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Formations of Chinese Characters

1. Pictographs (象形) xiàng xíng : words formed form things which can be drawn (animals, objects, people,ect.)

2. Simple Indicatives (指事) zhǐ shì : words formed from the ting that cant be drawn (direction, numbers ect.)

example:

二 - èr - two

下- xià - down

3. Compound Indicatives (会意) huì yì : words formed to be understood easily after pictograph and indicatives were formed.

example:

林 - lín - grove (2 trees)

森 - sēn - forest (3 trees)

休 - xiū - rest (man leaning against tree)

4. Photo-semantic compound characters (形聲) xíng shēng : words formed with the fact taken as best pronunciation in similar and added to other character or words to from new words.

example:

氵(meaning: water) + 木 (pronunciation: mù) = 沐 (to wash one's hair , (pronunciation: mù))

艹 (meaning: grass) +采 (pronunciation: cǎi ) = 菜 (vegetable, cǎi )

5. Borrowed Characters (假借) jiǎ jiè : words formed by taking parts of other words

example:

来 = lái (wheat plant) pronounced the same was as to come then the character was taken from 来 to write to come. The word for wheat has now changed to 麥 = mài。

6. Derived Characters (轉注) zhuǎn zhù: words share the same root or characters.

example:

the characters 老 lǎo (old) and 考 kǎo (a test) come from the same root but a part has been changed to indicate a different meaning.