Mnemonic comic for

Translation

gōng = gu + (e)ng1: meritorious deed or service / achievement / result / service / accomplishment / work (physics)

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.

Gitta Giraffe (gu) practices her Kung Fu skills (功) in front of the engine ((e)ng1) with a sparring robot made out of steel beams (工). The robot is programmed to fight Kung Fu (功), but Gitta Giraffe’s Kung Fu is better: she hits the robots power button (力) and turns it off.

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How to pronounce 功

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.

= gu initial

Gu is for Gitta Giraffe.

By Matthias • updated 3 months ago
+ (e)ng1 final

In front of the engine.

By Matthias • updated 5 months ago

功 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
= li + Ø4
power / force / strength / ability / strenuously
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gōng = gu + (e)ng1
work / worker / skill / profession / trade / craft / labor
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Characters with 功 as component

功 is not used as a component in another character.

Words with 功

show 169 more
success / to succeed / CL:次[ci4],個|个[ge4]
Chenggong or Chengkung town in Taitung County 臺東縣|台东县[Tai2 dong1 Xian4], southeast Taiwan
skill / art / kung fu / labor / effort
Sentences with 功
nín
de
gōng
láo
xiǎo
a

Want to remember 功 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.

gōng

meritorious deed or service / achievement / result / service / accomplishment / work (physics)

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