Discussing Chinese Characters in Detail

Author: Zuo Min'an
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-12-01
Features: This is a popular book introducing the basic knowledge of Chinese characters. The original book was published as "Examples of Chinese Characters" and "Continuation of Examples of Chinese Characters," both of which were well-received by readers. The two volumes have now been combined into one, renamed as the present book, and over 460 illustrations related to the content have been selected. The book uses 1,000 representative commonly used Chinese characters as examples to explain how they evolved from oracle bone script, bronze script, to small seal script, regular script, and simplified characters. At the same time, through form analysis, it specifically explains the internal relationship between the shape and meaning of each character. It also uses examples from ancient Chinese poems and prose to discuss the original meaning, extended meaning, and borrowed meaning of each character. Additionally, it compares certain easily misidentified, mispronounced, or misused characters in terms of their form, sound, and meaning, pointing out the reasons for errors and methods to correct them. This book helps readers improve their ability to read ancient Chinese poems and prose and use characters correctly. For those engaged in language teaching, it is also a very practical reference book. The section "The Structure of Chinese Characters" in the book has been selected for the Hong Kong secondary school Chinese language curriculum. The purpose of writing this book is to help people understand how Chinese characters have actually evolved through a detailed analysis of over 1,000 commonly used characters.