说文解字 – The first complete dictionary that listed all Chinese characters was published in Han Dynasty 汉朝 at around 100 A.D. It was regarded as the the origin of Chinese characters. It included 9,353 characters.

康熙字典(Kangxi) – the well known classic of Chinese dictionary was published in 1716 of Qing Dynasty 清朝. The Kangxi dictionary included about 46,964 characters compiled in 42 booklets. Most of the characters were unused and rare variant accumulated over the centuries. Those characters were regrouped under 214 radicals still in use today in many dictionaries to classified characters in traditional form.                                                          

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As we know, written Chinese is not an alphabetic language. We call Chinese characters as ‘squared characters’ and they are. They seems very complicated and hard to learn. But Chinese is the most used language in the world and certainly one of the most beautiful languages. It will be interesting to know its origin.

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There are over 80,000 Chinese characters, but most of them are seldom used today. So how many Chinese characters do you need to know? For basic reading and writing of modern Chinese, you only need a few thousands. Here are the coverage rates of the most frequently used Chinese characters:

Most frequently used 1,000 characters: ~90% (Coverage rate)
Most frequently used 2,500 characters: 98.0% (Coverage rate)
Most frequently used 3,500 characters: 99.5% (Coverage rate)

For an English word, the Chinese translation (or the Chinese ‘word’) often consists of two or more Chinese characters. You should use them together and read them from left to right. If you want to arrange them vertically, the one on the leftmost should go to the top. See an example for the word ‘English’ below:

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Chinese characters usually have one or more meanings and some of them are particularly loved by Chinese people. Here is the top ten list of the lucky ones. Please note Pinyin is also used here, which is the Chinese spelling system for the characters. For example, fu is the pinyin for good luck in Chinese. But fu is only the phonic part of the character and it also represents other Chinese characters that sound the same.

  1.) Fu – Blessing, Good Fortune, Good Luck
Fu is one of the most popular Chinese characters used in Chinese New Year. It is often posted upside down on the front door of a house or an apartment. The upside down fu means good luck came since the character for upsite down in Chinese sounds the same as the character for came.

 2.) Lu – Prosperity
It used to mean official’s salary in feudal China. Fengshui is believed to be the Chinese way to health, wealth and happiness. If you are interested in Fengshui, you may check out the book ‘The Feng Shui Kit.’

  3.) Shou – Longevity
Shou also means life, age or birthday.

  4.) Xi – Happiness
Double happiness is usually posted everywhere on Chinese weddings.

 5.) Cai – wealth, money
Chinese often say money can make a ghost turn a millstone. It is to say money really can do a lot of things.

  6.) He – harmonious
‘People harmony’ is an important part of Chinese culture. When you have harmonious relations with others, things will be a lot easier for you.

 7.) Ai – love, affection
Don’t need to say any more about this one. Just want to point out ai is often used with ‘mianzi’ together. Aimianzi means ‘be concerned about one’s face-saving.’

 8.) Mei – beautiful, pretty
The United States of American is called Mei Guo in the short form. Guo means country so Meiguo is a good name.

 9.) Ji – lucky, auspicious, propitious
Hope all is well.

 10.) De – virtue, moral
De means virtue, moral, heart, mind, and kindness, etc. It is also used in the name for Germany, i.e., De Guo.

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