Placing Chinese Characters In Your Electronic

Documents

20 minutes:

1. Structure of Chinese characters

2. Understand the different parts of the

Chinese/English dictionary

3. What are radicals and how to use them to

look up Chinese Characters in a

Chinese/English dictionary.

10 minutes

Break

20 minutes

4. Learn how to copy characters to

documents and to hyperlink these

Chinese characters to their definitions

and to the audio pronunciations in

Mandarin or Cantonese.

5. Why understanding pinyin and

simplified Chinese characters is

important

Optional

6. Questions you might have from last

month's workshop on how to create your

interactive family tree with PowerPoint

using hyperlinks.

Linking Chinese Characters to Chinese/English Dictionary - Steve Kwok April 26, 2014

My personal knowledge of Chinese characters and language

1. Speak some Cantonese

2. Don’t speak Mandarin or use pinyin

3. Can recognize some Traditional characters but not

Simplified characters

Use a dictionary to look up Chinese characters

List of dictionaries

www.mdbg.net www.nciku.com www.yellowbridge.com Pleco apps for iOS and Android devices

There are several ways to look up characters

1. Using handwriting input

2. English

3. Copying a character from some other source

In either traditional or simplified Chinese

4. Enter pinyin

5. Enter jyutping

6. Use radicals

Characters have structure.

Linking Chinese Characters to Chinese/English Dictionary - Steve Kwok April 26, 2014

Radicals are part of that structure

See Radical Chart Radical English

Radials can appear any where in the structure

Most dictionary use stroke counts. See Stroke Charts

Some use total stroke count

Majority use radical + remaining stroke count

The meaning may tell you what the radical might be

Look at this table of just 52 radicals

‎I use mdbg.net because it has everything that I need

Let‘s look at mdbg.net.

You should use what you are comfortable with

Lets start by picking a character: 陳 麗 薇 Using mdbg.net: www.mdbg.net

Or look at the top 25 surnames in China (2007)

The radical for 陳is 阜or阝(on the left side)

This radical has 3 strokes

+ 8 remaining strokes for a total of 11

Select the Radical 阝

Linking Chinese Characters to Chinese/English Dictionary - Steve Kwok April 26, 2014

陳

Select the radical, you will see a list of characters:

Select the character, this is what you'll see:

Why do we care about Pinyin, simplified (or variant)?

Linking Chinese Characters to Chinese/English Dictionary - Steve Kwok April 26, 2014

If you want to put the character in an email, a Word or

PowerPoint document,

Go back to the list of characters select the character

Copy the character.

Then paste it to the document.

You can now change the font and font size

If you want to select multiple characters and link it to the

dictionary:

Select all the characters and paste it to the dictionary

Select the URL and hyperlink this to the characters

Linking Chinese Characters to Chinese/English Dictionary - Steve Kwok April 26, 2014

Strokes Radicals

1 一 丨 丶 丿 乙/乚 亅/了

2 二 亠 人/亻 儿 入 八 冂 冖 冫 几 凵 刀/刂 力 勹 匕 匚 匸 十 卜 卩 厂 厶 又 讠

3

口 囗 土 士 夂 夊 夕 大 女 子/孑 宀 寸 小 尢 尸 屮 山 巛/川 工 己/已/巳 巾 干 幺/乡 广 廴 廾 弋 弓 彐/彑 彡 彳 心/忄 手/扌 水/氵/氺 犬/犭 艸/艹 辵/辶 邑/阝(on right side) 阜/阝(on left side) 纟 门 飞 饣 马

4

心/忄 戈 戶/户 手/扌 支 攴/攵 文 斗 斤 方 无 日 曰 月 木 欠 止 歹 殳 毋/母 比 毛 氏 气 水/氵/氺 火/灬 爪/爫 父 爻 爿 片 牙 牛/牜 犬/犭 玉/玊/王 示/礻 网/罒/罓 老/耂 艸/艹 辵/辶 见 贝 车 韦 风

5 毋/母 水/氵/氺 玄 玉/玊/王 瓜 瓦 甘 生 用 田/由/甲/申 疋 疒 癶 白 皮 皿 目 矛 矢 石 示/礻 禸 禾 穴 立 网/罒/罓 衣/衤 钅 长 鸟 龙

6 竹 米 糸/糹 缶 网/罒/罓 羊 羽 老/耂 而 耒 耳 聿 肉/月 臣 自 至 臼 舌 舛 舟 艮 色 艸/艹 虍 虫 血 行 衣/衤 襾/西/覀 页 齐

7 見 角 言/訁 谷 豆 豕 豸 貝 赤 走 足 身 車 辛 辰 辵/辶 邑/阝(on right side) 酉 釆 里 卤 麦 龟

8 金/釒 長 門 阜/阝(on left side) 隶 隹 雨 青 非 鱼 黾 齿

9 面 革 韋 韭 音 頁 風 飛 食/飠 首 香

10 馬 骨 高 髟 鬥 鬯 鬲 鬼

11 魚 鳥 鹵 鹿 麥 麻 黄

12 黃 黍 黑 黹

13 黽 鼎 鼓 鼠

14 鼻 齊

15 齒

16 龍 龜

17 龠

Linking Chinese Characters to Chinese/English Dictionary - Steve Kwok April 26, 2014

Stroke Name Direction of

Writing Name in Chinese

Dot dian

Horizontal Line

heng

Vertical Line shu

Down-Left pie

Down-Right na

Up-Right ti

The “Meaning Radicals” February 4, 2013 by djshin in CHINESE WRITING

Linking Chinese Characters to Chinese/English Dictionary - Steve Kwok

April 26, 2014

Stroke Name Direction of

Writing Name in Chinese

Hook or

Vertical Stroke with Hook

gou or

shugou

Horizontal Stroke with

Hook

Variation of shugou

hengou

Bending Stroke with

Hook

Variation of shugou

wangou

Slant Stroke with Hook

Variation of shugou

xiegou

Level Bending Stroke with

Hook

Variation of shugou

pinggou

The “Meaning Radicals” February 4, 2013 by djshin in CHINESE WRITING

Linking Chinese Characters to Chinese/English Dictionary - Steve Kwok April 26, 2014

Stroke Name Direction of

Writing Name in Chinese

Turn Or

Horizontal Stroke with

Vertical Turn

zhe or

hengzhe

Vertical Stroke with

Horizontal Turn

Variation of hengzhe

shuzhe

Stroke Name Direction of

Writing Name in Chinese

Vertical Stroke combined with Level Bending

Stroke with Hook

shuwangou

Down Stroke to the Left Combined with Dot

piedian

Vertical Stroke with Double

Turn and Hook

shuzhezhegou

The “Meaning Radicals” February 4, 2013 by djshin in CHINESE WRITING

Linking Chinese Characters to Chinese/English Dictionary - Steve Kwok April 26, 2014

The “Meaning Radicals” February 4, 2013 by djshin in CHINESE WRITING

Sometimes the radicals imply the meaning of the character. Look at this table of just 52 radicals. 52 of the Radicals have meaning:

Linking Chinese Characters to Chinese/English Dictionary - Steve Kwok April 26, 2014

Rank Character Romanizations

Mandarin Cantonese

2007 Radical Trad. Simp. Pinyin Jyutping HK

1 玉玊王 + 0 王 Wáng Wong4 Wong

2 木 + 3 李 Lǐ Lei5 Lee Li

3 弓 + 8 張 张 Zhāng Zoeng1 Cheung

4 刀刂 + 13 劉 刘 Liú Lau4 Lau

5 阜阝 + 8 陳 陈 Chén Can4 Chan

6 木 + 9 楊 杨 Yáng Joeng4 Yeung

7 黃 + 0 黃 黄 Huáng Wong4 Wong

8 走 + 7 趙 赵 Zhào Ziu6 Chiu

9 口 + 4 吳 吴 Wú Ng4 Ng

10 口 + 5 周 Zhōu Zau1 Chow

11 彳 + 7 徐 Xú Ceoi4 Tsui

12 子孑 + 7 孫 孙 Sūn Syun1 Suen

13 馬 + 0 馬 马 Mǎ Maa5 Ma

14 木 + 2 朱 Zhū Zyu1 Chu

15 肉月 + 5 胡 Hú Wu4 Wu

16 邑阝 + 8 郭 Guō Gwok3 Kwok

17 人亻 + 5 何 Hé Ho4 Ho

18 高 + 0 高 Gāo Gou1 Ko

19 木 + 4 林 Lín Lam4 Lam

20 网罒罓 + 14 羅 罗 Luó Lo4 Lo

21 邑阝 + 12 鄭 郑 Zhèng Zeng6 Cheng

22 木 + 7 梁 Liáng Loeng4 Leung

23 言訁 + 10 謝 谢 Xiè Ze6 Tse

24 宀 + 4 宋 Sòng Sung3 Sung

25 口 + 7 唐 Táng Tong4 Tong

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_common_Chinese_surnames

Linking Chinese Characters to Chinese/English Dictionary - Steve Kwok April 26, 2014