I thought i would try to learn to read Chinese characters. I saw a thing somewhere once that said characters are organized by the number of brush-strokes in them, so in the past you kinda had to already know what you were looking up to find anything on it. I got the internet though!
世 - this is the first character I learned, and according to Google translate, it means 'world'. Wiktionary says it means other things to, like 'society', 'generation', even 'woman' and 'marriage'?? those last two feel like they're more contextual.
[stolen from wiktionary]
seeing it written out, it makes me think first of the horizon, with pillars or towers rising above it. shadows extend from them. it makes me think if how people discovered/verified the curve of the Earth by measuring shadows, so it seems fitting.
The next one I've learned is "大", which appears to be a suffix meaning 'big/much/very'. it's supposed to look like a little guy with arms stretched out to emphasis how BIG something is! ...again, going on Wiktionary for this...
Which gives me
世大 - BIG WORLD (google thinks this says university...)
or, alternatively
Very Society :marx-joker:
...am i doing this right? Or, at least, not terribly wrong? I kinda wanna hit the point where I can read Mao or Three Body Problem in the original text.
I know the feeling. I actually have a few Chinese/English children’s books, and even those had some words I haven’t learned when I bought them for my little brother who loves learning languages.