In this section, you will listen to and read a paragraph about Xu Shen, a scholar of the Eastern Han dynasty who compiled one of the first Chinese dictionaries. At the bottom of the paragraph you will find buttons that allow you to read the paragraph in Kai or Song font, to see pinyin spellings, to read an English translation, and to listen to the paragraph all at once or phrase by phrase. Read the instructions below, and then click "Start" to begin.
Use the "Kai/Song" button to switch between the fonts. The button text shows the current font.
Use the "Pinyin" button to read the pinyin spelling for each chatacter.
Use the "English" button to see a translation.
The text turns red when the sentence or phrase is being red.
Click the pause button at any time to pause and play the audio.
Bù shǒu shì zěn me lái de? Zhè ge cí shì xǔ shèn chuàng de. Xǔ Shèn shì dōng hàn rén, tā yòng le èr shí nián de shí jiān wán chéng le Zhōng guó de dì yī běn zì diǎn：《Shuō Wén Jiě Zì》.
Where did "radicals" come from? This term was created by Xu Shen. Xu Shen lived during Eastern Han dynasty, and he spent 20 years completing the first Chinese dictionary: Shuo Wen Jie Zi.
Xǔ Shèn bìng bù zhī dào yǒu jiǎ gǔ wén, tā xiè 《Shuō Wén Jiě Zì》 zhǔ yào shì yī jù xiǎo zhuàn. Xǔ Shèn yán jiū zì xíng zì yì bǎ zào zì de yuán zé guī nà chéng liù lóu, jiào zuò 'liù shū.'
Xu Shen did not know of oracle bone scripts; he wrote the Shuo Wen Jie Zi based on simple seal scripts. Xu Shen used his research into character form and meaning to describe six principles of character formation, called "Liushu."
Liù shū shuō míng le sì zhǒng zào zì de fāng fǎ: xiàng xíng, zhǐ shì, huì yì, xíng shēng; hé liǎng zhǒng yòng zì de fāng fǎ: zhuǎn zhù hé jiǎ jiè.
The Liushu explained four methods of creating characters: pictographic, indicative, ideograph, and meaning-sound; plus two ways of expanding the messages of characters: synonym and "borrowed" characters.
Wèi le shǐ yòng fāng biàn, tā bǎ zì diǎn lǐ de jiǔ qiān duō zì fèn chéng 540 bù. Měi yī bù de zì dōu yǒu xiàng tóng de bù jiàn, jiào zuò 'bù shǒu.'
For convenience, he divided nine thousand characters into 540 groups. Each character in a group shares a common component, known as the "radical."