漢字有意思！2：跟著劉墉一家趣味玩漢字(中英文對照)

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一個字、一張畫 、一個故事
A character, a picture, a story

劉墉　Yung Liu

多半的人小時候學寫漢字，都覺得挺辛苦。
Most people who learned to write Chinese characters when they were young, remember it as a difficult task.

可不是嗎？拼音文字只要會說，大概就能八九不離十地拼出來。漢字卻一筆一劃左撇右捺，簡直像畫畫。不過順著這條路想，如果小孩學漢字的時候，都能用遊戲的心情去畫，不是很有意思嗎？
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?

譬如先畫個框框，裡面再畫個個小女孩，是形容女娃娃的「囡」；框框裡面畫個人，那人則成為關在裡面的囚犯。
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.”

兩扇門當中畫個太陽，是中間的「間」；換成一個人影，是一閃而過的「閃」。
The sun 「日」in the middle of double doors 「門」makes 「間」which means “between.” If you change that sun to a person, it makes 「閃」, meaning “a flash.” You can imagine a person appearing in the doorway in a flash.

月亮還沒下去，太陽已經從草坡上露臉，是黎明的「朝」；太陽不但落進草地裡，還落了又落，落下兩個太陽，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」裡的東西吐到「土」上，是「吐」；從「天」上掉東西到「口」裡，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：上面寫個「中」，下面畫隻手，正好抓住上面「中」的那一豎，是必須公正執中、不偏不倚的「史」；上面寫個中，下面畫個心，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,” that 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.”

往複雜一點看：草莽的「莽」，筆劃雖然多，其實很簡單：上面是草，下面也是草，中間一隻狗在跑，不是很荒野、很草莽嗎？
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 grass is above, there is grass below, and a dog「犬」is running between the grass. Is it not a very “wild,” “grassy” image?

還有跳蚤的「蚤」，好像挺複雜，其實只要畫一隻手，在手指間畫兩個像是跳蚤的小點子，下面再加個「虫」字，就成了。     至於流水的「流」，只要在左邊畫三點水，右邊畫個長頭髮，頭朝下的「子」，好像一個人在水裡游泳就對了！
There is also the character for flea 「蚤」, which seems quite complicated at first glance. In fact, just draw a hand and two small dots like fleas 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 "ch