“Cang” (Tsang) Traditional Chinese Characters |

This video is a continuation of my “What a Character!” series introducing common traditional Chinese characters in alphabetical order. Today's characters are written as “Cang” (in the 1st & 2nd tone) in the Pinyin romanization system. The five characters from Taiwan’s Ministry of Education master list if 3000 most common characters are as follows:

00:00-00:40 Intro to "Cang"

00:41-02:25 倉 "cang" (Tsang) is first tone and means "warehouse" or "storehouse." The strokes start off as the "food" radical, and food would be a clue to its meaning, but there is a "mouth" radical at the bottom. The theme of my video thus becomes heading to our storage garage to pick up some chairs for one of our language school branches in Changhua, Taiwan.

04:28-05:00 滄 is also first tone and means "blue." The water radical is a clue to its meaning. It is also in a compound for "vast" in literary use. The character can also be used in an abstract sense. i.e. "Cang(1)sang(1)" carries the meaning of having the appearance of "challenging life."

05:01- 05:35 蒼 is also first tone and also denotes colors of blue, green, or grey/gray. "cang(1)bai(2)" means "pale." This character features the grass radical on the top.

05:36-06:16 艙 with the "boat" radical "Zhou" on the left, it is still first tone. Yeah, I realize the "boat" doesn't look like a boat. I see it as a woman in a dress with the top stroke being her head. She is attempting to carry items in her arms, but is dropping one. This character is often used in "cabin" for boats and planes.

07:00- 10:22 藏 "cang(2)" is 2nd tone with a whopping 18 strokes. The grass radical is on top. On the left is the "piece of wood" radical (mirror image of "pian(4)," then "chen" (the brick wall) meaning "minister" or "statesman," (or "subordinate"), and finally the "ge" Chinese battle axe radical on the right. The meaning is "hide" or "store (v.)" This character is also used in the compound for the region of "Tibet (Xizang Autonomous Region" now governed by China. My sentence-practice with cang(2) turned into a tongue twister. I needed assistance from my wife on that one! The night of finishing up this video, I recognized this character on a storage closet in a hospital. It's so true of these characters! Once you learn them you will start to see them everywhere! Best of luck in your studies!

The next video in my traditional Chinese character series will be "cao (tao)" in all four tones.
Please "like" and subscribe for more traditional Chinese characters and adventures in Taiwan!

#chinesecharacters #traditionalchinese #chinesewritingpractice #chinesewriting #expatlife #mandarinchinese #learnchinese #writingchinese