{"id":8269,"date":"2025-11-10T05:50:21","date_gmt":"2025-11-10T04:50:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.hackingchinese.com\/?p=8269"},"modified":"2025-11-10T06:05:09","modified_gmt":"2025-11-10T05:05:09","slug":"talk-chinese-characters-chinese","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hackingchinese.com\/talk-chinese-characters-chinese\/","title":{"rendered":"How to talk about Chinese characters in Chinese"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.hackingchinese.com\/talk-chinese-characters-chinese\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright wp-image-20387 size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/www.hackingchinese.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/talking-characters-300x265.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"265\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.hackingchinese.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/talking-characters-300x265.png 300w, https:\/\/www.hackingchinese.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/talking-characters.png 387w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a>How do native speakers talk about Chinese characters?<\/p>\n<p>The writing system is not phonetic, so you can&#8217;t spell out words, but it is still possible to talk about Chinese characters.<\/p>\n<p>Let&#8217;s explore how!<\/p>\n<p><em>Tune in to\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.hackingchinese.com\/podcast\/\">the Hacking Chinese Podcast<\/a> to listen to the related episode (#275).<br \/>\n<\/em><iframe src=\"https:\/\/open.spotify.com\/embed\/episode\/42I9jjwEb1EPanI2Bvy4eC?utm_source=generator\" width=\"100%\" height=\"152\" allow=\"autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; fullscreen; picture-in-picture\" frameborder=\"0\" style=\"border-radius:12px;\" allowfullscreen loading=\"lazy\"><\/iframe>\n<em>Available on <a href=\"https:\/\/podcasts.apple.com\/us\/podcast\/hacking-chinese-podcast\/id1536284827\">Apple Podcasts<\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/open.spotify.com\/show\/5iCRv1jg3j3yJZGJlYVYaO\">Spotify<\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/INtm7Fxcsqg\">YouTube<\/a>\u00a0and many other platforms!<\/em><\/p>\n<h3>How to talk about Chinese characters in Chinese<\/h3>\n<p>There are generally two challenges when talking about Chinese characters verbally:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li><strong>How do you identify a specific character in the written language, using only spoken words<\/strong>? For example, if you hear someone say the word <em>sh\u00ecsh\u00ed<\/em>, \u201cfact; truth&#8221;, how do you figure out which sh\u00ec and <em>sh\u00ed<\/em> are used when writing the word? The answer is \u4e8b\u5b9e, which is easy to show in writing, but how do you do it when speaking?<\/li>\n<li><strong>How do you describe how a certain character is written<\/strong>? For example, if someone tells you it is the same sh\u00ed as in <em>zh\u0113nsh\u00ed<\/em> (\u771f\u5b9e), but you do not know how to write this character, how do you figure this out, again, sticking only to spoken Mandarin?<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>For new learners, it might not be obvious why these are problems. Talking about words in English is simple after all; you just need to spell out the words. Spelling &#8220;rhythm&#8221; might be tricky, but it is not hard to talk about.<\/p>\n<h3>You can&#8217;t spell out a Chinese character<\/h3>\n<p>Chinese is different. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hackingchinese.com\/the-building-blocks-of-chinese-part-2-basic-characters-components-and-radicals\/\">For basic characters, such as \u4eba, \u706b or \u5c71, there is no link between the written characters and the spoken language.<\/a> You just need to learn how they are pronounced, just like you cannot tell from looking at the numeral &#8220;3&#8221; that it is pronounced \/\u03b8ri\/ in English.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-embedded-content\" data-secret=\"rXuNL7XRro\"><p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.hackingchinese.com\/the-building-blocks-of-chinese-part-2-basic-characters-components-and-radicals\/\">The building blocks of Chinese, part 2: Basic characters, components and radicals<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"wp-embedded-content\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts\" security=\"restricted\" style=\"position: absolute; visibility: hidden;\" title=\"&#8220;The building blocks of Chinese, part 2: Basic characters, components and radicals&#8221; &#8212; Hacking Chinese\" src=\"https:\/\/www.hackingchinese.com\/the-building-blocks-of-chinese-part-2-basic-characters-components-and-radicals\/embed\/#?secret=gvrUHkMSnU#?secret=rXuNL7XRro\" data-secret=\"rXuNL7XRro\" width=\"500\" height=\"282\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.hackingchinese.com\/learning-chinese-characters\/\">For compound characters<\/a>, the problem is slightly different. There are many hundreds of commonly used components, but since many of them have overlapping pronunciations, there is no simple way to point to a specific one.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-embedded-content\" data-secret=\"jdOGsU2LKg\"><p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.hackingchinese.com\/learning-chinese-characters\/\">The building blocks of Chinese, part 3: Compound characters<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"wp-embedded-content\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts\" security=\"restricted\" style=\"position: absolute; visibility: hidden;\" title=\"&#8220;The building blocks of Chinese, part 3: Compound characters&#8221; &#8212; Hacking Chinese\" src=\"https:\/\/www.hackingchinese.com\/learning-chinese-characters\/embed\/#?secret=iZ3wUKHDr8#?secret=jdOGsU2LKg\" data-secret=\"jdOGsU2LKg\" width=\"500\" height=\"282\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<h3>How native speakers talk about Chinese characters<\/h3>\n<p>So, how do native speakers talk about Chinese characters, then?<\/p>\n<p>That is what this article is about. The goal is to enable you to communicate with Chinese people about characters without relying on visual support.<\/p>\n<p>This is very useful, especially when you are learning the language.<\/p>\n<h3>Identifying a specific Chinese character through spoken words<\/h3>\n<p>When you want someone to think of a specific character, such as one of the characters in your name, you need to give them clues. If your clues are good, there is only one possible answer, and you are done.<\/p>\n<p>Your Chinese name is a good example, because even native speakers might not be able to guess what characters you use to write it. When introducing themselves, it is very common for native speakers to talk about the characters in their names to clarify which characters are used.<\/p>\n<h3>Show which character you mean by including it in a common word<\/h3>\n<p>The most common way of identifying a specific character is to include the character in a common word. While there are many, many characters that are pronounced the same way, longer words are more unique. By referring to a word, you remove any risk of ambiguity, and the listener knows which character you are talking about.<\/p>\n<p>For example, if you want to say that your family name is \u738b (w\u00e1ng) and not \u9ec4 (hu\u00e1ng), you can simply say that it is <em>gu\u00f3w\u00e1ng de w\u00e1ng<\/em>\u00a0(\u56fd\u738b \u7684 \u738b), or &#8220;the <em>w\u00e1ng<\/em> in the word <em>gu\u00f3w\u00e1ng<\/em>&#8220;. This avoids any ambiguity, as there is only one word pronounced gu\u00f3w\u00e1ng.<\/p>\n<p>Here is the general formula, where X is the character you want to talk about and Y is just another character that forms a common word with X:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>YX \u7684 X (<em>gu\u00f3w\u00e1ng de w\u00e1ng, <\/em>\u56fd\u738b \u7684 \u738b)<\/li>\n<li>XY \u7684 X (<em>zh\u0113nsh\u00ed de zh\u0113n<\/em>, \u771f\u5b9e \u7684 \u771f)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>For example, here is one way of helping people identify my Chinese family name:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\u51cc\u6668 \u7684 \u51cc<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>So, I am saying that it is the l\u00edng in <em>l\u00edngch\u00e9n<\/em> (\u51cc\u6668, &#8220;early morning&#8221;). This helps people identify the right character and also avoids confusion with another surname, \u6797, which is much more common and is pronounced in a similar way: l\u00edn.<\/p>\n<p>There are no fixed rules for what clues you give, so whatever works is fine. There are, however, some very common patterns, and while you do not have to use them, it is good to be aware of them.<\/p>\n<p>For example, \u6797 is a very common surname, and the character is often called <em>shu\u0101ngm\u00f9 l\u00edn<\/em>, \u53cc\u6728\u6797 (the l\u00edn that has two \u6728 in it). Characters that actually have names like this are not very common, though, and are mostly limited to names.<\/p>\n<p>Here is another example; see if you can guess what common family name it refers to: <em>m\u00f9z\u01d0 l\u01d0<\/em>.<\/p>\n<h3>Describing how a certain Chinese character is written<\/h3>\n<p>The above methods are very common among native speakers when identifying characters. For them, the task is merely to figure out which character it is, not how that character is written (they already know that).<\/p>\n<p>For second language learners, it is practical to be able to discuss how individual characters are written without writing them down. This is useful for native speakers too when they encounter rare characters, perhaps in names as suggested above. What do you do if there are no common words, for example?<\/p>\n<h3>Describing characters stroke by stroke is rarely a good idea<\/h3>\n<p>Some teachers insist on teaching students the names of all the individual strokes. Thus, in theory, you could describe how a character is written simply by listing all the strokes in order.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.hackingchinese.com\/should-you-learn-the-names-of-the-strokes-in-chinese-characters\/\">I strongly dislike this approach.<\/a> As a beginner, you have a ton of useful words to learn, so learning the names of brush strokes is a waste of time. Native speakers almost never refer to specific strokes in daily conversations, either, so learning the names does not help much.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-embedded-content\" data-secret=\"GA1bUYI4u3\"><p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.hackingchinese.com\/should-you-learn-the-names-of-the-strokes-in-chinese-characters\/\">Should you learn the names of the strokes in Chinese characters?<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"wp-embedded-content\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts\" security=\"restricted\" style=\"position: absolute; visibility: hidden;\" title=\"&#8220;Should you learn the names of the strokes in Chinese characters?&#8221; &#8212; Hacking Chinese\" src=\"https:\/\/www.hackingchinese.com\/should-you-learn-the-names-of-the-strokes-in-chinese-characters\/embed\/#?secret=J8bk0KxJej#?secret=GA1bUYI4u3\" data-secret=\"GA1bUYI4u3\" width=\"500\" height=\"282\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<h3>Describing Chinese characters by identifying their components<\/h3>\n<p>Instead, the best way to describe how characters are written is to identify the components that comprise them.<\/p>\n<p>This does not really work for complete beginners since you need to know some components first, but I do not think complete beginners should spend time learning how to describe written words orally anyway.<\/p>\n<p>You can identify a component either by directly naming it (all the common radicals have colloquial names, for instance) or by referring to another character that shares the same component (&#8220;the bottom part of this character&#8221;, &#8220;the left part of that character&#8221;).<\/p>\n<p>This is actually similar to what we did with words above, but now we are looking inside individual characters.<\/p>\n<p>Here are a few examples of colloquial names of radicals:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\u5355\u4eba\u65c1 d\u0101nr\u00e9np\u00e1ng\uff08\u4ebb\uff09<\/li>\n<li>\u63d0\u624b\u65c1 t\u00edsh\u01d2up\u00e1ng\uff08\u624c\uff09<\/li>\n<li>\u4e09\u70b9\u6c34 s\u0101ndi\u01censhu\u01d0\uff08\u6c35\uff09<\/li>\n<li>\u8d70\u4e4b\u65c1 z\u01d2uzh\u012bp\u00e1ng\uff08\u2ecc\uff09<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Some have several versions:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\u7ad6\u5fc3\u65c1 sh\u00f9x\u012bnp\u00e1ng\uff08\u5fc4\uff09<\/li>\n<li>\u5fc3\u5b57\u5e95 x\u012bnz\u00ecd\u01d0\uff08\u5fc3\uff09<\/li>\n<li>\u7ad6\u5fc3\u5e95 sh\u00f9x\u012bnd\u01d0\uff08\u2e97\uff09<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>In <a href=\"http:\/\/www.hackingchinese.com\/kickstart-your-character-learning-with-the-100-most-common-radicals\/\">my list of the 100 most commonly used radicals<\/a>, I have included all the colloquial names.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-embedded-content\" data-secret=\"Tjzslrv9sI\"><p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.hackingchinese.com\/kickstart-your-character-learning-with-the-100-most-common-radicals\/\">Kickstart your Chinese character learning with the 100 most common radicals<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"wp-embedded-content\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts\" security=\"restricted\" style=\"position: absolute; visibility: hidden;\" title=\"&#8220;Kickstart your Chinese character learning with the 100 most common radicals&#8221; &#8212; Hacking Chinese\" src=\"https:\/\/www.hackingchinese.com\/kickstart-your-character-learning-with-the-100-most-common-radicals\/embed\/#?secret=nVimtYnzVS#?secret=Tjzslrv9sI\" data-secret=\"Tjzslrv9sI\" width=\"500\" height=\"282\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Not all components have colloquial names, though, and even if they do, you might not know them. In such cases, you can fall back on general descriptions.<\/p>\n<p>For example, here is how you could describe some of the components above without relying on the colloquial names:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\u4ebb: n\u01d0 de zu\u01d2bi\u0101n\uff08\u4f60 \u7684 \u5de6\u8fb9\uff09<\/li>\n<li>\u624c: d\u01ce de zu\u01d2bi\u0101n\uff08\u6253 \u7684 \u5de6\u8fb9\uff09<\/li>\n<li>\u2e97: m\u00f9 de xi\u00e0mi\u00e0n\uff08\u6155 \u7684 \u4e0b\u9762\uff09<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>This might work fine in some cases, but you can still run into problems. The first two are probably clear enough, but simply saying <em>m\u00f9<\/em> is not specific (there are many <em>m\u00f9<\/em>, including the \u6728 &#8220;tree&#8221; we looked at earlier). To avoid confusion, you probably need to say \u7fa1\u6155 \u7684 \u6155.<\/p>\n<p>Naturally, the more characters you know, the more useful this method becomes. It does not help much when someone says &#8220;the bottom part of X&#8221; if X is a character you have never heard of.<\/p>\n<p>It is also worth noting that some characters are genuinely hard to describe, even for native speakers, so do not expect this method to work in every situation.<\/p>\n<p>Sometimes, using your phone or writing the character in some other way is your best option.<\/p>\n<h3>Challenge: Guess the correct character<\/h3>\n<p>To wrap up this article, let us play a guessing game.<\/p>\n<p>What follows are descriptions of characters written in Pinyin. If someone said this to you, would you be able to guess what character the person was talking about? The answers here are all beginner-friendly, although the description might not be.<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li><em>zu\u01d2bi\u0101n y\u00edg\u00e8 n\u01da, y\u00f2ubi\u0101n y\u00edg\u00e8 z\u01d0<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>li\u01ceng di\u01cen shu\u01d0 ji\u0101 y\u00edg\u00e8 shu\u01d0<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>f\u0101ngku\u00e0ngp\u00e1ng l\u01d0mi\u00e0n y\u00edg\u00e8 y\u00f9<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>And a few that refer to other characters (some of these are not beginner-friendly):<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li><em>y\u00edg\u00e8 b\u00ecngqi\u011b de b\u00ecng, ji\u0101 y\u00edg\u00e8 w\u01ces\u012b de w\u01ce<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>y\u00edg\u00e8 hu\u01d2 ji\u0101 y\u00edg\u00e8 ji\u01cey\u01d0b\u01d0ngd\u012bng de d\u012bng<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>y\u00edg\u00e8 j\u012bnz\u00ecp\u00e1ng, y\u00edg\u00e8 zh\u0113nsh\u00ed de zh\u0113n<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>If you believe you have the correct answer, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hackingchinese.com\/talk-chinese-characters-chinese\/#comments\">please leave a comment<\/a>. You can also check the comment section if you want to find the answers!<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Editor&#8217;s note:<\/strong> This article, originally published in 2016, was rewritten and republished in November 2025.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>How do native speakers talk about Chinese characters? The writing system is not phonetic, so you can&#8217;t spell out words, but it is still possible to talk about Chinese characters.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20387,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,6,10,21,22],"tags":[97,758,112,805,253,1100],"class_list":["post-8269","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-advanced","category-distinctively-chinese","category-intermediate","category-speaking","category-vocabulary","tag-character-components","tag-character-composition","tag-chinese-characters","tag-colloquial-names","tag-handwriting","tag-podcast-episode"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>How to talk about Chinese characters in Chinese<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"How do native speakers talk about Chinese characters? 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