Level 27 Complete

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Level 27学完了！你好努力哦 ;) 努力 nǔlì - hard working

Oh hey, didja notice that 学 is a slightly more precise verb to use than 做 when we say “Level 27 […]完了!” See what we mean about categorical words?

Goal 1: Be understood (做完了)
Goal 2: Be understood precisely (学完了)

想一想你自己学汉语的进步。你有什么反应？我们觉得你应该很开心！

Speaking of 学… 

People often ask us: “What’s the difference between 学 & 学习?”

Answer: 学 means ‘to learn’ in general, and 学习 is one of the methods you can use to learn, i.e., ‘to study.’ 学 is less specific because studying isn’t the only way to learn (e.g., learning from experience).

Consider that 习 means ‘to practice,’ so ‘studying’ is your ‘learning by practice.’ There’s a conscious intention applied to it, and we find it extraordinary how that concept can be expressed so succinctly in two characters.

Ancient Chinese Matters

Why did distinctions like the one between 学 & 学习 develop? First of all, one-character words are often broader in their definition than two-character words, which fits logically with the etymology of languages in general.

Before the evolution of language, it’s fair to say that no communication was so complicated that it couldn’t be expressed via facial expressions & body language. Eventually, concepts started to become too complicated to rely only on non-verbal communication and thus humans began making mouth noises to communicate (about 200,000 years ago). Since then, it’s been a game of language adapting to both the ever-increasing complexity of the external environment and the increase in intelligence through the generations. 

Moving from language in general to Chinese specifically, it’s interesting to note a significant evolution in ancient Chinese that allowed for adaptation to the modern version: Word length.

The Move to the Modern

For the majority of its history, ancient Chinese followed the standard of “one character=one word.” It’s not too taxing to understand that, as the language developed in complexity, only one character per word became too constraining. That shift from the majority of words following the “one character=one word” standard to “two characters=one word” allowed people a much broader ability to express complex ideas.

However, that doesn’t mean that one-character words didn’t survive the transition. We’re over-simplifying here, but a simple way to think about one-character words in modern Chinese is that they come from a time where the external environment was less complex, so you didn’t need words to be as precise. Therefore, if one-character words survived to modern Chinese, chances are it has a broad definition.

Level 27 Affixes!

Have you read our article on Affixes yet? Even if you have, now is not a bad time to give it another read as this level covered a few.

学 - Suffix

There’s that darn 学 again! What a character. Any field of study will have the suffix “学” at the end. Forget all these weird words like ‘biology,’ ‘economics,’ and ‘chemistry’ with their inconsistent suffixes, who needs it!

化学 - chemistry
美学 - aesthetics
数学 - mathematics
文学 - literature (the study of)
汉学 - sinology (the study of China)
药学 - the study of pharmaceuticals

This is part of the reason why Mandarin Blueprint sets you up for success in Chinese. Although you’ll use these words not too long from now, you’ll notice they aren’t on your word list. After all, they aren’t all that high-frequency, yet we’re sure it would take you virtually zero mental energy to learn these words. Why? You know the characters, you hero of Mandarin study. “‘Number study’ (数学) means mathematics?” you think, “Good thing I’m as smart as Einstein!”

老 - Prefix

You learned 老 as ‘old,’ and it does indeed have this definition in words like 老人 or when it is used as a description (e.g., 他很老), but when you see it in a word like 老公 or 老外, it’s a prefix. The prefix usage is merely to express affection. Sometimes it also represents seniority, and hey, that’s a bit of a connection to the original definition of ‘old.’

者 - Suffix

When 者 is a suffix, it means ‘person’ who either does or is whatever comes before it. For example, in this unit, you learned the word 记者, aka “one who records” or “journalist.”

Other examples:

学者 - scholar
听者 - listener
双语者 - bilingual speaker
发明 - to invent - 发明者 - inventor
同道者 - fellow traveler, a like-minded person (literally ‘same path person’)

Isn’t it Glorious?

We’re sure you’re starting not only to see but also *feel* how simple Chinese words are and how simple it will be to master new vocabulary the more characters you learn. How about you keep it up?

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