Sometimes I think the more I study Chinese, the more confused I get. Realising that some characters change their tone or pronunciation was one of those moments for me a few months ago.
The reason for me posting this is because I just found another one in 转 (轉 traditional) - this can either be zhuǎn or zhuàn. After constantly thinking my mind was playing tricks on my during my Hack Chinese reviews, I looked up the explanation:
转 (轉) zhuǎn: To change a direction (something, someone, a situation)
Examples: 转身 (轉身) zhuǎn shēn, 右转 (右轉) yòu zhuǎn, 情况好转了 (情況好轉了) qíng kuàng hǎo zhuǎn le
转 (轉) zhuàn- to describe something moves around an axis/centre
Examples: 转圈 (轉圈) zhuàn quān, 旋转 (旋轉) xuán zhuàn
Here is also an article that has been helpful to me as part of my Chinese learning journey… although I must say I’m still a little reluctant to accept that character sound/tone change is a thing!
If anyone has anymore that confused them it would be interesting to hear too!
Yes, I remember that moment too. I was just about getting my head around all these characers and how they work with radicals and then I realized that not only characters are super hard to learn, but some simply have two different pronunciations. For no reason whatsoever.
There is no way around it, you have to accept the fact It is not too many though and usually the different pronunciations of a character are quite similar and mean reasonably similar things (though not always). The Mandarin term for them is 多音字 ， literally “Many Pronunciation Characters”.
Already beginners meet those. Examples of yesterday: 干，
gan1, clean, dry, …
gàn, to do, to work, tree trunk,…
只
zhi3, only
zhi1, measure word for birds (and?)
发
fà, hair
fa1, to send out
How can we handle those characters on hackchinese? @Hack-Chinese-Daniel
E.g. is it possible that those chars get a * or another colour to show us that there are more possible tones and different meanings?
At first of course I always doubted that I remembered well “my tone and meaning” for a char, or I think, maybe the char has a little difference I haven’t discovered yet. Which happens often enough, btw.
Each day a new one from now on?? 还 hái, still, yet, even more, (还是 , háishi, or)
and today 还 is huán, repay, give back, go back
and half a minute later already the next one. 地， dì, earth
I was so proud of knowing words like 地中海，the Mediterranean Sea, 地铁，the Underground, 地方，place, room, 地图，the map,
and now it is a
“de”, some strange linking particle.
I’m not complaining, I’m making progress.
Interesting! In traditional, most of these are different e.g. 发 → 髮 and 發; 只 → 只 and 隻. I hadn’t considered that this will be an even bigger problem for simplified!
moments for me a few months ago.
It is not too many though and usually the different pronunciations of a character are quite similar and mean reasonably similar things (though not always). The Mandarin term for them is 多音字 ， literally “Many Pronunciation Characters”.
e.g. 发 → 髮 and 發; 只 → 只 and 隻. I hadn’t considered that this will be an even bigger problem for simplified!