NinchaneseThe Chinese character 人
And its component form
人
rén
- human being; mankind
- person
- people
- other people; others
The character 人 was created to look like the image of a man with his arms hanging straight, working in the fields. Do you see it?
人 is both a character and a character component
人 can be used as a meaning component in a Chinese character. You’ll find 人 in characters related to mankind. It can be found in characters that express a human action, a behavior, a character trait, and more.
These characters all contain 人:
When used as a component, 人 can also change shapes.
The component 人 is usually easy to spot, once you know it can also take another form.
亻
You can find it in words looking like this in words like:
你 nǐ: you
他 tā: he; him
Do you see how 人 in this shape is always placed on the left?
You’ll also find the meaning component 人 in many other Chinese characters. Browse the full list here.
All 80,000+ Chinese characters share the same character components. Character components are therefore essential for Chinese learners: they are the building blocks of Chinese. Character components help tremendously with understanding a character: they provide information on its meaning or on its pronunciation. In short, knowing character components will help you analyse, learn and remember each Chinese character much better.
Join us on Ninchanese as we teach you everything about the Chinese character components you need to know, little by little.