The Thousand Character Classic 千字文 Part 3

日月盈昃　辰宿列張

Mandarin: rìyuè yíngzè chénxiù lièzhāng
Japanese: ジツゲツ　エイショク　シンシュクレツチョウ
Korean: 일월 영측 진숙열장

The Thousand Character Classic 千字文 Part 2

This is the 2nd phrase for the Thousand Character Classic:

宇宙洪荒

Mandarin: yǔzhòu hónghuāng
Japanese: ウチュウ　コウコウ
Korean: 우주 홍황

The Thousand Character Classic 千字文 Part 1

So I was browsing through random language-related articles in wikipedia today when I stumbled upon something called the Thousand Character Classic or 千字文 (Mandarin: qiānzìwén, Cantonese: cin1dzi6man4, Japanese:千字文, Korean: 천자문). Basically it was first written for the prince of a certain Chinese dynasty so that he could practice calligraphy. It was then used as a primer for children to learn the 1000 basic Chinese characters necessary to be literate. It is no longer used now as modern Chinese is structured differently to Classic Chinese. However most characters have roughly the same meaning either in Classic Chinese or Modern Chinese. If you have been reading this blog you know probably already know just how addicted I am to the Chinese characters. Therefore learning the Thousand Character Classic is a must!

Since the classic is broken down into 4-character phrases, I plan to learn a phrase a day. I will write down the phrase and provide the Mandarin, Japanese and Korean pronunciation using many online resources of course. I plan to include the Japanese onyomi pronunciation just so I could learn them but reading Classical Chinese in Japanese is quite complicated, so I will not deal with that here.

Here is the first phrase:

天地玄黃

Mandarin: tiān dì xuán huáng
Japanese: テン　チ　ゲン　コウ
Korean: 천 지 현 황

The Origin of Hiragana Characters あいうえお

Hiragana is one of the scripts used to write the Japanese language. Japanese was first written using "Kanji," which are what Chinese characters are called in the Japanese language. As Chinese characters were not completely suitable as the sole medium for writing Japanese, scripts such as Hiragana and Katakana were developed.

In this video series I'd like to show you the Chinese characters from which Hiragana originated. Hiragana are the simplified cursive form of the Chinese characters they originate from.

Korean Practice / Response to Hyunwoo's Video Request

Just like the title says...

The 2009 Kanji Challenge

I am joining fellow language enthusiast KanjiKeith and others in the 2009 Kanji challenge. Basically, we will try to familiarize ourselves with up to 2009 Kanji in a short span of time. The goal is not to actually master the Chinese Characters, but just to know their basic meaning and pronunciation. Please click on the picture below to view the website.

Kanji by Kunyomi Readings －smart.fm list

Do any of you guys use smart.fm? It's a website for language learners that utilises spaced-repition to learn vocabulary. There are tons of lists for learning many languages and you can even make your own!

I started making this list of the Kunyomi readings for Kanji as they are impossible to guess (unlike Onyomi). A person who knows more than 500 Kanji or who is Chinese (or even maybe Korean if they studied it in school) should be able to guess, though not perfectly, the onyomi for most Kanji, but for Kunyomi you can't actually guess the pronunciation.

Anyway click on the link below and it should take you to the list. I hope to expand this list so keep on checking.

Launcher

これは訓読みを覚えるのに困っている人には助かると思うので使って下さい。将来にはこのリストを拡張するつもりなのでよく見て下さい。

我覺得日本漢字的訓讀很難記得所以我在smart.fm造了這個單詞表。

Live Language Practice - Meeting Hyunwoo Sun!

I have to say that meeting Hyunwoo Sun was a big highlight of my stay in Japan. It's very inspiring to see another person trying to learn many languages and actually succeed.

Update on Korean Learning

What started out as an attempt to impress a high school crush has turned out to be an on and off obsession. After high school, I eventually lost interest in this person, but my love for her language and culture actually increased day by day. Unfortunately, learning the language of Korea is not as easy as learning the language of it's neighbours China and Japan. By that I mean there aren't quite as many resources for learning Korean (at least in Australia) as there are for learning Japanese and Chinese. I really hope that I can live in Korea at least for 2 months so I can get to the point where I can at least hold a decent conversation. Right now, I can travel around Korea OK. I guess I just need to have more vocabulary. Anyway for now it's time to re-subscribe to KoreanClass101.com. Meeting some fantastic people last Saturday reminded me of just how much I love the Korean language and how I want to experience life there even just for a bit.

Practicing Chinese Characters Through Typing

Hello everyone. I'm a little lazy to do my videos on the Japanese pitch accent, but I was inspired to share my way of learning Chinese characters. Basically, all you have to do is keep on typing and typing and typing! Regardless of the language, many characters share the same pronunciation and by typing you are given character recognition practice. Please watch the video for more details.