Character #341: 刀 dāo
3 Lessons
Make a Movie 刀
KEYWORD:
Knife
Pinyin:
dāo
Actor:
d- Male
Set:
-ao
Room within Set:
Outside the Entrance
Prop(s):
Pictograph: This looks less like a knife than it did in its ancient form, however, if you imagine that out of the top of this character comes out a knife and the character itself is the handle you’ll have it.
Member Comments from 2019-mid-2020
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William Edmeades
I'm sticking with the default Knife Handle, but some other good ideas could be a Guitar Clamp, or the head & trigger for those cleaning sprays like 'Ajax Spray & Wipe'.
Image credit: CC BY 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
Comments 7
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PHASE 3 (Levels 13-20)
- The Basic Chinese Sentence
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Level 21
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Level 22
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Level 23
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Level 24
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- My Two Friends and I
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Level 25
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Level 26
Level 27
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Level 28
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Level 29
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Level 30
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Annette Bicknell
I was looking for the backstory to the character and came across this website which has some interesting pictures associated with characters and short explanations of their history:
https://www.chineasy.com/3-groups-of-chinese-characters-that-are-easily-mixed-up/
The drawings for many characters are easily found when searching images and seem to always incorporate the character which in some cases helps me when finding a good image is not so easy or the obvious such as in the case of 刀.
Anjulee
This is a great website. Thank you for sharing.
Robert
The Knives Out Movie worked well for this one since My"D" is Daniel Craig. Detective Benoit Blanc - a memorable character, shows up at my "AO" front door... with his hilarious accent asking crazy detective like questions about knives!
Anne Giles 🤝
从几个刀，她力地用九个刀子。
Cóng jǐ gè dāo, tā lì de yòng jiǔ gè dāozi.
From a few knives, she powerfully used nine knives.
对不对？
Mandarin Blueprint
This sentence is off for a few reasons:
1. 几个 indicates "a few between 2-10, so using 九 later in the sentence feels like too many knives chosen from "几个"
2. If you were going to say "a few knives," it would be 几个刀子
3. 力 by itself isn't used as a verb in this way. You might say 用力地 to say "powerfully," but then you wouldn't use the verb "用." 用 is too broad a verb in this case. "She powerfully used the knife" ...to do what? Stab someone? Cut vegetables? It needs more clarity of intention.
My sense is that getting more input will sort out these types of things. I am able to follow what you mean, but it strikes me that this sentence is reaching a bit farther than your current input allows. My guess is by the end of the foundation course, many of these types of issues will be sorted out.
Anne Giles 🤝
Thanks for the feedback. I can see I wasn't clear in asking for help with creating a sentence that helps me differentiate between these look-alike characters by meaning, in addition to using the Hanzi Movie Method: 几刀力九刀.
Jason Pon
Also kind of looks like the head of cleaver, without the handle.