Most complicated Chinese characters I’ve learned at Nankai

Hey hey!

How is your week-end? Been thankful enough? What are you thankful for? For myself, i’m thankful for so many things, living a happy life with my family, friends. Of course, it is not always easy but hey, just never give up!

Ok, today, after une belle grasse matinée, breakfast/brunch, i will list you some of the most complicated chinese characters i’ve learned in Nankai University this summer.

Although, before doing so, i want to take a moment to explain you that in China, there are many dialects where the official one is mandarin (this is the dialect that i’ve been busting my ass off). There were traditional characters, but in the last century, the Chinese are using the simplified characters (except for some places such as Taiwan and Hong Kong).

Here is an example: a character of my Chinese name, bao, which means treasure. one has almost 20 strokes, and the other, almost cut in half…
(to see the characters more clearly, press “ctrl +” many times to zoom in)

traditional character:

寶

simplified character:

宝

Now, i’ve been learning mandarin and the simplified characters. Even though they are “simplified”, several characters are still complicated (so many strokes) to write… here are a little selection (from hundreds learned in the summer):

壁橱

bi chu: wardrobe

熬夜

ao ye: staying up all night

报警

bao jing: to warn the police

霸主

ba zhu: winner of a title

蝙蝠

bian fu: bat (as in batman)

编辑

bian ji: to edit

打喷嚏

da pen ti: sneezing

耳鼻喉科

er bi hou ke: ortho-rhino-laryngologie

翻译

fan yi: to translate

沸腾

fei teng: effervescence

键盘

jian pan: keyboard

脚腕子

jiao wan zi: ankle

基督教

ji du jiao: Christianity

魔镜

mo jing: sunglasses

圈

quan: enclose

新疆

xin jiang: a region in the north west of China

幽默

you mo: humour

油腻

you ni: greasy

藏族

zang zu: Tibetans

Finally, i would say that most of the characters are complicated, we all have to copy them dozens of time to remember them and yet… so easy to forget when lacking of practice.

Go practice, dictation next week! ^_^

-isaSuperstar