Commonly Confused Chinese Characters

By Calvin Sun

Learning Chinese is hard enough. What makes it even harder, though, is the fact that many characters look similar. This book gives side-by-side examples of commonly confused characters, along with their respective meanings and pronunciations. It also analyzes how the characters differ, and in many cases gives memory tricks to tell them apart.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Calvin Sun
• Release date: Feb 25, 2012

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Common Confused Chinese Characters

By Calvin Sun

Copyright 2012 Calvin Sun

Smashwords Edition

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

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Learning the Chinese language is a big enough challenge in itself. But an even greater challenge lies in the fact that many characters look similar. When I studied Chinese, and even now, I would be hampered by these similar-looking characters. I would see the one character and try to remember how it differed from the other character. Then later I would see that second character and try to remember how it differed from the first. But never would I take the time or effort to put the two characters side by side in order to analyze them at the same time.

For that reason, I have done so in this book, in the hope that it will help

Only in a few cases are characters listed because of a different main radical. Here the difference due to less than a completely different radical. Otherwise, I would have too big a book. Also, I do not include all possible pronunications or meanings for a character, only the most common ones.

These characters are almost all simplified characters. In a few isolated cases, where the differences involve a traditional character, I have indicated with an asterisk (*) the traditional nature of that character.

In many cases I point out how