Mnemonic comic for

Translation

shā = sh + a1: granule / hoarse / raspy / sand / powder / CL:粒[li4] / abbr. for Tsar or Tsarist Russia

Mnemonic

A mnemonic is a short, deliberately ridiculous scene, built to be hard to forget. Who appears in it and where it takes place are how the pronunciation is stored; the objects in it stand for the parts the character is written with. That is the Marilyn Method, and the comic below is the same scene, drawn.

Sherlock Holmes (sh) is selling bottles (氵) in front of the ashram (a1). Smiley (少) comes round because thon is very thirsty and buys a bottle, just to find out that it contains only sand (沙).

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How to pronounce 沙

MandarinBanana teaches pronunciation with the Marilyn Method: every Pinyin syllable is one initial plus one final, the initial becomes a person, an animal or a deity, and the final becomes a place in your memory palace — with the tone deciding which part of that place the scene happens in. Remember the little story below for each half and the whole syllable comes back with them.

= sh initial

Sh is for Sherlock Holmes.

By Matthias • updated 2 months ago
+ a1 final

In front of the ashram.

By Matthias • updated 6 months ago

沙 character breakdown

Chinese characters are built out of smaller characters. Each component carries a mnemonic symbol - one concrete object that stands in for it - and a mnemonic story hands those objects to the person and the place that stand for the pronunciation. Learn a component once and every character that reuses it gets easier.

Component Translations
shǎo = sh + ao3
few / less / to lack / to be missing / to stop (doing sth) / seldom
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shào = sh + ao4
young
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shuǐ = shu + ei3
"water" radical in Chinese characters (Kangxi radical 85), occurring in 沒|没[mei2], 法[fa3], 流[liu2] etc / see also 三點水|三点水[san1 dian3 shui3]
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Characters with 沙 as component

shā = sh + a1
shark
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shā = sh + a1
katydid (family Tettigoniidae) / phonetic "sha" used in transliteration
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suō = su + o1
see 莎草[suo1 cao3] / see 摩莎[mo2 suo1]
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Words with 沙

show 334 more
sofa (loanword) / CL:條|条[tiao2],張|张[zhang1] / (Internet slang) the first reply or replier to a forum post
desert / CL:個|个[ge4]
beach / sandy shore / CL:片[pian4]
Sentences with 沙
沙 currently does not appear in any sentence.

Want to remember 沙 for good?

Make it your learning target and MandarinBanana works out the shortest route to it: the two sounds its syllable is built from, then the components of the character itself, one short step at a time. No account needed to start.

shā

granule / hoarse / raspy / sand / powder / CL:粒[li4] / abbr. for Tsar or Tsarist Russia

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