README.adoc

Little Newport Street
WC2H 7JJ
....

Last checked: 2016/08

Not yet on Google maps so I don't know the number, but the street is very small so should be easy to find.

Chinese review: http://www.ukchinese.com/News/2016-05-07/15299.html

[[resturants--uk--london--murger-han]]
===== Murger Han

Address:

....
8A Sackville St
Mayfair, London
W1S 3EZ
....

Website: https://www.murgerhan.com/

Last checked: 2019/01

Cuisine: Xi'an

Biangbiang noodles with all extras zhongla are amazing!!! Niuroupaomo OK, but not exciting. Roujiamo not very interesting, too bland for my taste.

[[resturants--uk--london--tier-2]]
===== London tier 2

[[restaurants--uk--london--chinese-tapas-house-london]]
====== Chinese Tapas House

Address:

....
Little Newport Street
WC2H 7JJ
....

Not yet on Google maps so I don't know the number, but the street is very small so should be easy to find.

Jianbing guozi, interesting spicy fast food.

[[restaurants--uk--london--rice-coming-restaurant]]
====== Rice Coming Restaurant 米齐临

Rice noodles are good, and small dishes authentic.

Address: 10A Coptic St, Holborn, London WC1A 1NH

Last checked: 2019-04

Website: https://ricecoming.business.site/

[[restaurants--uk--cambridge]]
==== Cambridge 剑桥

[[restaurants--uk--cambridge--spring-restaurant]]
===== Spring Restaurant 春天

Address:

....
66 Mill Rd
CB1 2AS
....

Last checked: 2017/08

Spicy chicken with pasta and potatoes.

[[restaurants--uk--cambridge--seven-days]]
===== Seven Days 天天美食剑桥

Address:

....
66 Regent St
CB2 1DP
....

[[resturants--uk--cambridge--72-china]]
===== @72 China

Address:

....
72 Regent St
CB2 1DP
....

Douhuaniurou 豆花牛肉, kaoyu.

[[resturants--uk--cambridge--golden-house]]
===== Golden House

Address:

....
12 Lensfield Rd
CB2 1EG
....

Meicaikourou, luobo bing.

[[restaurants--uk--cambridge--1-1-rougamo]]
===== 1 + 1 Rougamo

Tier: 2

Address:

....
84 Regent St
CB2 1DP
....

Last checked: 2019/05

Roujiamo very good. Also good: broad noodles, 凉皮.

[[restaurants--uk--oxford]]
==== Oxford 牛津

[[restaurants--uk--oxford--a-taste-of-china]]
===== A Taste Of China 三秦百味

Tier: 2

https://goo.gl/maps/oERKCv6Q8a32

Last checked: 2019/03

Redamian good, Biangbiangmian not as interesting. Nice people working there. Two two seat tables only, mostly takeaway. Fair price.

[[restaurants--uk--oxford--xi-an]]
===== Xi'an

Tier: 3

https://goo.gl/maps/DrDCPKWnG2M2

Last checked: 2019/03

Not real Chinese food I'm afraid. Songshuyu was not cut correctly into stripes and too much liquid sauce. Sijidou beans not dry enough, maybe need more frying. Early immigration (1968, mentioned on menu), almost no Chinese clients. Nice decoration and environment.

[[restaurants--uk--sheffield]]
==== Sheffield 谢菲尔德

* China Red Restaurant
+
3 Rockingham Gate, Sheffield S1 4JD, United Kingdom
+
Last checked: 2016/06, shuizhuyu.

[[restaurants--brazil]]
=== Brazil 巴西

[[restaurants--brazil--sao-paulo]]
==== Sao Paulo 圣保罗

* Chuanxiangyuan Restaurante (川香园餐馆 )
+
\R. Barão de Iguape, 47 - Liberdade, São Paulo - SP
+
Eat the big fish dishes, they are worth it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuqi_feipian was not very good.
+
Free tea was good.
+
Rice could be better.
+
Owners are actually from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tianjin , not Sichuan, as implied by the 川 in the name of the restaurant. GF told me that those big fish dishes are typical from there.
+
Last checked: 2016/01/09

[[restaurants--canada]]
=== Canada 加拿大

[[restaurants--canada--montreal]]
==== Montreal 加拿大蒙特利尔，

Last checked: 2016/01

* Cuisine Szechuan
+
2350 Rue Guy, Montréal, QC H3H 2M2, Canada
* Kanbai
+
1110 Rue Clark, Montréal, QC H2Z 1K3, Canada Good
* Délice oriental
+
1858 Rue Ste-Catherine O, Montréal, QC H3H 1M1

Not worth it:

* Chez Chili
+
1050B rue Clark

[[museum]]
== The best East Asian museums outside of China (中国以外最好的东亚博物馆)

<<ciro-santilli>> liked these in order of best first. Keep in mind that he is especially interested in <<chinese-traditional-painting>>:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolitan_Museum_of_Art[New York Metropolitan Museum of Art], New York, United States
** 2019-05 https://photos.app.goo.gl/pBR1BmqWgd2Xq7jT8
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guimet_Museum[Guimet Museum], Paris, France
** 2016-10-30 including Chinese Jade Temporary Exposition: https://goo.gl/photos/6F3nMNqtPrGASuMv5
** 2013-02 https://photos.app.goo.gl/aj1vRWEcoUqdvUG58
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Museum[British Museum], London, United Kingdom. Too much porcelain, too little painting.
** 2016-08 https://goo.gl/photos/brGPsCmLCD2cJsWb7

[[television-series]]
== Chinese television series (中国电视剧)

Modern themed television series are generally crap due to <<censorship>>, but this leads to a big focus on ancient stuff, and some of it is amazing.

A good place to start are the canonical TV adaptations of the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classic_Chinese_Novels[Four Great Classic Novels] (https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/四大名著[四大名著])

* 1994 Three Kingdoms
** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romance_of_the_Three_Kingdoms_(TV_series)
** https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/三国演义_(电视剧)
** The best https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Kingdoms[Three Kingdoms 三国] adaptation of all time? Mind blowing
** there seems to exist a version with full Chinese + English subtitles: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_r3eWfTMDs&list=PLdAMXqGeRsOkXzuocRkBPhe5RhZ6RotGH&index=2
** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8VWVvHjskM&list=PLIj4BzSwQ-_ueXTO7EBmShk1b3lEqc5b_ official CCTV电视剧 (CCTV TV Series Channel) upload without Chinese + English subtitles on <<censorship,YouTube>>
* 1986 <<journey-to-the-west>> by the <<chinese-government-media>>
** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journey_to_the_West_(1986_TV_series)
** https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/西游记_(中国中央电视台出品电视剧)
** https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLIj4BzSwQ-_sfc7l2xm1wQswAd5jqrrDS official CCTV电视剧 upload with Chinese + English subtitles
* 1987 Dream of the Red Chamber by the CCTV
** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dream_of_the_Red_Chamber_(1987_TV_series)
** https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/红楼梦_(1987年电视剧)
** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_qmiajb1H6E the soundtrack is mindblowing, see also: <<music-free>>
** https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLIj4BzSwQ-_vuHKAr64vPbDQpE0-iQGGZ official CCTV电视剧 upload without english subtitles by the channel
* 1986 Outlaws of the Marsh by https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shandong_Television[Shandong Television] (link:https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/山东广播电视台[山东广播电视台])
** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outlaws_of_the_Marsh_(TV_series)
** https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/水浒_(电视剧)
** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lnshzmF6sY4&list=PLIj4BzSwQ-_sEAJsZnbcxV7sBc51XE8Z5 official CCTV电视剧 upload without english subtitles by the channel

There must be other good adaptations for other classics mentioned at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_literature[], gotta find them.

[[learn-chinese]]
== Tips to learn Chinese (学习中文方法建议)

To read on the net, https://github.com/cschiller/zhongwen[], see also: <<does-ciro-santilli-speak-chinese>>.

To overhear people and learn characters/new words Pleco: https://www.pleco.com/

It really hurts that there is no online Pleco, you have to go back and forth from cell phone to computer, is there anything as good online?

* https://www.yellowbridge.com/chinese/dictionary.php extremelly annoyng ads and limited list sizes, but good otherwise
* https://dict.naver.com/linedict/zhendict/#/cnen/home LINE dict, has many web scraped examples, but no sources back to those examples. Works, but a bit clunky.

Maybe some day something will be extracted from: https://github.com/skishore/makemeahanzi which jas a huge JSON of character data.

When you want to learn "how to say something in Chinese", the only valid routes are:

* does it have a Wikipedia page? Go on the English one then change language
* put an English sentence on https://translate.google.com/[Google Translate], then Google for it.
+
If it is a common word, it will give useless dictionary results, so search instead with `site:bbc.com` or `site:zhihu.com`.
+
Then find a sentence that contains the word written by a native Chinese, and understand the full sentence to confirm that it means what you want it to mean in a similar context.
+
Just using the Google translate directly will lead 70% to a weird/wrong/incomprehensible translation that no Chinese person would ever say.

Good Chinese content to consume to learn:

* 几分钟看完: illegal 10 minute summaries of movies with clips from the movies and a narrator speaking quickly instead of movie sounds.
+
Some have Chinese subtitles, e.g.: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFSMvtS6SYQ and it is great content to learn from, because it is someone telling a not too boring story in a natural and clear way, with supporting images to help with context.

=== Chinese character sentence component mnemonic systems

Associate one word to each character/character component.

One good way to find mnemonics is to just Google for whatever random words you want to fit into a sentence. You end up learning fun things this way, and those make the best mnemonics.

Then to learn a new character, break it down into components, and create a sentence or short story that includes all the component words.

* <<characters>>: our own!!!!!
* https://rtega.be/chmn/ CC-BY-NO-SA but not clear way to contribute to it
* Proprietary books
** https://www.amazon.com/dp/0824833236 "Remembering Simplified Hanzi" by James W. Heisig and Timothy W. Richardson from 2008. This is the classic.
** https://www.amazon.com/dp/9881919339 STICK by Dr. Melanie Schmidt ed.
** https://www.amazon.com/dp/109565960X "Learn Chinese Characters: Easy Mnemonics to Memorize Hanzi: 400+ Characters, 700+ Vocabulary, 1300+ Practice Questions with Solutions" by L Castelluzzo

Japanese Kanji:

* proprietary:
** https://www.tofugu.com/japanese/kanji-radicals-mnemonic-method/
** https://www.wanikani.com/

=== Lists of the most common characters and words

This is a good approach to tick off high frequency stuff you don't know you don't know:

* HSK word lists
** https://web.archive.org/web/20180211123634/http://www.hskhsk.com/word-lists.html go in the "(frequency order)" links
* Official character lists learned by native Chinese students per age group. TODO find exact lists.
** https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/6000/how-many-characters-do-chinese-pupils-know-at-different-ages

[[history]]
== History of China (中国历史)

[[han-dinasty]]
=== Han dinasty (汉朝, 202 BC - 220 AC)

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Han_dynasty

[[suwu]]
==== Suwu (苏武)

* https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/苏武
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Su_Wu

Dude was messing around with <<throne,Ciro's wife's savage ancestors>>. Bad move.

[[geography]]
== Geography of China (中国地理)

[[five-great-mountains]]
=== Five Great Mountains (五岳)

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacred_Mountains_of_China#The_Five_Great_Mountains
* https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/五岳

[[mount-tai]]
==== Mount tai (泰山, peaceful mountain, big mountain)

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Tai
* https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/泰山

Not to be confused with the <<taihang-mountains>>.

=== Rivers of China

[[yangtze-river]]
==== Yangtze River (长江, Long River)

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yangtze
* https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/长江

Exits through: Shanghai.

Passes by: Chongqing, Wugan, Nanjing

[[yellow-river]]
==== Yellow River (黄河)

Exits through: <<shandong>>, south of Beijing.

[[provinces-of-china]]
=== Provinces of China (中国一级行政区)

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Provinces_of_China
* https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/中国一级行政区

This is a good province map: http://web.archive.org/web/20170910104718/http://cdn.topchinatravel.com/tct/pic/maps/china-map/china-tourist-map.jpg

[[gansu]]
==== Gansu Province (甘肃, gan1 su4)

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gansu
* https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/甘肃省

Sheepskin rafts (羊皮筏)!!!

* http://lanzhou.china.org.cn/2013-11/27/content_30720242.htm
* https://youtu.be/OYU6DJWRxc4?t=316 Magical work of nature: Stone forest boosts tourism, revenues in village of Gansu, China (2018) by <<xinhua>>.
+
This video also makes it clear why the <<yellow-river>> is called "Yellow River", it is from all that yellow desert dust dissolving into the water.
* https://baike.baidu.com/item/羊皮筏 on <<baidu-baike>>

[[lanzhou]]
===== Lanzhou (兰州)

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lanzhou
* https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/兰州市

Well known for <<lamian>>.

[[guangxi]]
==== Guangxi Province (广西省)

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guangxi
* https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/广西壮族自治区

[[liaoning]]
==== Liaoning Province (辽宁省)

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liaoning
* https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/辽宁省

[[hebei]]
==== Hebei Province (河北省)

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hebei
* https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/河北省

The name refers to it being North of the <<yellow-river>>.

[[heilongjiang]]
==== Heilongjian Province (黑龙江省)

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heilongjiang
* https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/黑龙江

China's Northermost and Easternomst province.

Literaly: "Black Dragon River" province. The name refers to the massive https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amur[Amur river] (https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/黑龙江[黑龙江]) that passes through the region.

Does not however border North Korea, only <<liaoning>> and <<jilin>> do.

[[henan]]
==== Henan Province (河南省)

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henan
* https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/河南省

The name refers to it being South of the <<yellow-river>>.

[[jilin]]
==== Jilin (吉林)

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jilin
* https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/吉林省

The capital city is also named Jilin (Jilin City).

The origin of the name has nothing to do with a forest (林), it is a transliteration from Manchu language for "along the river".

[[shandong]]
==== Shandong Province (山东省)

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shandong
* https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/山东省

The name refers to it being East of the <<taihang-mountains>>.

[[sichuan]]
==== Sichuan Province (四川省)

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sichuan
* https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/四川省

[[taihang-mountains]]
===== Taihang Mountains (太行山)

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taihang_Mountains
* https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/太行山

[[shanxi]]
==== Shanxi Province (山西省)

The name refers to it being West of the <<taihang-mountains>>.

[[chinese-cheatsheet]]
== Chinese cheatsheet (中文备忘单)

Single author open source Pleco + "Remembering Simplified Hanzi" in a single .adoc file? Let's go.

We'd use https://rtega.be/chmn/ as basis if it weren't for the NO in CC-BY-NO-SA? But that NO is evil, what the heck does it even mean to gain money from something? Too restrictive.

Format will be very constant, database like. Would therefore be cool to parse it from the Asciidoctor into a proper database as a way to verify and allow third party usage.

Base mnemonic components can come more or less directly from the 214 Kangxi radicals: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kangxi_radical

One key principle is that characters and words often don't have a well translatable meaning: the minimal always translatable unit is a sentence: <<chinese-sentences>>!

You can't fully learn a language by learning words and characters alone, you must learn sentences.

[[characters]]
=== Characters (汉字)

Format:

....
[[<character>]]
=== <character> (<pinyin>, <mnemonic name>)

Short forms: <<short-form>>, <<short-form>>

Mnemonic: <<mnemonic-story>>.

Words:

* <chinese-word-containing>
* <chinese-word-containing>

Characters:

* <character-containing>
* <character-containing>

Translations:

* <<english-word>>
** <<chinese-sentence-containing>>

Sentences:

* <<chinese-sentence-containing>>

Notes: <<random-text>>

Notes:

* <<random-text>>
* <<random-text>>
....

Notes:

* `Translations` is only used when it is a single character word, if it goes inside a word, only the word will contain the sentence

[[top-part-of-每]]
==== Top part of 每 (, pistol)

Mnemonic: Can't find the freaking Unicode. It looks like a **pistol**.

Characters:

* 每 TODO each

[[top-part-of-存]]
==== Top part of 存 (, market stall)

Mnemonic: looks like one.

Characters:

* <<存>>

[[龶]]
==== 龶 (-, crown)

Mnemonic: the dot indicates something that stays on top of the head of a king (<<王>>)

Characters:

* <<青>>

Notes: there is no "proper" Chinese name for this, it is just known as "the top part of <<青>>" (青字頭) https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/龶

[[巴]]
==== 巴 (ba1, Brazil)

Mnemonic: the first character of <<巴西>>

Characters:

* <<爬>>

Words:

* <<巴西>>

[[八]]
==== 八 (ba1, eight)

Short forms: 丷

Characters:

* <<单>>
* <<六>>

[[白]]
==== 白 (bai2, white)

Mnemonic: the **sun** (<<日>>) is so bright on that **one** (<<一>>) day, that it was almost **white**

Characters:

* <<的>>

[[榜]]
==== 榜 (bang3)

[[勹]]
==== 勹 (bao1, plastic wrap)

Mnemonic: Kangxi 20 is "wrap". So we choose plastic wrap as a specific type of wrapping that will give good mnemonics.

Characters:

* <<勺>>

[[本]]
==== 本 (ben3, potato)

Mnemonic: **one** (<<一>>) thing is always beloow a **tree** (<<本>>): **potato** roots

Characters:

* <<体>>

[[匕]]
==== 匕 (bi3, spoon)

Mnemonic: an ancient spoon, looks like this: https://read01.com/aAEn50x.html#.XnfZDN_niV4 "古人吃饭最早不用筷子，用的是"匕"，那"匕"是什么？

[[表]]
==== 表 (biao3, watch [device])

Mnemonic: imagine a soldier wearing **green** (<<龶>>) camouflage **clothes** (<<衣>>), and checking his **watch** to know if it is time to attack

Words:

* <<列表>>

[[卜]]
==== 卜 (bu3, magic wand)

Mnemonic: the kangxi description is "divination". Since this is completely unrelated to common contexts of modern people, we select a wand use a magic-related object that can be easily put into fun stories: a magic wand.

Characters:

* <<攴>>

[[不]]
==== 不 (bu4, not)

Mnemonic: unclear, possibly **magic wand** <<卜>>

Words:

* <<不幸>>

[[查]]
==== 查 (cha2, check)

Mnemonic: every **dawn** <<旦>>, men have to **check** if their penises are hard as **wood** <<木>>, and if so they have to stay in bed for a while longer because it is too embarrassing to walk out like that, see also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morning_wood

Words:

* <<审查>>

[[车]]
==== 车 (che1, car)

Characters:

* <<轮>>

[[臣]]
==== 臣 (chen2, minister)

Characters:

* <<临>>

[[彳]]
==== 彳 (chi4, step)

Mnemonic: Kangxi 60.

Characters:

* <<很>>

[[辵]]
==== 辵 (chuo4, walk)

Short forms: ⻌,⻍,⻎

Characters:

* <<运>>

[[存]]
==== 存 (cun2, survive)

Mnemonic: the Jewish **child** (<<子>>) **survived** from the Nazis by hiding under a **market stall** (<<top-part-of-存>>)

Words:

* <<幸存>>

[[寸]]
==== 寸 (cun4, inch)

Characters:

* <<讨>>

[[大]]
==== 大 (da4, big)

Characters:

* <<犬>>

[[歹]]
==== 歹 (dai3, supervillain)

Mnemonic: that **evening** (<<夕>>), **one** (<<一>>) **supervillain** attacked us!

Characters:

* <<列>>

Words:

* <<歹人>>

[[单]]
==== 单 (dan1, bill)

Mnemonic: that lunch **bill** cost as much as buying **eighty** (<<十>> <<八>>) rice **fields** (<<田>>)!

Words:

* TODO 买单

[[旦]]
==== 旦 (dan4, dawn)

Mnemonic: **dawn** is when the **sun** (<<日>>) is raising over the horizon (<<一>>)

Characters:

* <<但>>

Words:

* <<元旦>>

[[但]]
==== 但 (dan4, but)

Mnemonic: I saw a **person** (<<人>>) walking at **dawn** (<<旦>>). It was beautiful, **but** why wouldn't they be sleeping instead?

[[刀]]
==== 刀 (dao1, knife)

Short forms: 刂,⺈

Characters:

* <<列>>
* <<尔>>

[[的]]
==== 的 (de, my)

Mnemonic: **my** penis looks like a **white** (<<白>>) **wrap sandwitch** (<<勺>>)

[[等]]
==== 等 (deng3, etcetera)

Mnemonic: TODO

Words: <<等等>>

[[动]]
==== 动 (dong4, move)

Mnemonic: his **superpower** (<<力>>) is to **move** fart **clouds** (<<云>>) with his mind

Words:

* <<运动>>

[[对]]
==== 对 (dui4, correct)

Mnemonic: to progress slowly, adding **inch** (<<寸>>) by inch, **again** (<<又>>) and again, is the **correct** way to progress

Characters:

* <<树>>

[[多]]
==== 多 (duo1, many)

Mnemonic: one **wrap sandwitch** (<<勺>>) is fine for lunch, but two on too **many**

[[儿]]
==== 儿 (er2, son)

Characters:

* <<元>>

[[尔]]
==== 尔 (er3, you)

Mnemonic: I'll stab **you** with a **small** (<<小>>) knife (<<刀>>)

Characters:

* <<你>>

[[二]]
==== 二 (er4, two)

Characters:

* 元

[[肺]]
==== 肺 (fei4, lungs)

Mnemonic: he didn't have two **lungs**, but rather one **moon** (<<月>>) and one **lung** (<<巿>>)

Words:

* <<肺炎>>

[[巿]]
==== 巿 (fu2, lung)

Mnemonic: due to an infection, doctors had to dry up **one** (<<一>>) of his **lung** with a **towel** (<<巾>>)

Characters:

* <<肺>>

[[干]]
==== 干 (gan1, dry)

Characters:

* <<幸>>

Sentences:

* <<肺炎疫情下的武汉幸存者我是不幸之中幸运的人>>

[[该]]
==== 该 (gai1, dry)

Mnemonic: TODO **speak** (<<言>>)

Translations:

* that, the afore mentioned
** <<目前该网站也和国内外很多大学的图书馆有合作例如武汉大学南京大学等等>>
*** Here, 该网站 (that website) is referring to a specific website mentioned in previous sentences of the Zhihu answer.

[[根]]
==== 根 (gen1, roots)

Mnemonic: **roots** one **root** (<<艮>>) plus one root and lots of **wood** (<<木>>)

[[艮]]
==== 艮 (gen4, root)

Mnemonic: radical of **roots** (<<根>>)

Notes: this is a Kangxi radical, but its English name "stopping" is just too close to the more important "stop" <<止>> and would cause confusion. So we just use the common phonetic compound **roots** (<<根>>) as the mnemonic. It was tempting to leave "root" for <<本>>, which looks perfectly like a root, but we did character first, and "potato" makes for even better mnemonics.

Characters:

* <<根>>

[[冠]]
==== 冠 (guan1, corona)

Mnemonic: when Queen Elizabeth was crowned, the **first** (<<元>>) thing they put a one **inch** (<<寸>>) **hajib** <<冖>> on her head, and then the **corona** of a Christian saint saint appeared on her head

Notes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corona

[[禾]]
==== 禾 (he2, grain)

Mnemonic: imagine **one** <<一>> **grain** of rice coming out of **wood** (<<木>>)

Characters:

* <<私>>
* <<和>>

[[和]]
==== 和 (he2, harmonious)

Mnemonic: nothing is more **harmonious** than putting some **grains** <<禾>> in your **mouth** <<口>>

Characters:

* <<私>>
* <<和>>

[[很]]
==== 很 (hen3, very)

Mnemonic: **stepping** (<<彳>>) on a tree **root** (<<艮>>) is a **very** bad idea, it might be a tree spirit that gets angry and eats you!

[[火]]
==== 火 (huo3, fire)

Short forms: 灬

Characters:

* <<炎>>

[[几]]
==== 几 (ji3, side table)

Characters:

* <<殳>>

[[交]]
==== 交 (jiao1, exchange student)

Mnemonic: we measured **six** <<六>> American **exchange students** <<交>> on a **balance** <<乂>> to see which one was heaviest. Idea comes from 交流 (exchange student).

Words:

* <<性交>>.

[[巾]]
==== 巾 (jin1, towel)

Mnemonic: person carrying bath towel over shoulders.

Characters:

* <<巿>>

* <<禁>>

[[禁]]
==== 禁 (jin4, forbid)

Mnemonic: the **spirit** <<示>> of the **woods** <<林>> **forbids** <<禁>> burning trees!

Words:

* <<禁止>>
* <<禁运>>

[[口]]
==== 口 (kou3, mouth)

Chars:

* <<台>>
* <<和>>
* <<品>>

[[里]]
==== 里 (li3, mile)

Mnemonic: his **field** (<<田>>) streched over one **mile** (<<里>>), but it consisted of barren **soil** (<<土>>) without any plants

Characters:

* <<重>>
* <<理>>

[[理]]
==== 理 (li3, science)

Mnemonic: the **king** (<<王>>) Louis XIV was a big patron of the mectric system, which intends to improve **science** by removing useless units like the **mile** (<<里>>)

Words:

* <<物理>>
* <<理论>>

[[力]]
==== 力 (li4, superpower)

Characters:

* <<动>>

[[列]]
==== 列 (lie4, list)

Mnemonic: there must exist a **list** of **supervillains** (<<歹>>) with **knives** (<<刀>>) on the web? A knife-yielding supervillain **list**! https://techland.time.com/2010/09/03/top-ten-heroes-and-villians-with-big-knives/

Words:

* <<列表>>

[[林]]
==== 林 (lin2, woods)

Mnemonic: there are lots of **trees** <<木>> in the **woods** <<林>>

Characters:

* <<禁>>

[[临]]
==== 临 (lin2, temporary)

Mnemonic: the simplified character was completely mutilated into a bunch of senseless traces unmemorizable traces. The traditional 臨 can be broken into: the **Prime minister** (<<臣>>) temporarily decided to increase production of an important **product** (<<品>>): **pistols** (<<top-part-of-每>>), until the zombie apocalypse would be over.

Words: