Mnemonic comic for

Translation

shēng = sh + (e)ng1: to be born / to give birth / life / to grow / raw / uncooked / student

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.

Mnemonic symbol: a cradle.

Sherlock Holmes (sh) comforts a crying baby bull (牛) in a cradle (生) in front of the engine ((e)ng1) and plays him a tune on a flute (一).

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Comments

Shoutout to https://openclipart.org/artist/frankes for uploading a cradle to https://openclipart.org/detail/220033/cradle-coloured. I just modified the coloring.

Matthias, almost 2 years ago

How to pronounce 生

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 about 2 months ago
+ (e)ng1 final

In front of the engine.

By Matthias • updated 5 months ago

生 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
niú = ni + ou2
ox / cow / bull / CL:條|条[tiao2],頭|头[tou2] / newton (abbr. for 牛頓|牛顿[niu2 dun4]) / (slang) awesome
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= 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
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Characters with 生 as component

xīng = xi + (e)ng1
star / heavenly body / satellite / small amount
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domestic animal / sacrificial animal
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victory / success / to beat / to defeat / to surpass / victorious / superior to / to get the better of / better than / surpassing / superb (of vista) / beautiful (scenery) / wonderful (view) / (Taiwan pr. [sheng1]) able to bear / equal to (a task)
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Words with 生

show 1328 more
teacher / husband / doctor (dialect) / CL:位[wei4] / Mister (Mr.)
teacher / gentleman; sir; mister (Mr.) / husband / (dialect) doctor / CL:位[wei4]
to happen / to occur / to take place / to break out
Sentences with 生
yāo
hóu
hǎo
shēng
liǎo
de

Want to remember 生 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.

shēng

to be born / to give birth / life / to grow / raw / uncooked / student

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