【前言】一个字、一张画 、一个故事
Preface ： A character, a picture, a story 6
这本书的使用方法
How to use this book 14
汉字有意思！
Hanzi Alive ! 18
汉字是怎么演进的
The evolution of Hanzi Characters 323
作者简介
About the Authors 340
索引
Indexes 342
內容試閱：
一个字、一张画 、一个故事
A character, a picture, a story
多半的人小时候学写汉字，都觉得挺辛苦。
Most people who learned to write Chinese characters when they were young, remember it as a difficult task.
可不是吗？拼音文字只要会说，大概就能八九不离十地拼出来。汉字却一笔一画、左撇右捺，简直像画画。不过顺着这条路想，如果小孩学汉字的时候，都能用游戏的心情去画，不是很有意思吗？
And difficult it certainly was! Alphabetic writing systems can be learned in a logical way; if you can pronounce it, you can probably write it. But Chinese characters are drawn one by one, stroke by stroke, like miniature paintings. Though it seems laborious, if we follow this line of thought and let children treat Chinese as a drawing game, wouldn, t it make the whole task of learning much more fun?
譬如先画个框框，里面再画个小女孩，是形容女娃娃的囡；框框里面画个人，那人则成为关在里面的囚犯。
For example, first draw a box frame, then draw a little girl inside. That is the character 囡, which means a little girl. But if inside the frame you draw an adult person 人, the character 囚 means a prisoner.
两扇门当中画个太阳，是中间的间；换成一个人，是一闪而过的闪。
The sun 日 in the middle of double doors 门 makes 间,which means between. If you change that sun to a person, it makes 闪, meaning a flash. You can imagine a person appearing in the doorway in a flash.
月亮还没下去，太阳已经从草坡上露脸，是黎明的朝；太阳不但落进草地里，还落了又落，落下两个太阳，是暮。
The moon has not disappeared, but the sun has already risen from beyond the grassy slope： that is the character 朝, which means dawn. When the sun not only falls into the grass, but continues to fall, appearing as two suns in a double image, it becomes 暮, meaning dusk.
把口里的东西吐到土上，是吐；从天上掉东西到口里，是吞。
From the mouth口onto earth土makes 吐 meaning to spit; from the sky天 into mouth makes 吞, which means swallow.
也有些字很抽象，譬如，上面写个中，下面画只手，正好抓住上面中的那一竖，是必须公正执中、不偏不倚的史；上面写个中，下面画个心，是把良心放在最中央的忠。
Some characters are also abstractly expressive. For example, if you write middle中 on top with a hand on the bottom grasping the vertical stroke of the 中, it makes 史, which means history. A hand writing something that is balanced and impartial seems to suggest the ideal of historical writing. If you write 中 and put a heart under it, that yields the character 忠,which means loyalty. You can think of it as loyalty is where you put your heart at the center.
往复杂一点看：草莽的莽，笔画虽然多，其实很简单：上面是草，下面也是草，中间一只狗在跑，不是很荒野、很草莽吗？
Let, s look at a more complex character, such as 莽. Although the character has many strokes, it is actually very simple when you think about it as a picture： there is grass above, there is grass below, and a dog 犬 is running between the grass. Is it not a very wildgrassyimage?
还有跳蚤的蚤，好像挺复杂，其实只要画一只手，在手指间画一个像跳蚤的小点子，下面再加个虫字，就成了。 至于流水的流，只要在左边画三点水，右边画个长头发、头朝下的子，好像一个人在水里游泳就对了！
There is also the character for flea 蚤, which seems quite complicated at first glance. In fact, just draw a hand and a small dot like flea between the fingers, then add the radical for insect 虫 below, and there you have it! As for the character flow流, draw three splashes of water on the left side, three strokes resembling long hair on the right side, and a child子 with his head down, as if swimming in the water.
以上都是这本书里介绍的汉字，它们经过我的挑选，让小朋友和初学汉字的外国人能够很快进入汉字的王国。这个入门非常重要，一个人如果从一开始就用图画的方式学习汉字，这可以影响他一生。因为死记硬背学的汉字是死的，从图像入手学的汉字是活的。好比你新认识一个人，起初只知道他的名字，但是如果有一天，那人邀请你去他家，你知道了他的家庭背景，甚至人生遭遇，下一次见到他，他虽然还是那个样子、还叫那个名字，但在你心里，他却变得亲切了。
These are the Chinese characters introduced in this book. They have been selected by me so that children and foreigners who are learning Chinese can quickly enter the land of imagery and imagination. This entry is very important. If a person learns characters this way from the start, it can influence the rest of the learning process. Chinese characters that are rote memorized are dull, but Chinese characters learned from imagery come alive. It, s like getting to know a new friend. At first you only know his name, but if one day, the person invites you to his home, and you learn about his family and his life story, next time when you see him again, even though he still looks the same and you call him the same name, he will feel friendly to your heart.
这本书是我和儿女合作的。儿子早年到美国才读小学一年级，女儿则是在美国出生的，为了让他们不忘本，我坚持教他们中文。儿子因为在中国学过一年，还好教些，女儿就难了，因为她生长在美语环境下，为了让她不排斥学汉字，我不得不设计一套从图画到剪影到文字，外加生活照片的方法。而且为了让她知道汉字是怎么演变成今天的样子，我会把甲骨文、大篆、小篆、隶书、行书和楷书都写给她看。又为了确定她懂了，我在用中文解说之后，总要她翻译成英文，并且鼓励她说：将来可以出书。
This book is a collaboration with my children. My son Xuan lived in the United States since his early years, and my Yvonne daughter was born there. In order to educate them on their roots and culture, I insisted on teaching them Chinese myself. My son had his early education in China, so he already had the fundamentals, but my daughter was a different story. In the American environment, for her to accept learning Chinese characters, I had to design a system that taught her the characters as a set of pictures, from drawings to sketches to text, with the addition of photos from real life. And in order to let her know how Chinese characters have evolved into what they are today, I wrote out the oracle bone, big and small seal, clerical, semi-cursive and cursive versions of the scripts, all the way to the present-day regular script. And to make sure she truly understood, I always asked her to translate my explanations into English. I even encouraged her efforts by saying, One day, we can publish this as a book!
二十多年后的今天，我的诺言终于实现了。因为女儿翻译的时候年纪小，英文比较稚嫩，我还请刘轩做最后的校正，借机让儿子又温习了一次。太太则担任中文校对和与出版社的联系工作，真可以说是全家联手的作品。
Today, more than twenty years later, my promise has finally come true. Because Yvonne was younger when she did the original English translation, I also asked Xuan to make the final edits. He said it was a good opportunity to refresh the material. My wife Weiwei did the proofreading and corresponded with the publishing house. It was a true family effort.
这本书的编辑工作，主要是我今年暑假在中国台北完成的，为了找到能够配合的照片，我常常不得不顶着烈日出去拍摄。正在澳洲度假的儿子和在纽约工作的女儿也被我隔海催稿，我们决定把在台首版版税全部捐作公益，以感谢读者几十年来对我们的爱护！
The editorial work of this book was mainly done in Taipei this summer. In order to shoot suitable photos for the characters, I often had to venture out with my camera in the hot noon sun. My son who was on vacation in Australia, and my daughter who is working full time in New York, have also been drafted by me on short notice to complete this manuscript. Finally, we have decided as a family to donate all the royalties from the first Taiwan edition for social benefit, as gratitude for the many years of love and support we have received from readers like you. Thank you all!
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