They would then interpret the patterns for divination purposes, such as predicting the weather. The name itself literally translates to "wind water. Oracle bone script numeral system via Wikimedia Commons. After oracle bone script came rebus writing, where the symbol for one word is the same as another word with a similar sound. It was extremely easy to use this since Chinese is a very monosyllabic language.
With rebus writing, a particular Chinese symbol would represent an object, while a verb, pronoun, or another word would use the same symbol because the pronunciation of the word had the same sound or a similar sound.
Next came the practice of polysemy, or using the same Chinese symbol for two words with different sounds that share a similar meaning. Lastly came the creation of compound Chinese symbols. Chinese characters were developed into several different styles , or scripts, over time:.
Comparison of Chinese characters for "autumn" via Wikimedia Commons. It was the aim of the emperors to emphasize the importance of literacy and education. The upper classes refined the writing of Chinese characters into an art form. They created Traditional Chinese characters, while the government of mainland China later created Simplified Chinese characters.
Both are still in use today. Another aspect of the Chinese language is how vowel tone changes the meaning of a word. There are four tones for syllables: high level, rising, falling-rising, and falling.
Each word is also written differently. At the same time, a single logogram can either have a very specific meaning or a range of meanings, depending on context and pronunciation:. Fortunately, the Chinese language does not have grammatical gender, noun cases, or verb conjugations.
What about reading a newspaper? A minimum of 2, characters is even better, but you should know between 2,, to include some of the less common characters without needing a dictionary. All of those numbers put you at a conversational level of fluency.
A Chinese language course in a China university will prepare you for a wide variety of situations and encourage self-sufficiency with knowledge of 2,, characters. All Chinese-taught programs require a passing score on the HSK test. The List of Frequently Used Characters in Modern Chinese contains 2, characters people use often, plus 1, which are less common.
You would only see most of the tens of thousands of Chinese characters -- really, minor variants of the same characters -- if you study historical texts. Does that seem like a lot? If you understand that many characters, you would actually be at a level between a conversational and moderate proficiency , and such a rule goes for pretty much any foreign language.
How much Chinese do you need to know for specific situations? The average educated Chinese person knows around 8, characters. You need to know about 6, characters to be familiar with business and place names, restaurant menu items, etc.
That gives you a moderate to advanced level of fluency. One of the changes the Chinese language has gone through is the simplification of its characters to create a standard system and encourage literacy. It means that students don't need to use as many strokes to create the words and hence, they have less complicated characters to remember.
Over 2, Chinese characters have been simplified since Since Simplified Chinese started in the s, older people are more familiar with the traditional characters and younger people with the simplified.
Knowing whether to learn Traditional or Simplified Chinese characters depends on where you are and which dialect the people speak. There is so much to learn from Chinese and its complex writing system; take a Chinese language class and find out more about this both long lasting communication system and beautiful art form!
How many Chinese characters are there? The answer to this question might be more complicated than you think -- maybe even more complicated than the characters themselves! And if this is not enough, check out these interesting facts: With 2, characters you can read Chinese Calligraphy: The art of writing.
Only a culture as rich and dynamic as China's could develop a written language both beautiful in its content and in its form. Like what you've read? Don't miss out on more articles and news about Hutong School, the Chinese language, life in China and much more.
Subscribe to our mailing list. Discover China and Chinese culture yourself! Learn Chinese in China. Phone Number. Only specialized linguists and scholars get closer to those 80, So how many Chinese characters do YOU need to know to be considered fluent? The number of Chinese characters and words you need to know depends on many things such as your learning goal, your current fluency level or even the frequency of use of these characters.
What are you looking to do? If you want to live in China, and simply interact in your everyday life in Chinese, a working vocabulary of words might be enough to start with. Having a Chinese learning goal is essential to progress, but knowing what level you are is also very important to know what Chinese characters and terms to learn.
Then you belong to the HSK 1 level which requires learning about words. Check your level and see how many words you have to learn according to the HSK. As there has been a renewal of the HSK exams. It just depends on how many frequent characters you decide to learn. Then, you should be familiar with the vast majority of the characters you running into. Pay attention to these three steps to know what and how many characters you should learn.
My best advice would be to put as a goal: master 2, to 3, characters. But how and what should you learn? In Ninchanese, we help you learn the most common and frequently used Chinese characters. Learning words and characters is the key to reading anything you see and fitting in China! The cool thing about Chinese characters is that they are the writing system common to all forms of spoken Chinese.
Just pick your main learning goal, be realistic in the number of terms and Chinese characters you want to learn based on your actual level and select the characters that are the most frequent if you want to save time and efficiently study Mandarin. After all, most of the Chinese only know about 5, characters and we know you soon will too!
Now tell us, how many words do you think you know in simplified Chinese? Or have you stopped counting? Stay in touch with us on Facebook , Twitter , Instagram, and Pinterest. What are you planning on doing with it? I intend to build two fonts, one handwriting and another sans-serif art deco. Completing an omniglot font is my ambition.
I know it is not possible to unify them because the four different variants of each characters follow the same unicode, therefore, I have to use stylistic sets to make easier.
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