November 17, 2009

Beijing 北京

We'll continue on our journey to learn bits a pieces of Chinese. I learn best by making connections between words. So I learn one word and then look for other words that use the same characters as words I already know. Beijing is such a word.

Bei 北 means north.
Jing 京 means capital.

Beijing is the capital now, but it hasn't always been the capital. Each emperor it seems moved the capital around China, either for strategic or personal reasons. The former capitals include Beijing, Nanjing, Hangzhou, Kaifeng, Luoyang, Xi'an, and other capitals of the various kingdoms before unification.

The awesome thing with Chinese is how easy some things can be translated. For example, the former capital of China Nanjing 南京 translated south capital.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Remember the CG's in all comments. Thanks for checking in on the work in China!