What are graphemes in Chinese

Beginners often think that each character is completely unique. But in fact, hieroglyphs are made up of specific elements that form the basis of the Chinese language. And they are called graphemes.

Grapheme — what is it?

A grapheme in Chinese is an element of a character, a part of it. By itself, it can be a separate hieroglyph, but most often it serves as part of another hieroglyph. To better understand this system, imagine that in Russian there would be not individual letters — "a", "b", "c", but groups of letters - for example, "genus". And then, in order to form a word, it would be necessary to use only one, two or three such "groups of letters". For example, the very word "genus". Or "relatives". Or "nugget". Or "birth". Graphemes in Chinese are these very "groups of letters".

Are there many such graphemes in Chinese?

There are several hundred such graphemes in Chinese — this is enough to write any of the existing hieroglyphs. However, in practice, it is enough to know about 60 graphemes, which are most common.

Let's get acquainted with the grapheme — 讠 (yán). It means "speech". Now take a look at the picture — these are just a few of the characters that are formed using this grapheme. And, of course, the meaning of these hieroglyphs is always associated with speech.

At what stage do you start studying them?

It is better to start learning graphemes from the very first Chinese lessons. They are just as important as the tones of the Chinese language, which we talked about in this article. Therefore, before learning Chinese characters, learn basic Chinese graphemes. As the practice of our school shows, this simple step will increase the effectiveness of teaching Chinese at times.