Mnemonic comic for 一

Translation

yi̅ = y + Ø1: one / single / a (article) / as soon as / entire; whole; all; throughout / "one" radical in Chinese characters (Kangxi radical 1) / also pr. [yao1] for greater clarity when spelling out numbers digit by digit

Mnemonic

Maud Younger (y) forgot her keys to the space station (Ø1), all she brought outside was her flute (一). She has no choice but to crash the door with the giant flute.

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Comments

No one needs a mnemonic to remember that 一 is the Chinese character for "one". Neither for 二 and 三, which are, you guessed it, "two" and "three" respectively.

Why is this mnemonic helpful anyway? Because it helps us to learn more complicated characters later on. Knowing that 一 is a flute and 丿 is a banana helps us to distinguish 干 (dry; to do) and 千 (one thousand), or 天 (day; heaven) and 夭 (to die prematurely). This comic helps us to build a foundation for the house we're going to build. Feel free to scroll down to see how the flute, the mnemonic symbol for 一, is used in other characters.

The pinyin syllable "yi1" is, in our mnemonic system, split up into the initial "yi" and no final plus the first tone. The pinyin initial "yi" is represented by Maud Younger, the suffragist from more than one hundred years ago. The final "-1" tells us that the scene takes place in front of the space station.

Matthias, over 1 year ago

Thank you zeimusu for uploading this SVG to openclipart.org! https://openclipart.org/detail/3305/recorder

Matthias, over 1 year ago

一 character breakdown

The character 一 cannot be broken down into individual components.

Characters with 一 as component

丠

qiu̅ = qi + ou1

old variant of 丘[qiu1]

弌

yi̅ = y + Ø1

archaic variant of 壹 banker's anti-fraud numeral one