have to / must / compulsory / necessarily
表 biǎo - exterior surface / family relationship via females / to show (one’s opinion) / a model / a table (listing information) / a form / a meter (measuring sth) >> 表面 | 表面 biǎomiàn - surface / face / outside / appearance
致 zhì - to send / to devote / to deliver / to cause / to convey >> 导致 | 導致 dǎozhì - to lead to / to create / to cause / to bring about
儘、盡 → 尽
尽 | 儘 jǐn - to the greatest extent / (when used before a noun of location) furthest or extreme / to be within the limits of / to give priority to >> 尽早 | 儘早 jǐnzǎo - as early as possible
尽 | 盡 jìn - to use up / to exhaust / to end / to finish / to the utmost / exhausted / finished / to the limit (of sth) / all / entirely >> 尽头 | 盡頭 jìntóu - end / extremity / limit
*There are some words like 尽量 where 盡量 and 儘量 are both possible.
制、製 → 制
制 zhì - system / to control / to regulate / variant of 制 | 製 >> 控制 kòngzhì - control / to exercise control over / to contain
制 | 製 zhì - to manufacture / to make >> 制造 | 製造 zhìzào - to manufacture / to make
注、註 → 注
注 zhù - to inject / to pour into / to concentrate / to pay attention / stake (gambling) / classifier for sums of money / variant of 注 | 註 >> 注重 zhùzhòng - to pay attention to / to emphasize
注 | 註 zhù - to register / to annotate / note / comment >> 注定 | 註定 zhùdìng - to foreordain / to be bound to / to be destined to / to be doomed to / inevitably
了、瞭 → 了
了 le - (completed action marker) / (modal particle indicating change of state, situation now) / (modal particle intensifying preceding clause) >> 为了 | 為了 wèile - in order to / for the purpose of / so as to
了 liǎo - to finish / to achieve / variant of 了 | 瞭 / to understand clearly >> 了不起 liǎobuqǐ - amazing / terrific / extraordinary
了 | 瞭 liǎo - (of eyes) bright / clear-sighted / to understand clearly >> 明了 | 明瞭* míngliǎo - to understand clearly / to be clear about / plain / clear * Can also be written 明了 in traditional Chinese.
Thank you everyone for 2500 followers <3 I haven’t been posting as much lately because I’ve been busy. But this post is quite long and took a long time to write, so consider it a token of my thanks.
I looked back at my blog archive and was surprised to see that my last music recommendations post was in November 2020—almost a year ago! Well I did have my Mandarin Music March challenge, but I’m not counting that. Here’s an update on what I’ve been listening to the last 6 months or so.
蔡健雅 / Tanya Chua I have included Tanya Chua in past recommendation posts and featured a few of her songs on my blog, but I’ve been listening to her constantly this year, so I wanted to highlight her amazing music again. I am not a huge ballad/slow song fan, but I love hers. And she does great upbeat pop songs too. Favorite album: 双栖动物（2005） Favorite songs: 原谅、达尔文、坐立不安、无底洞、生锈游乐场
沈以诚 / Eason Shen Have you ever wondered what country-inspired Mandopop would sound like? Well you can find out right now. I discovered Eason Shen during my August challenge. He also has more typical pop songs, from slow and calm to uptempo to soulful. Favorite album: 玩家（2020） Favorite songs: 牛仔、寻宝、巴赫旧约（翻唱）、15楼窗外、形容 *First two songs are the ones with country influence.
林宥嘉 / Yoga Lin Yoga Lin is another artist I’d heard of but overlooked for whatever reason. I checked out one of his albums during my August music challenge and instantly fell in love. He’s already become one of my top 10 most played artists of 2021. I would describe a lot of his music as pop rock. Favorite album: 大小说家（2012） Favorite songs: 白昼之月、唐人街、感同身受、慢一点、4号病房
莫文蔚 / Karen Mok I made the mistake of not checking out Karen Mok earlier because I assumed most of her music was in Cantonese—she has actually released more Mandarin albums than Cantonese! Her older albums have some great rock-leaning and almost grungy tracks, and I love some of her more recent slow songs. Favorite album: 如果没有你（2006） Favorite songs: 境外、溜溜的情歌、懒得管、薄荷、女朋友的男朋友
张惠妹 / A-Mei A-Mei is a Mandopop legend. She has a very powerful voice that works well for slow, emotional ballads and face-paced rock songs alike. I see her songs covered on various singing shows often as well. I particularly enjoy her more bombastic ballads and the rock tracks from her AMIT albums. Favorite album: 阿米特（2009） Favorite songs: 也许明天、装醉、开门见山、血腥爱情故事、我最亲爱的
徐佳莹 / LaLa Hsu I’ve known about LaLa Hsu for years, but I never explored her music much until more recently. I was pleasantly surprised by the versatility of her voice and the diversity of her discography! It’s been about 4 years since her last album, so I’m hoping she has something in the works. Favorite album: 心里学（2017） Favorite songs: 你敢不敢、到此为止、理想人生、现在不跳舞要干嘛、灰色
陈势安 / Andrew Tan I first heard of Andrew Tan through a cover of his song 天后 by Jeno Liu 刘力扬. Both versions are great, and I recommend you give both a listen. Anyway, Andrew Tan has a very deep, rich voice with a lot of soul. His newest album has some great pop hits that I can’t get out of my head. Favorite album: 唯一想了解的人（2021） Favorite songs: 唯一想了解的人、兜圈、天后、我们都伤、势在必行
田馥甄 / Hebe Tien Hebe is another artist I neglected to check out sooner because I had heard her song 《不醉不会》 years ago and didn’t care for it. However, her latest album really struck a chord with me, so I’ve been going through her discography. She has some fantastic slow, emotional songs and some stuff with more edge too. Favorite album: 无人知晓（2020） Favorite songs: 讽刺的情书、底里歇斯、终身大事、人间烟火、小幸运
李荣浩 / Li Ronghao Watching Li Ronghao on 青春有你3 inspired me to finally check out his music. I definitely get the hype. His style is pretty distinctive (but I honestly don’t think I can describe it well) and he releases a lot of long 4:30-5:00+ minute songs, so he’s not for everyone, but I saved at least a couple songs from all of his albums. Favorite album: 嗯（2017） Favorite songs: 戒烟、不将就、李白、满座、老友谊
陈奕迅 / Eason Chan I’ve just started exploring Eason Chan’s discography, but so far there’s a lot to like. As a Hong Kong singer, he has Cantonese and Mandarin albums (and some albums with both languages), but I’m just sticking to Mandarin for now. I can’t wait to hear more soon! Favorite album (so far): 认了吧（2007） Favorite songs (so far): 烟味、让我留在你身边、快乐男生、放弃治疗、陪你度过漫长岁月
Other songs I’ve been loving:
黑色天空 - 路嘉欣 / Jozie Lu Angsty, brooding, emo perfection.
Today I will be exposing my past as someone who did not care about stroke order by comparing actual stroke order to how I used to write some characters. The title of this post is actually not 100% true because sometimes I still write some of these characters incorrectly…it’s just so hard to break old habits.
In retrospect, I think the real stroke order makes a lot of sense thinking about how 少 is written. But I do remember being surprised when I learned I was writing this character incorrectly.
I believe I mentioned in a previous post that I used to write the left half of 那 like 月. And I was also writing the right part wrong too! Fortunately I’ve been very successful in correcting this and now write 那 with the proper stroke order consistently.
For both 北 and 比, I was writing the right component in incorrect order. I also wrote the left part of 比 incorrectly, and I wouldn’t be surprised if I was also messing up the direction of strokes…I can’t remember exactly now.
To this day, the proper stroke order for 长 remains unintuitive to me. But I have been good about following proper stroke order regardless. Honestly, I feel like the character doesn’t look as neat when I use correct stroke order, but I do think like the strokes flow better together.
I find myself having to look up stroke order for this character and characters like 贯 from time to time. It just won’t stick!
This is a small discrepancy, but I honestly feel like it makes a difference in my handwriting. I guess 为 in an exception because it is written like the incorrect way I wrote 力.
I am embarrassed to say I just learned how incorrectly I write this character today. I think I knew I was doing something wrong, but I didn’t realize just how wrong I was. I’m going to have to work on this from now on.
For 我, I’m not 100% sure that the incorrect order above is exactly how I used to write, but it’s close. 我 was always a really challenging character for me, and while I don’t think my current 我s are perfect, I noticed a big improvement when I learned the proper stroke order. The improper 我s above look fine too, but I think it’s because my handwriting is neat in general.
I have known for a long time that I struggle with remembering the stroke order for 里. Since how I’ve always written it is pretty close to the correct order, it’s quite challenging to correct myself.
This one is pretty bad because I even had the wrong number of strokes! How I used to write it was not very natural feeling, so it’s pretty easy for me to remember the proper order.
Last but not least, here are some characters that I was just writing blatantly incorrectly.
I’m very mortified to say that I only realized these discrepancies relatively recently. For 黄 I literally realized it last week. I guess I just didn’t ever look close enough, yikes. 练 is also pretty bad because I’ve always written 锻炼的炼 correctly, so I really have no excuse. With 勇 I feel like it’s quite hard to tell with certain fonts or small text, so that’s the one I’m least ashamed about.
Well, this has been embarrassing. Now I’m going to be paying a lot more attention to stroke order. You can teach an old dog new tricks, but it takes a lot of work. That’s why you should pay attention to stroke order upfront!
Hi all! Back to share one of the latest, absolutely essential, new additions to my Korean language learning. It is called Mirinae - it is a web tool that breaks down Korean sentences into their component parts to help you understand form and structure of Korean sentences and analyse grammar even in the most complex of writing. Let’s take an indepth look under the ‘Keep Reading’ cut
The main interface looks like the image below. Extremely straight forward. Type (or copy) your text into the text bar below and hit enter. I am just going to use one of Mirinae’s pre-set examples for this demo.
It generates a break down of the sentence, identifying each component part and explaining its use within the sentence, as well as the full English meaning below.
You can click on the different grammar structures for more information, or you can collapse some of the grammar information if you want a less detailed breakdown. You can also click on each word to get more indepth meaning too. In the picture below I have simplified all the grammar fields, and clicked on the connector ‘다고 하여서’ for more information.
As well as this, Mirinae can also detect your spacing errors, so it can be perfect for checking the accuracy of your own writing. In the picture below, I copied a sentence from this Naver news article, and took the final space out to see if Mirinae would spot it.
Not just this, but it also has an awesome glossary to help you understand all those horrible grammar terms, and also a grammar reference section that you can access. It categorises grammar points by use/function, and also by level so you can make sure that you are learning grammar that is within your range. When Mirinae is analysing your work, it lets you know what level grammar you are using as well, which is quite helpful to know. The picture below is only a very very tiny snapshot of the endless grammar and idiom reference list that Mirinae has.
So….. all in all, Mirinae is a big hit in this household! I hope you can all make use of it, genuinely it is changing my life and the way that I analyse text, as well as how I write. These days, instead of checking any writing on Papago, I go through Mirinae first. It is just an extremely informative tool.
You can access Mirinae at the following URL: https://mirinae.io/#/ I don’t know how new it is, but it seems like it is pretty new on the scene and it is still in Beta mode so might have even more new and exciting updates in the near future! Let me know how everyone gets on!
Ordering food in a restaurant in Korea is one thing, where you can point at the menu or pick up context clues from body language and surroundings. But what about when you want to order food delivery somewhere and you can only rely on the voice on the other end of the phone. It can be a little tricky but if you at least know the key phrases and vocabulary, it hopefully won’t be as daunting.
Phrasesyoumightsaytothedeliveryservice
In the following phrases, anything that is contained within the following brackets < > can be replaced with your own preferred food order.
여보세요 - Hello (obviously)
지금 배달되나요? / 지금 배달돼요? - Are you delivering now? (You can remove 지금 to purely ask ‘Are you delivering?’)
<후라이드 치킨 하나, 떡볶이 하나> 주세요 - One (portion) of fried chicken and one tteokbokki please (You could replace 주세요 with 가져다 주세요 ‘please can you bring’, or 배달해 주세요 ‘please can you deliver’ to be more specific but it’s not totally necessary)
<콜라>도 주세요 - Cola also please
얼마예요? - How much is it?
얼마나 걸려요? - How long will it take?
카드 돼요? - Is card okay?
카드로 결제할게요 / 현금으로 결제할게요 - I will pay by card / I will pay by cash
Phrasestheymightsaytoyou
어디세요?- Where? (asking where to deliver to) OR:
주소 말씀해 주세요 / 주소 말해 주세요 / 주소 어떻게 되세요 - Please tell me your address / What is your address?
주문 어떻게 되세요? / 어떤 제품 주문하시겠습니까? - What is your order? / What (product) would you like to order?
다른 더 필요한 거 없으십니까? - Is there nothing else you need? (Don’t forget the rules of yes or no in Korean are different to English. If you say 네 [yes] to this question, that means ‘I don’t need anything else’, and if you say 아니요 [no] to this question, that means ‘Yes. I need something else’. I find it a little easier to just answer ‘있어요’ or ‘없어요’ to get around the tricky yes/no situation)
주문 확인해 드리겠습니다 - I will check your order
금액은 <25,500>원입니다 - The total price is 25,500 won.
현금으로 결제하시겠습니까? - Will you be paying by cash?
알겠습니다 - Okay.
Of course, there are numerous other things that they might say to you, but these are the key phrases you need. As long as you have the vocab from here, you should be able to at least figure out what is being said and rustle up an appropriate answer.
Also it’s worth noting that the phone conversation will normally just end with them thanking you and you thanking them back (or in the reverse order), then they will hang up. There doesn’t need to be any other formal goodbyes.
NB. As I was pulling this together, it made me remember that ordering food at a restaurant could throw some really random phrases your way so I’ll make sure to do a restaurant post at some point later if people will find it helpful!
I have been discussing resources with a few people on private message and have been thinking a bit about what resources were the best on my journey…. so here’s my final (maybe) compilation of resources for the year that will hopefully be helpful for anyone who is looking at resources between the beginners and upper intermediate levels.
NB. This list is based off materials I have used in the past and is not an exhaustive list of ALL the resources I have used - it is just a selection of some of my favourite. There are so many Korean resources out there so there might be some that work more for you that I haven’t even looked at.
CourseTexts
In my opinion, the perfect course text isn’t going to teach you everything you need to know, but a good course text will at least give you a clear framework to chunk up and guide your studies. I have used a few but the most user friendly one is definitely:
Talk To Me In Korean-they set things out clearly so nothing feels overwhelming and provide a sensible framework to follow for self-study. Other course books tend to be better suited for in-class settings and not great for self-study.
Grammar
The course texts will teach you about grammar but I think they don’t teach you how the grammar structures are related to each other. So I think it is key to look at one or more of these books:
The above series is incredible and a serious MUST for all Korean learners. They clearly and concisely set out the grammar points and show how they are all related to each other. There is an Advanced book as well which I have yet to use and will teach quite complex structures.
The above Routledge series is great for its workbook feature. The layout is a little academic so it’s not super appealing but the way they explain grammar is clear and relatively detailed. The number of examples included in the workbook is fantastic, providing a lot of opportunity to practice. I haven’t used the Basic book but if it is anything like the Intermediate, it will be a winner.
Vocabulary
The part that people often miss out when learning Korean is vocabulary, because it can be so easy to just follow course texts and grammar books, but those will never teach enough words. To learn more vocab, it is really important to read around. There are so many Korean language books that you can pick up, but here are some books and resources that are catered specifically for language learners that I have loved:
Korean Culture in 100 Keywords-they give a paragraph on different cultural aspects of Korea in both Korean and English and highlight all the new vocabulary for you. The texts are graded from easy to more difficult.
News in Korean-lots of short news stories with translations in English and comprehension questions. Might be targeted more at intermediate learners
Mind Map TOPIK VOCA 2300-this book sorts vocabulary into categories and shows them as mindmaps. It also gives readers sentences in context and has mini quizzes, HOWEVER it is written in 98% Korean so this is a book that is definitely more pitched at upper intermediate levels and above and teaches vocabulary that is a little less common
Anki-my most used resource. Everyone has their own favourite for flashcards and this is mine. Anki do spaced repetition meaning that it will constantly test your knowledge on vocabulary, spacing the quizzes/tests depending on how difficult you find the word. It is more efficient than other flashcard platforms, but it is a little tricky to get started and create your own cards. If you want to download pre-made decks, you can, but this works best when you add the words you have learned yourself so that you get decks that are full of vocab that is relevant for you
Beelinguapp-This is an app that has some story books written in both Korean and English. It also has an audio function so you can listen to someone reading the stories in Korean. This is neat for pronunciation and listening, and also identifying new words, however the range of stories are limited.
Gloss-Gloss have a set of online lessons pitched at different levels which takes you through articles or texts (or audio and video), then asks a lot of comprehension questions. It follows a lesson format so it is far more engaging than your regular book, however it is a little on the difficult side.
[EXTRA] Your First Hanja Guide-you might not want to learn vocabulary this way and it is absolutely NOT an essential, but for me it is helpful to visualise the Hanja character when seeing the relationship between words, so if you like learning words like that, then this is the book for you
Listening/Watching
Like with reading, there are multiple resources that you can use to listen to native Korean, but here are some that are specifically targeted at learners
여보세요-this app/website has a few short video clips and goes through slowly to examine the meaning and new words, then has a number of test quizzes through multiple choice or through speaking (via microphone). There are different clips graded by levels and the app tracks your progress and gives progress reports.
Real Life Korean Conversations: Beginners/Intermediate-this IS a book, but it is best used in conjunction with the audio files. The book gives the script, as well as the vocabulary, and also looks at key grammar points and structures used in the conversations
Speaking
There aren’t many resources that I find great for self-studying speaking - generally you need someone else to do that with you, but here is one that I thought was quite neat:
Teuida- I just did a very quick run through this app as it is definitely pitched at beginners, but I thought that it was a smart way of learning some basic conversational Korean. It teaches you phrases and you have to repeat them back through the microphone feedback function. Then to test your retention, they take you through a mock situation and you have to speak your answers - there is quite a strong focus on getting pronunciation correct. My biggest downsides of this app are that the free sections are really limited, AND they seem to have geared the lessons towards the idea of dating, which I just find so awkward and embarrassing hahaha!
Writing
I’m in the market to buy some writing books and have my eye on some but am waiting until I have the time to work on them, but this book is quite neat for learning different sentence structures and how to construct meaningful answers:
Korean Q&A Sentence Patterns- this book poses a question and looks at different ways of answering it. It also shows variations of the question, then examines form. It gives an example long answer and prompts you to think about how to construct your own response using the grammar and vocabulary given
The end of the first part of NCT season is almost with us, so someone asked me if I could translate a song from the album. I chose to do Misfit since it has an MV and I only translated the verses from the MV since its a song PACKED full of new vocabulary. All the tricky vocabulary is under the cut (some really useful new words in there!)
Main vocabulary (in order of appearance)
맞다= to be correct, to be right
자체 = self, oneself
숨이 턱턱 막히다 = to be suffocating, stifling
숨 = breath
턱턱 = easily, completely
막히다 = to be blocked, stopped
입다 = to wear
느낌 = feeling, sense
지겹다 = boring, tedious
고민 없다 = without worry
고민 = worry, anguish
끌어내리다 = to drag down, to take down, to demote
애써 = with effort, laboriously, with force
재단하다 = to judge, to cut out
됐다 = that’s enough
이대로 = like this, as it is
의심 = doubt
그저 = just
방법 = way, means, manner
맞추다 = to be in harmony, adapt, adjust
어림없다 = impossible, absurd, preposterous
비슷하다 = similar, to be like
모습 = appearance, look, form
더욱 = more, further
거슬리다 = to be irritated, be offended
날아가다 = to fly, to fly away, to be gone
때 = time, moment
마치다 = to be crazy
어차피 = in any case, anyway
마음대로 = as one likes, as you want
언제나 = all the time, always
튀어나오다 = to protrude, stick out, pop out
다치다 = to be hurt, injured
아무도 = nobody
막지 못하다 = to not stop, to not block
막하 = to block, close, enclose, stop
억지로 = reluctantly, forcibly
똑같다 = exactly the same, identical
틀 = mold, frame, framework
끼워 넣다가다 = to put in
끼다 = to stick in, to fasten
넣다가다 = to put in
부쉬버리다 = to break completely
부수다 = to break, smash, destroy
버리다 = to throw away, discard
지키다 = to guard, defend, protect OR to obey, observe
법 = law, act, rule
적당히 = adequately
멈추다 = to stop, halt
규칙 = rule
묻다 = to ask, inquire
따르다 = to follow
듯 = like
채우다 = to fill
목줄 = leash
짓밟다 = to trample, stamp on
높다 = high
조준 = aiming
따분하다 = boring, dreary
늘어놓다 (늘어놔) = to harp on, to speak at length
뻔하다 = evident, clear
닿다 = to reach, arrive
뻗다 = to stretch, extend, straighten
입 = mouth
쩍 = with a smack, crack, split
벌어지다 = to widen, to part, to broaden
분위기 = atmosphere, mood
파악 = understanding, figure out, realise
태도 = attitude
늘 = always, often
이기다 = to win, beat
기분 = mood, feelings
발아래 = below one’s feet
깨버리다 = to break completely
깨다 = to break, shatter
믿다 = to believe
식겁하다 = to freakify
삐딱하다 = to be slanted, askew
마주치다 = to happen to meet, eyes meet
망설이다 = to hesitate
갈 길 = long road ahead
멀다 = to be distant, far off
똑바로 = straight, truthfully
걷다 = to walk
전부 = all, everything
비스듬하다 = askew
Key Grammar
VERB -(으)ㄹ수록 = The more ______ the more ______
ADJ/VERB/NOUN -어/아야 되다 = have to ___ , must ____
ADJ/VERB/NOUN -(으)ㄹ 텐데 = Expresses the expected future state of something
ADJ/VERB/NOUN -(으)ㄹ지도 모르다 = It might…; You don’t know if…
