We continue our tour of the body with a look at hands and how to write them.
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We shall also be looking at the hand radical, and how it is used to make various verbs that are carried out using the hand.
This character might look like a clothes rack, but it symbolises the eye in Chinese writing.
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As you would expect, it is used as a component in various words involving the eye. This podcast teaches about how it figures in the words for sleep, appearence and blindness.
Having learned the basic numbers in our last podcast, today's lesson teaches how to use this vocab to read and write the days of the week in Chinese.
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The days from Monday to Saturday use the numbers one to six. The only tricky one to remember is Sunday, which uses 'day' instead of 'seven'.
Today's short lesson will teach you ten new characters. By the end of the podcast you will be able to read and write the numbers one to ten, which in turn whill enable you to write the numbers up to 99 in Chinese.
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This will also enable you to recognise the characters on the tiles of a game of Ma Zhong, meaning that you will be able to play endless games with old men on the street in China.
Today we focus on two main characters, both with multiple meanings: the sun, also used as the word for day, and the moon, also used to mean month.
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From there, we'll also be looking at how the characters are used as radicals, including in the words for 'have' and 'can' in Chinese.
Until now, we have been concentrating on lessons for absolute beginners at writing Chinese. We will still be publishing those lessons, but today we also introduce our first grammar class. These lessons are pitched at a higher level, but still explain things very simply, so all students should get something out of the podcast.
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Today's class focusses on a grammar point, which is exclusive to writing; the problem of which 'de' to use when writing a description. This podcast will take you through the rules, and offer you some examples and exercises to help clarify it.
This box-like character symbolises the mouth in Chinese writing, and today we're going to learn how to use it.
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We shall also be looking at the characters for to eat, to ask, to call out and to return, among others.
The character for woman resembles a pregnant lady, or an ironing board. But we're pretty sure that ironing boards weren't around in China when the writing system was first created, so no one can accuse the Chinese of misogynism.
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This lesson will also look at some other characters that boast a woman's touch; including obvious words like she and less obvious ones like if and to want.
A child in Chinese looks like a baby with its arms outstretched and its mouth wide open. The child only has one leg, which curls around to the left, but at this early stage in life they do not need to use their legs.
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We'll be talking about other words prominent in youth, such as small and to study.
In this first lesson, we'll be looking at some of the most basic characters in Chinese; the words for person, wood and door.
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This class provides some basic examples of how components can be put together to make other characters, which can be remembered using logical stories.
