千
부수: 十
획수: 3획
千 simply means ‘thousand’.
千 = 亻 + 一
X = phonetic + distinguishing mark
• 亻 depicts a side view of a person. It is used for its sound which was once similar to ‘thousand’.
• 一 is a distinguishing mark used to differentiate 千 from 亻 and is not regarded as having any meaning.
The character for ‘person’ was used to represent ‘thousand’ because they once sounded very similar. 一 was simply added to 亻 to differentiate the two characters.
Evolution:
千 = ’thousand’ ➔ ’many’
Mnemonic
Imagine walking into a retirement home and being in a room with ten 十 people 亻 who’ve each aged 100 years of age. There are one thousand 千 years of experience among them.
Vocab
| 千萬 | 천만 | ten million; extremely |
| 千秋 | 천추 | a thousand years; forever |
| 千字 | 천자 | a thousand characters |
| 千斤 | 천근 | a thousand 근 (weight); great weight |
| 數千 | 수천 | thousands (of) |
| 千里眼 | 천리안 | clairvoyance; insight |
| 千萬多幸 | 천만다행 | extremely fortunate |
| 千差萬別 | 천차만별 | infinite variety |
| 一瀉千里 | 일사천리 | with lightning speed; rapid advance |
Other resources
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Bibliography
— Grant, B.K. (1982). A Guide To Korean Characters: Reading and Writing Hangul and Hanja, [s.v. 28]. Seoul: Hollym.
— Henshall, K.G. (1998). A Guide to Remembering Japanese Characters, [s.v. 47]. Singapore: Tuttle Publishing.
— Outlier Dictionary of Chinese Characters, [s.v. 千, 亻, 一].
— Seely, C., Henshall, K.G., & Fan, J. (2016). The Complete Guide to Japanese Kanji: Remembering and Understanding the 2,136 Standard Japanese Characters, [s.v. 49]. Singapore: Tuttle Publishing.