Have you ever wondered about the following questions?
- Why is Chinese obsessed with 2-syllable words?
- Why does Chinese make compound words with characters that have similar meanings?
- Why does Chinese add 子 zi and 儿 er, which have no meaning after so many words?
- Why can one character have so many different pronunciations?
- I’ve heard all Chinese characters have their own meaning, so I should always see words separately, right?
If you want to know the answers, this is the right article 😇
What is a compound word?
A compound word is made up of two smaller words. For example:
牙刷 = 牙 + 刷
Yáshuā = Yá + shuā
Toothbrush = Tooth + Brush
书架 = 书 + 架
Shūjià = Shū + jià
Bookshelf = Book + Shelf
Ok, so 2 words with different meanings create 1 new word. It makes sense! But how about the following 2 examples?
睡觉 = 睡 + 觉
Shuìjiào = Shuì + jiào
Sleep = Sleep + Sleep
美丽 = 美 + 丽
Měilì = Měi + lì
Beauty = Beauty + Beauty
The characters in these words mean basically the same thing, so why do we have to repeat ourselves? Before I answer that question, let’s look more closely at how characters work in Chinese.
What actually are characters in Chinese?
In English, it’s easy to recognize prefixes and suffixes and tell them apart from word roots, but that’s not how Chinese works. Lots of Chinese words have multiple functions. One character can be a word by itself, or can be combined with another word (a little bit like English prefixes and suffixes). For example:
水
- As a word: 水儿 (shuǐer) water + no meaning = water
- As a prefix: 水果 (shuǐguǒ) water + fruit = fruit
- As a suffix: 口水 (kǒushuǐ) mouth + water = saliva
火
- As a word: 火焰 (huǒyàn) fire + fire = fire
- As a prefix: 火车 (huǒchē) fire + car = train
- As a suffix: 军火 (Jūnhuǒ) military + fire = ammunition
So if you want to clarify the meaning and the function, it’s better to use 2 characters to describe one word. It can narrow down the meaning and get rid of other ambiguities. That’s why we love to use compound words.
Besides being a prefix and a suffix, one character can also be a verb, an adjective (stative verb), a noun, or even a particle. For example:
長/长
- As a verb: 长 (zhǎng) to grow
- As an adjective (stative verb): 长 (cháng) long
- As a noun: 长 (zhǎng) leader
得
- As a verb: 得 (dé) to get
- As a particle: 得 (de) to link a verb and a stative verb
- As an auxiliary verb: 得 (děi) must
These 2 are good examples of why one character has several pronunciations: Because they serve different functions. Just like in English, “record” is one word, but depending on the meaning, you will pronounce it differently.
Can I just use one character?
The short answer is yes! But, one of the reasons we try to avoid using only one character is that there are so many homophones in Chinese. If you just listen to a word without reading it, it can be very confusing.
So when one character is by itself, especially if it is a noun, we like to add another character with the same meaning or add a non-content word such as, “子(zi) and 儿(er)”
火焰 (huǒyàn) fire + fire = fire
水儿 (shuǐer) water + no meaning = water
桌子 (zhuōzi) table + no meaning = table
But, the funny thing is that when these nouns combine with another word, it can help clarify the meaning. Then the duplicate words and no-meaning words are not necessary anymore.
大火 (dàhuǒ) big + fire = large fire; conflagration
喝水 (hēshuǐ) drink + water = to drink water
木桌 (mùzhuō) wood + table = wooden table
Note: Around 10 percent of Chinese words are commonly used by themselves. So don’t get me wrong- I am not asking you to always use compound words. I am just trying to give you a brief introduction and explanation.
So “子 zi“ and ”兒/儿 er” have no meaning?
Correct but not correct!
If you read 子 as zǐ, it means child.
When you read 儿 as ér, it means son.
If you read both of them in a neutral tone, then yes, they have no meaning, but they still have their functions.
子
To define a word as a noun
鼻子 (bízi) nose
鞋子 (xiézi) shoe
狮子 (shīzi) lion
To change a word into a noun
刷子 (shuāzi) = to brush + zi = a brush
傻子 (shǎzi) = foolish + zi = fool
兒/儿
To distinguish words
白面 (báimiàn): flour
白面儿 (báimiànr): heroin
To distinguish homophones
完 (wán): to finish
玩儿 (wánr): to play
To distinguish a noun from a verb
画 (huà): to paint
画儿 (huàr): painting
How about ancient Chinese?
Chinese wasn’t always like this. In ancient times, most Chinese words were one syllable. However, language has changed a lot over time. The basic characters are not enough anymore, so we have started to create some new characters. But creating new characters wasn’t an easy job, so instead of creating new characters, Chinese people decided to combine characters and make them into new words. As for the original root words, we also add one character or create two-syllable words to get rid of any ambiguity.
| Ancient Words | New Words | |
| 日 rì | ➡️ | 太阳 Tàiyáng |
| Sun | ☀️ | |
| 月 yuè | ➡️ | 月亮 Yuèliang |
| Moon | 🌙 |
So did we abandon the ancient words? The answer is no. We’ve kept the ancient words and their meanings to combine with other characters. And we’ve created new words that somehow relate to the original meaning.
日期 rìqī date
日出 rìchū sunrise
生日 shēngrì birthday
一月 yīyuè January
月经 yuèjīng menstrual period
月票 yuèpiào monthly ticket
It seems like every word has its own function
That’s not quite the case. There is one kind of word called binding words (连绵词 liánmián cí), which contains only one morpheme. For example:
葡萄 (pútáo): grape
骆驼 (luòtuó): camel
尴尬 (gāngà): embarrassing; embarrassed
These words can not be separated. Despite having 2 characters, these words have no meaning if the characters are separated. So don’t force your Mandarin teacher to explain every single word in Chinese to you, unless you want to kill your teacher….
F.Y.I.
In Chinese culture, even numbers are considered good and peaceful. This even number combination could be 1+1 = 2 characters, 1+3 = 4 characters, or 2+2 = 4 characters, etc. And this belief extends to the preference for even syllable characters and sentences, which are thought to sound more pleasing and harmonious to the ear, and they are often used in poetry and other forms of literature.
