Chinese months
The second symbol is the symbol for month. The first symbol is the sign of the number. The easiest ones to recognize are January, month one, single line. February, month two is a double line. Four is like the four sides of a window with curtains. April, curtains. June is the sixth month.
July is the seventh month, and the Chinese seven looks like an upside down English seven. August is the eighth month and instead of two circles making the eight you simply have two curved lines. September looks like the ltter r in Italic script. October is the tenth month, like a Roman number ten turning anticlockwise. November, is ten plus one, the eleventh month.
一月 one month (January)
二月two month (February)
游行
四月 four month (April - four sides of a square, like a window, with curtains)
可能
六月six month (June)
七月seven month (July - looks like an upside down European seven and a backwards J)
八月eight month (August like two circles written in a hurry)
九月
十月 ten month (October - looks like Roman ten turned sideways)
十一月 eleven month (November looks like Roman ten turned sideways plus one line = 11)
十二月 twelve month (December - looks like Roman ten turned sideways plus two lines = 12)
Chinese Pronunciation
One, two - yi, èr.
1 Yī yuè
2 èr yuè
3 yóuxíng
4 sì yuè
5 kěnéng
6 liù yuè
7 qī yuè
8 bā yuè
9 jiǔ yuè
10 shí yuè
11 shíyī yuè
12 shí'èr yuè
After looking at the simplified Chinese, I decided to try traditional Chinese to find out if it was more complicated and if I could recognize it.
1 一月
2 二月
3 遊行
4 四月
5 可能
6 六月
7 七月
8 八月
9 九月
10 十月
11 十一月
12 十二月
1 Yī yuè
2 èr yuè
3 yóuxíng
4 sì yuè
5 kěnéng
6 liù yuè
7 qī yuè
8 bā yuè
9 jiǔ yuè
10 shí yuè
11 shíyī yuè
12 shí'èr yuè
It comes out the same. So, no trouble reading the signs, including today's date displayed on the hotel TV or above Reception in the hotel or in a bank.
Japanese uses the same symbols.
Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.
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