Beyond yoUrself In Language Development

Oct 20th, 2011 by Robin Chen

同学们好！

This week, we had a lot of fun learning about the history and formation of Chinese characters!

Chinese characters first appeared in oracle bone script. In the early days, words closely resembled the concepts they were supposed to represent. For instance, the character for “sun” was a circle with a dot inside, and the character for “water” was three rows of flowing lines. As time went on, the characters became more standardized and square in shape. However, Chinese characters are still beautiful and evoke a sense of aestheticism, as seen in this video:

十二生肖 12 Chinese Zodiac Animals

Then, we learned about the principles of Chinese calligraphy 书画! There is a specific way to write each character, but you don’t have to memorize each one individually! Just remember: top to bottom, left to right, and outside to inside. Traditionally, when Chinese people do calligraphy, they should have the Four Treasures of the Study: brush, ink, paper, and seal. We managed to get by with just the first three. When writing calligraphy, sit with an upright posture, the paper square in front of you, and hold the brush upright too. Breathe deeply and steadily. Use varying pressure to change the width of your strokes. We practiced writing 永 (permanence) and our names. Why 永? Because it has eight of the basic strokes in Chinese calligraphy!