Look how a horse 马 combines with other characters without change their pronunciations to form new characters. Of course the newly-formed characters’ meanings are all horse-related.
Author: Decode Mandarin Chinese
Where is the sheep 羊?
Sheep are docile animals; they were offered by the ancient people to God; they were eaten; etc. In a word, sheep played a very important role. Needlessly to say there are quite a few characters composed of 羊. How is 羊 sheep written in Chinese characters? You can see from the picture 羊 sheep can be written in various ways. All the meanings of the characters here are their original meanings.
Wherever a bird 鸟 is, it is still a bird.
When you see characters composed of 鸟 niǎo, don’t think too much; they are just names of different birds or something related to a bird. Their pronunciations are the same as or similar to the pronunciations of the counterparts of 鸟, e.g. 武 wǔ + 鸟 ＝ 鹉 wǔ, 九 jiǔ + 鸟 ＝ 鸠 jiū.
Radical meat 月: on the left or right?
In Chinese, most of the words with “月” have nothing to do with “moon” but have to do with “flesh, organs, limbs, veins, muscles, etc.” These words are formed by “月 + other characters.” In this case, “月” is related with “flesh/meat” but not “moon”.
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