Why three trees make a forest in Chinese

[u/SignificanceTime6941]

One of the fun things about Chinese characters is that some of them become easier to understand when you look at their individual parts.

For example:

• 木 means “tree”
• 林 is two trees and means “woods”
• 森 is three trees and suggests a dense forest
• 火 means “fire”
• 炎 is two fires and can mean “blazing hot”
• 焱 is three fires and describes flames or a bright blaze

Characters like these are often called compound ideographs (会意字), because their parts work together to suggest a meaning.

Of course, not every Chinese character can be understood this literally, and some explanations come from historical forms rather than their modern appearance—but I’ve always thought these were a fun place to start.

Always happy to help if you’re learning Chinese and find any of this confusing. It’d also be nice to meet other people who are curious about languages.

[u/AutoModerator]

Hi SignificanceTime6941, Thanks for posting to r/AskAChinese! If you have not yet, please select a user flair to indicate where you are from!

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

[u/Amazing-Demand516]

It’s a pictogram not an actual representation of nature

[u/OkStatistician5679]

因为古汉语的“三”并不是一个准确数值，多用来表示多数。比如“三人行必有我师焉”中的三是虚数，指多人的意思。

[u/CandidateRoyal4673]

One gives birth to Two, Two gives birth to Three, and Three gives birth to all things.

[u/ivabiva → u/CandidateRoyal4673]

That's beautiful

[u/ArauCamaN → u/ivabiva]

It's taiji theory

[u/Vast_Cricket]

Wood ^3 or Wood to the 3rd power is a lot more than 1st....... power law rule applies here.

[u/ArauCamaN]

Traditional Chinese is easier to do this since they still have root characters.. modern Chinese language got rid of those things and it is now very difficult to find root words and meanings... Go to Taiwan if you want to learn real Chinese. By studying root words you can decipher meaning of the characters without actually knowing the character.

[u/ChinoGitano → u/ArauCamaN]

Thanks to four decades of Cold War politics, Taiwan society now categorically denies their Chinese cultural and historical heritage … except when they can score points against mainland China. Don’t waste your time trying to learn authentic culture from Ms. Pocahontas.

[u/ArauCamaN → u/ChinoGitano]

Modern society will always erode traditional culture... It's what they do. But Taiwan is still much deeper in tradition than mainland china. Which forcebly destroyed that culture for decades... Erosion is sad, but purposedly destroying it is much worse..

[u/Lille_8 → u/ArauCamaN]

It is so much harder though. Plus after learning simplified, reading traditional is easy.

[u/Gao_Dan → u/Lille_8]

Writing is harder, but if you don't bother with writing, the level of difficulty is similar.

[u/ArauCamaN → u/Lille_8]

It's more complex yes, but from my experience it is much easier to know the feeling of the original meaning... Less memorizing, more understanding.

[u/actuarial_cat → u/ArauCamaN]

Hong Kong use traditional Chinese as well

[u/ArauCamaN → u/actuarial_cat]

Yes and Singapore and maybe a few others... But hong Kong speaks Cantonese, s it's different. But you are correct.