Mandarin Characters of the week

fancynick

Hi ChineseSpeaker, where are you now? Keep going please.

NBguy

海客谈瀛洲，烟涛微茫信难求。越人语天姥，云霞明灭或可睹。天姥连天向天横，势拔五岳掩赤城。天台四万八千丈，对此欲倒东南倾。
我欲因之梦吴越，一夜飞度镜湖月。湖月照我影，送我至剡溪。谢公宿处今尚在，渌水荡漾清猿啼。脚著谢公屐，身登青云梯。半壁见海日，空中闻天鸡。千岩万转路不定，迷花倚石忽已暝。熊咆龙吟殷岩泉，栗深林兮惊层巅。云青青兮欲雨，水澹澹兮生烟。列缺霹雳，丘峦崩摧。洞天石扉，訇然中开。青冥浩荡不见底，日月照耀金银台。霓为衣兮风为马，云之君兮纷纷而来下。虎鼓瑟兮鸾回车，仙之人兮列如麻。忽魂悸以魄动，恍惊起而长嗟。惟觉时之枕席，失向来之烟霞。
世间行乐亦如此，古来万事东流水。别君去兮何时还？且放白鹿青崖间。须行即骑访名山。安能摧眉折腰事权贵，使我不得开心颜！

pauldla

The World of Chinese website has a good section on Chinese language, including one that goes into a number of characters. V interesting reading!

Link

pauldla

rán (second tone)

Meaning: correct; right; thus; so; like this; -ly

It is composed of three radicals:
⺼ ròu: meat; flesh (Kangxi radical 130, standing variant)
犬 quǎn: dog (Kangxi radical 94)
灬 huǒ: fire (Kangxi radical 86, variant)

This is a really useful character to know. It gets used a lot in adverbs, prepositions and conjunctions.

List of useful words that use rán

当然 dāngrán = certainly
果然 guŏrán = really
忽然 hūrán = suddenly
竟然 jìngrán = actually
既然 jìrán = as
居然 jūrán = to go as far as to
然而 ránér = however
然后 ránhòu = then
仍然 réngrán = still
虽然 suīrán = though
突然 tūrán = suddenly
自然 zìrán = natural
自然科学 zìránkēxué = natural science

pauldla

Well my cunning plan to add a character each week has fallen completely by the wayside. However, I did come across this site recently, which is very interesting indeed. It breaks down each character into it's radicals, which I think is 厉害.

Characterpop