Chinese alphabet

[Frank]

The Chinese Language does not have an alphabet!
This language has a totally differrent concept for writing. Each chinese character (there are thousands of them) has it's own meaning. There is i.e. a single character that means 'women', another one for 'man', one for 'peace', one for 'love' and so on. Chinese characters are basically pictographs, abstract pictures that symbolize a special meaning. You also know pictographs from traffic signs or signs in an airport, telling you where the toilet is, or the telephone, the elevator ... even if you are in a foreign country and do not know the language. On the other hand, the characters of the differents alphabets (the latin alphabet that we use here, the greek alphabet, the cyryllic alphabet that is used in russia, and others) have no own meaning, they only transport a sound. A 'B' is just a 'B', no special meaning, you just know how to pronounce it, that's all.
In the spoken chinese language, each character is connected with a syllable of the language. In the different chinese dialects (at least 8 main dialects) the pronunciation of the characters is different but the meaning of the chartacters is the same and a north chinese (speaking mandarin dialect) can read a newspaper in guangzhou (cantonese dialect) without problems but will not be able to talk to another person who only speaks cantonese. But if you go i.e. from england to france, you'll also find the same characters but if you read the word 'encre' you'll maybe not know that it is the french word for 'ink', even if you know the characters.


Please read also the FAQ section of the http://zhongwen.com homepage and have a look on this :
http://zhongwen.com/x/faq14-1.gif

[brad`]

how do i say happy mothers day in mandarinand who do iwrite it

[khalid khan]

hello sir
i m from india n want to speap chinese as i speak my language . please guide me how to go for it .. tell me all kinds of help fromthe net
thank you..

[mike wu]

Hello ! I needs your help , My friend ask me what is shoushan stone ? and she say shoushan stone is from 福建 県 福州市 famous stone For making 印章, And how to write the chinese character ? Thanks you.

[Lorien]

Hey, I' want to get a henna tatto of something written in chineese symbols. could you tell me how these look?

< Life
< Dreams/Dreamer
< Rock
< Guitars

please help me asap, THANKS

[claire]

I want to get a tattoo with the name DAVID, can you please show me what this would look like.

Much appreciated if you could get back to me a.s.a.p

Thanks

[Access to Chinese]

http://www.lechinois.com/chinesename/ch ... title.html

[Aubree]

i'm thinkin the Chinese don't really have an alphabet for the things you are trying to find.

[sharon]

What are the symbols for Happy New Year? Where can I download these symbols so that I can cut and paste them into a word document
Thank you

[sharon]

What are the symbols for Happy New Year? Where can I download these symbols so that I can cut and paste them into a word document
Thank you