How to Write "School" in Chinese Symbols

Series Summary

China is by far one of the oldest nations on the face of the Earth. They’ve had a long and illustrious history, with famous dynasties, kingdoms and empires, spanning eons of time. Today, China boasts the largest national population on the planet, with over 1.3 billion inhabitants—and it is currently ranked the fourth largest country in terms of total land area. Naturally then, a country so large is bound to have branches that extend throughout the lineage of mankind, from East to West.

The Chinese also have one of the oldest forms of writing, known as calligraphy. This system comprises a complex series of lines, dots and characters that make up the Chinese alphabet. This pictographic language also employs compound character forms that signify entire words, phrases, and concepts.

In these free Chinese language lessons, expert Xi Chen will show you how to write and pronounce words for school and school-related terms. She walks you through the formation of each character and explains each aspect in the process. With a goldmine of etymological background and important detail for each part of the symbols described in these lessons, these videos are an invaluable resource for the serious Chinese language student!

Video Transcript

"This is part one of our school life words. So let's start with the word school. In Chinese it is xue xiao. Xue xiao. Xiao means the place that we study, and xue is study. So this is the literal meaning of xue xiao in Chinese. Ok. Xue. Xiao. The right part of xiao is the pronunciation part, and with xue xiao let's learn another word. Go to school. It's shang xue. Shang is go to. School - xue. Here it represents xue xiao, it represents a school. Ok, let's write xue xiao and shang xue together. Xue xiao - school, and go to school is shang xue. So in Chinese, xue, this character we use it to indicate xue xiao to mean school."