Mnemonic comic for

Translation

xiàng = xi + ang4: appearance / portrait / picture / government minister / (physics) phase / (literary) to appraise (esp. by scrutinizing physical features) / to read sb's fortune (by physiognomy, palmistry etc)

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: I take “eye” and “tree” as resembling an ent, an alive tree. Xi Shi (xi) portrays (相) an ent (相) in the anglepod’s bathroom (ang4). Unfortunately she’s really bad at painting, and her portrait resembles more a Christmas tree (木). The Eye of Providence (目) enters and, just from the shape of the Christmas Tree, instantly recognizes its own portrait (相).

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All translations for 相

xiāng = xi + ang1
each other / one another / mutually / fret on the neck of a pipa 琵琶[pi2 pa5] (a fret on the soundboard is called a 品[pin3])
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xiàng = xi + ang4
appearance / portrait / picture / government minister / (physics) phase / (literary) to appraise (esp. by scrutinizing physical features) / to read sb's fortune (by physiognomy, palmistry etc)
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How to pronounce 相

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.

= xi initial

Xi is for Xi Shi (西施), one of the renowned Four Beauties of ancient China.

By Matthias • updated 5 months ago
+ ang1 final

In front of the anglepod.

By Matthias • updated 5 months ago
= xi initial

Xi is for Xi Shi (西施), one of the renowned Four Beauties of ancient China.

By Matthias • updated 5 months ago
+ ang4 final

In the anglepod’s bathroom.

By Matthias • updated 5 months ago

相 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
= mu + Ø4
(bound form) tree / (bound form) wood / unresponsive; numb; wooden
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= mu + Ø4
eye / (literary) to look; to regard / eye (of a net); mesh / mesh size; grit size (abbr. for 目數|目数[mu4 shu4]) / item; section / list; catalogue / (taxonomy) order / name; title
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Characters with 相 as component

xiǎng = xi + ang3
to think / to believe / to suppose / to wish / to want / to miss (feel wistful about the absence of sb or sth)
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xiǎng = xi + ang3
to think (about) / to think of; to devise / to think (that); to believe (that) / to desire; to want (to) / to miss (feel wistful about the absence of)
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xiāng = xi + ang1
box / trunk / chest
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Words with 相

show 588 more
to be convinced (that sth is true) / to believe / to accept sth as true
to be convinced (that sth is true); to believe; to accept sth as true
the truth about sth / the actual facts
Sentences with 相
men
zhè
huā
guǒ
shān
shì
xiāng
tóng
a

Want to remember 相 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.

xiāng / xiàng

2 translations

Prompt snippets

The Ent is a towering, bipedal humanoid Ent with a torso made of thick, gnarled English Oak bark. His face is deeply recessed into the trunk, featuring a wide, flat nose formed by a horizontal burl and deep-set eyes that glow with a soft amber light. He has a long, braided beard made of hanging grey Spanish moss and thick lichen. His fingers are elongated, tapering willow branches with small, budding emerald-green leaves at the tips. He wears no clothing, but his shoulders are overgrown with a dense shelf of bright green forest moss and small white fungal caps.

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