With that in mind, I’ve compiled a pretty hefty list of similar hanzi (and similar hanzi components). It’s heavily sourced from here, but there’s quite a lot of other material in there too. I want to keep editing it to get it as useful as possible.

You can download the list here:

• similar-hanzi.csv (4Kb)
• similar-hanzi.ods (25Kb)
• similar-hanzi.anki (1.2Mb)
  (the deck is available directly in Anki via File → Download → Shared deck)

If you have any additions, corrections or objections, please share them in the comments!

A lot of the entries seem pretty obvious, but I’ve just copied them faithfully from the Wiktionary page without applying my own subjective criteria to them. They might be easy to mix up in some contexts for some people.You can easily delete them from your copy of the Anki deck.

Having said that, some of them are just ridiculous, so please point out those you think can reasonably be removed from the list (taking into account complete beginners of Chinese).

The list is arranged in pairs, with pinyin to distinguish them. This might seem an odd way to arrange it at first, as it doesn’t allow longer sequences of similar hanzi to be grouped together.

But there is a big advantage in the consistency of grouping by pairs. It makes the data much easier to organise, edit and work with, particularly when it comes to automating tasks with it. It also makes it easy to import into Anki, which I’ve already done for you :)

And here’s the list as a huge HTML table (↓ skip to end ↓):

↑ skip to top ↑

Related posts:

• 王維 酬張少府 translation: Answering Minister Zhang, by Wang Wei

Content from East Asia Student: Similar hanzi list and Anki deck

問劉十九
Wèn Liú Shíjiǔ
[invite] [Liu] [Shi] [Jiu]
Inviting Liu Shijiu

綠螘新醅酒，
Lǜ yǐ xīn pēi jiǔ,
[green] [ant] [new] [unfiltered] [rice wine]
Green foam on fresh, unfiltered rice wine,

紅泥小火爐。
hóng ní xiǎo huǒlú.
[red] [clay] [small] [fire] [stove]
on a little terracotta stove.

晚來天欲雪，
Wǎn lái tiān yù xuě,
[late] [come] [sky] [want] [snow]
It’s getting late, and looks like snow;

能飲一杯無。
néng yǐn yībēi wú.
[possibly] [want] [drink] [one] [glass] [not have]
might you like to drink a glass?

If you notice a mistake or disagree with the translation, please comment below to improve this resource. You might want to have a read of this, as well.

Notes

綠螘 in the first line, literally ‘green ants’, refers to the foam that forms on top of fresh rice wine before it is filtered.

Source: 问刘十九·白居易 – 百度百科

Links:

• 300 Tang Poems (Waters, Farman, Lunde)
• Fifty Five T’ang Poems (Hugh M. Stimson)
• Poems of the Late T’ang (A. C. Graham)
• Translation of 問劉十九 into English by Ying Sun
• Translation of 問劉十九 into English by 黃宏發

No related posts.

Content from East Asia Student: 白居易 問劉十九 translation: Inviting Liu Shijiu, by Bai Juyi

The article was aimed at Chinese readers, not foreign learners, so it was interesting to see what native speakers consider correct and incorrect.

1. 方 (fāng)

How most people write it:

How it should be written:

Yep, that ㇆ stroke comes before the 丿. The 丿stroke is called 撇 (‘slant’), and the ㇆ stroke is called 横折钩 (‘right angle hook’). The right angle hook should be written before the slant, despite most people doing it the other way round.

2. 万 (wàn)

It actually stems from the way in which 万 should be written. Characters with this as a component are frequently written in the wrong order:

Again, you should write the ㇆ before the 丿, like this:

Why? I don’t know, but that’s the stroke order that character nerds will give you. I’m tempted to think that this is somewhat equivalent of the split infinitives rule in English (a ridiculous rule that a lot of people promote without any good reason).

3. 火 (huǒ)

I was actually writing this one correctly before I saw the article (thanks to Skritter, I think), but apparently a lot of people write 火 in this order:

The correct order is in fact:

The strokes in 火 are 丶 ㇒ 丿㇏, called 点, 提, 竖撇 and 捺 respectively. They should be written in that order as well!

4. 车 (chē)

There seems to be some debate about the correct stroke order for 车, but according to the newspaper article you don’t write it like this:

The correct order is in fact:

The article also pointed out another common mistake involving 车. Play spot the difference with these two versions of 轻:

When 车 appears as a radical in other characters (e.g. 转, 较, 载), the final 一 stroke actually turns into a ㇀. As far as I know this upward slant is purely aesthetic, and just helps to balance the character; you might be able to improve your handwriting a little if you pay attention to this!

5. 里 (lǐ)

This one really surprised me, and I still can’t get used to it. I always thought that 里 was written in this order:

You’re actually supposed to write 甲 first then just add two lines, like this:

It’s 丨㇕一一丨一一, not 丨㇕一一一丨一.

6. 快 (kuài)

Another one that I didn’t know, although this one does seem natural with the correct stroke order. Previously I’d been writing 快 like this:

The 忄 radical is actually written in a different order:

This applies to any character containing the 忄 radical, of course: 情, 性, 怀 etc. The order is ㇒丶丨㇕一丿㇏, not ㇒丨丶㇕一㇓㇏.

7. 母 (mǔ)

This one isn’t so much stroke order as the number of strokes. Apparently some people write 母 like this, although I’ve never seen anyone do it:

There’s one more stroke than there should be. The first stroke of 母 is actually ㇄, making five strokes in total:

8. 及 (jí)

This one is a common variant, but strictly speaking it’s wrong:

You’re supposed to write the 丿 stroke first, like this:

So the correct order is 丿㇋㇏. The same thing applies for similar looking characters, like 九, which should be 丿 then ㇈.

9. 义 (yì)

There are definitely a lot of people that write 义 in the ‘wrong’ order, as the technically correct one does seem a little strange. First up, the incorrect stroke order:

It’s actually supposed to be written like this, though:

The dot (丶) should be written first, followed by the criss-crossing strokes.

10. 爽 (shuǎng)

And finally, a slightly less common character that often gets written in the wrong order. It’s tempting to write 爽 like this:

(I’ve grouped the repeated ㇒丶 strokes together to keep it clear.) Even nciku gives this stroke order. But according to the newspaper article, 爽 should actually be written like this:

This stroke order is more consistent with that of traditional 來, for example, and is the one used on Skritter. This is obviously a highly debatable topic, though, as no-one really has the authority to say which stroke order is wrong and which is right.

Did you already have all these pinned down, or were there some surprises? Do you disagree with the ‘correct’ stroke orders given here? Please share all in the comments!

No related posts.

Content from East Asia Student: 10 hanzi you thought you knew how to write correctly

There is actually a faster way. You may have noticed that most pinyin input systems have an option called “allow incomplete pinyin” or something similar. That’s what it’s called in SCIM anyway, or “允许不完整拼音” if you’ve got your operating system in Chinese:

Perhaps this was common knowledge to everyone else, and I’ve been blundering on in ignorance. But if you’re like me and didn’t know about this tip, here it is!

Just type the first letter

With this option on, you only need to type parts of each syllable to get the system to guess what it is. If you’re typing words with two or more characters, you can often just use the first letter of each syllable and the system will guess what you want to type.

Some examples:

允许 ⇐ yx

拼音 ⇐ py

你好 ⇐ nh

So you type just two letters, and the input system will still give you a list of possible options. More often than not, the one you want is right there. If not, then you just type out the word as usual.

Obviously two letters isn’t enough sometimes, but the system will learn which words and phrases you use most often and suggest these first. You can quickly get to the point where typing Chinese is way faster than English.

Why this works

This is possible because pinyin is a very cleverly designed system (and because the phonetics of Mandarin allow pinyin to be designed that way). Letters and groups of letters are only allowed to appear in specific positions. When you type ‘nh’ , the ‘h’ is obviously part of a new syllable because there is no ‘nh’ combination in pinyin.

But pinyin takes this useful feature further by ensuring that the same sound is assigned a different letter if it appears in a different part of a syllable. So ‘yi’ is prefaced with the ‘y’ to make it easy to isolate as a syllable, for example.

Use the apostrophe!

If an ambiguous pair of letters to appear next to each other (i.e. there’s two ways to split them up into syllables), the standard procedure is to separate them with an apostrophe. The classic example for this is 西安, which should written in pinyin as Xī’ān and not Xiān.

Try inputting these two to see how the system handles them differently. An example that you might encounter more commonly is 晚安. If you don’t put an apostrophe between the two (wan’an), the system may think you’re trying to type wa’nan and get stumped.

Particularly useful on phones

I only noticed this trick because I got an Android phone recently, which has smart pinyin input. Previously I’d had an ultra-cheap (200元) Nokia phone which required entering each syllable separately. As typing on a phone (particularly a touch-screen) is necessarily slower, I found myself looking for ways to do it faster.

The system learns about the words and phrases I use most often, so increasingly I can just type out letter codes for various chunks and it guesses them correctly. A real time saver!

As I said above, I’m sure most people figured this one out in the early days, but it’s been a nice little revelation for me. If anyone has any other pinyin input tips and tricks, please share in the comments!

Related posts:

• Why Wubi Chinese input is better than pinyin
• How to type ü in pinyin input systems
• Input pinyin with tone marks in Ubuntu

Content from East Asia Student: Speed up pinyin input: be incomplete!

辛丑十一月十九日，
Xīnchǒu shíyīyuè shíjiǔrì,
[1061AD][] [November][][] [19th][][]
November 19th 1061,

既與子由別于鄭州西門之外，
jì yǔ Zǐyóu bié yú Zhèngzhōu xīmén zhī wài,
[since] [with] [Zi] [You] [part] [at] [Zheng] [Zhou] [west] [gate] ['s] [outside]
After Parting with Ziyou outside Zhengzhou’s West Gate,

馬上賦詩一篇寄之
mǎshàng fù shī yī piān jì zhī
[horse] [on] [write poetry][] [one] [piece] [send] [him]
I Write this Poem to Send to him

不飲胡為醉兀兀，
Bù yǐn hú wèi zuì wù wù,
[not] [drink] [what] [for] [drunk] [muddled][]
I have not been drinking, so why am I light headed?

此心已逐歸鞍發。
cǐ xīn yǐ zhú guī ān fā.
[this] [heart] [already] [chase] [return] [saddle] [set off]
This heart has saddled up with you and returned.

歸人猶自念庭幃，
Guī rén yóuzì niàn tíng wéi,
[return] [person] [still] [self] [think of] [hall] [quarters]
The one returning still misses the halls of his home,

今我何以慰寂寞。
jīn wǒ héyǐ wèi jìmò.
[now] [I] [what] [with] [console] [solitary] [lonely]
but how will I console myself in loneliness now?

登高回首坡囘隔，
Dēng gāo huíshǒu pō huí gé,
[climb] [high] [return] [head] [slope] [-] [separate]
I climb high, and look back from the slope – we are separated;

但見烏帽出復沒。
dàn jiàn wū mào chū fù méi.
[but] [see] [black] [hat] [leave] [again] [not have]
but I see your black hat leaving, then again, then not.

苦寒念爾衣裘薄，
Kǔhán niàn ěr yī qiú báo,
[bitter] [cold] [remember] [you] [clothes] [coat] [thin]
In the bitter cold, I remember your clothes are thin;

獨騎瘦馬踏殘月。
dú qí shòu mǎ tà cányuè.
[alone] [ride] [thin] [horse] [tread] [cruel] [moon]
alone you ride a thin horse, treading beneath a cruel moon.

路人行歌居人樂，
Lùrén xíng gē jū rén lè,
[journey] [person] [travel] [sing] [reside] [person] [joy]
The traveler sings of the joy of those who live there;

童僕怪我苦悽惻。
tóngpú guàiwǒ kǔ qī cè.
[child] [servant] [wonder] [my] [bitter] [mournful] [sorrowful]
the child servant wonders why I am so bitterly sad.

亦知人生要有別，
Yì zhī rénshēng yào yǒu bié,
[also] [know] [person] [life] [must] [have] [separation]
I know, too, that life must have its farewells,

但恐歲月去飄忽。
dàn kǒng suìyuè qù piāohū.
[but] [fear] [year] [month] [pass] [float] [overlook]
but fear the months and years slipping by, unnoticed.

寒燈相對記疇昔，
Hán dēng xiāngduì jì chóuxī,
[cold] [lamp] [each other] [face] [remember] [past][]
In the cold lamplight, I remember our time together;

夜雨何時聽蕭瑟？
yè yǔ héshí tīng xiāosè?
[night] [voice] [what] [time] [hear] [rustle][]
in the night, when will I hear the sound of your voice?

君知此意不可忘，
Jūn zhī cǐ yì bùkě wàng,
[sir] [know] [this] [wish] [not] [can] [forget]
You know that this wish cannot be forgotten;

慎勿苦愛高官職。
shèn wù kǔ ài gāoguānzhí.
[careful] [do not] [bitter] [love] [high] [official] [office]
be careful not to fall in love with your high office.

Notes

I make 辛丑 in the title to be 1061AD, as it’s the only 辛丑 year during Su Shi’s lifetime (1037 – 1101).

胡為 in the first line is 何为.

庭幃, in the third line, refers to the living quarters of one’s parents.

The line “但見烏帽出復沒” seems to refer to the writer seeing the black hat bobbing up and down between slopes; one moment it is visible, the next it is not.

疇昔 is 往昔.

雨 in the fourteenth line seems to be 語.

Links

• Word, Image and Deed in the Life of Su Shi – Amazon
• 蘇軾《辛丑十一月十九日，既與子由別于鄭州西門之外，馬上賦詩一篇寄之。》 – cognitiohk.edu.hk
• Original text at Wikisource

No related posts.

Content from East Asia Student: 蘇軾 辛丑十一月十九日，既與子由別于鄭州西門之外，馬上賦詩一篇寄之 translation

雜詩
Zá Shī
[miscellaneous] [poem]
Miscellaneous Poem

聞道黃龍戍，
Wéndào Huánglóng shù,
[hear] [say] [Yellow] [Dragon] [garrison]
One hears of the Yellow Dragon garrison;

頻年不解兵。
pín nián bù jiě bīng.
[repeat] [year] [not] [dissolve] [army]
for many years they have not been granted leave.

可憐閨裡月，
Kělián guī lǐ yuè,
[can] [pity] [women's quarters] [in] [moon]
Pitiful, the moonlight in a woman’s bedroom;

長在漢家營。
zhǎng zài Hàn jiā yíng.
[forever] [in] [Han] [family] [barracks]
[her heart is] forever in the Han barracks.

少婦今春意，
Shàofù jīn chūnyì,
[little] [wife] [now] [spring] [thought]
A young wife now thinks of love,

良人昨夜情。
liáng rén zuóyè qíng.
[husband][] [yesterday] [evening] [emotion]
the same feelings as her husband’s last night.

誰能將旗鼓，
Shéi néng jiāng qí gǔ,
[who] [can] [lead] [flag] [drum]
Who can lead the flags and drums,

一為取龍城？
yī wéi qǔ lóng chéng?
[one] [action] [take] [Dragon] [City]
to take the Dragon City in one strike?

If you notice a mistake or disagree with the translation, please comment below to improve this resource. You might want to have a read of this, as well.

Notes

闻道 is a Classical Chinese version of the modern 听说 (道 is often used to introduce speech in older texts). 黄龙 is Huanglong County in Shaanxi.

The third line refers to the spouses of the soldiers back home looking at the moon.

春 (Spring) appears in all sorts of Chinese euphemisms for sex, romance and love.

良人 is an archaic word for ‘husband’, literally ‘good person’.

Source: 杂诗·沈佺期 – 百度百科

Links:

• 300 Tang Poems (Waters, Farman, Lunde)
• Fifty Five T’ang Poems (Hugh M. Stimson)
• Poems of the Late T’ang (A. C. Graham)
• Translation of 雜詩 into English by 曾培慈
• Translation of 雜詩 into English at ChinaPage

No related posts.

Content from East Asia Student: 沈佺期 雜詩 translation: Miscellaneous Poem, by Shen Quanqi

Unnecessary question marks aside, it looks like it should be useful. I’ll just copy their email here:

Webinar content:

• Tools and Channels to search for a job in China
• Salary Expectations
• Legal & Tax Implications
• Chinese corporate culture
• Accommodation

Time: Thursday May 24th, 7pm EDT
Duration: +/- 45 minutes: online presentation + Q&A
Software: There is no special software required for the webinar, only a web browser and headset.
Registration: Please register before May 17th. Reserve your spot quickly – Limit of 100 participants. Participation in this webinar is free.

After registration, participants will receive a link to the webinar with further instructions.

Register here!

About the organizing entities:
Hutong School was founded in 2005 in order to provide Western students, graduates and young professionals internships and Chinese language courses in China.  It is the only fully licensed Chinese language school under European management and is the school of choice for anyone who wants to study Chinese or find an internship in China.
For more information visit: http://www.hutong-school.com

Chinaseite is the biggest German-China web portal. It covers all categories concerning China, Chinese culture, traveling, history, politics and economy.
For more information visit: http://www.chinaseite.de

About the lecturer:
Mr. Jan Wostyn, Vlerick MBA Alumni, Co-Founder and Director of International Relations at Hutong School, has over 10 years of China experience and is an expert in the field of Chinese Language, Culture and Economic Development.

Get in contact with Hutong School if you have any questions!

No related posts.

Content from East Asia Student: Webinar: “How to get a job in China?”

將至京口
Jiāng Zhì Jīng Kǒu
[will] [go to] [Jing] [Kou]
Going to Jingkou

臥聽金山古寺鍾，
Wò tīng Jīnshān gǔsì zhōng,
[crouch] [listen] [Gold] [Mountain] [old] [temple] [bell]
Kneeling, one listens to the old temple bells on Gold Mountain;

三巴昨夢已成空。
Sānbā zuó mèng yǐ chéng kōng.
[San] [Ba] [yesterday] [dream] [already] [finish] [unoccupied]
last night in Sanba, one dreamt of retirement.

船頭坎坎回帆鼓，
Chuántóu kǎn kǎn huí fān gǔ,
[boat] [head] ['splash'] ['splash'] [return] [sail] [swell]
The prow of the boat splashes as the sail swells;

旗尾舒舒下水風。
qí wěi shū shū xiàshuǐ fēng.
[flag] [tail] [stretch] [stretch] [down] [water] [wind]
the flags stretch out downstream in the wind.

城角危樓晴靄碧，
Chéng jiǎo wēilóu qíng ǎi bì,
[city wall] [corner] [high] [building] [fine] [mist] [blue-green]
At the city’s corner towers there is a fine blue mist;

林間雙塔夕陽紅。
lín jiān shuāng tǎ xīyáng hóng.
[forest] [between] [pair] [pagoda] [dusk] [sun] [red]
in the forest, between pagodas, the setting sun is red.

銅瓶愁汲中霝水，
Tóng píng chóu jí zhōng líng shuǐ,
[copper] [bottle] [worry] [draw water] [in]
Worrying if there is still wine in the copper pitcher,

不見茶山九十翁。
bùjiàn Cháshān jiǔshí wēng.
[not] [see] [Tea] [Mountain] [nine] [ten] [old man]
an ninety-year-old man who has not seen tea in the mountains

If you notice a mistake or disagree with the translation, please comment below to improve this resource. You might want to have a read of this, as well.

Notes

京口 is a town in Jiangsu province (江苏), now a district of Zhenjiang city (镇江市).

There are a lot of places named 金山. The one in the poem is Mt Jin in Zhenjiang city, where Jingkou is also located.

三巴 refers to Sichuan, or one of various locations in Sichuan with names containing 巴.

坎坎 seems to represent the sound of the boat cutting through the water.

The character marked red in the penultimate line is actually 氵 + 霝, but doesn’t seem to exist in the UTF-8 character set.

Links:

• Song Dynasty Poems – Amazon
• The Old Man Who Does as He Pleases – Amazon
• Grand Canal, Great River: The Travel Diary of a Twelfth-Century Chinese Poet – Amazon

No related posts.

Content from East Asia Student: 陸游 將至京口 translation: Going to Jingkou, by Lu You

登賞心亭
Dēng Shǎngxīn Tíng
[ascend] [appreciate] [heart] [pavilion]
Ascending the Joy Pavilion

蜀棧秦關歲月遒，
Shǔzhàn Qínguān suìyuè qiú,
[Shuzhan road][] [Qin] [mountain pass] [year] [month] [end]
From Shu’s bamboo trestlework to Qin’s mountain pass, time passes till the end,

今年乘興卻東遊。
jīnnián chéngxìng què dōngyóu.
[today] [year] [ride] [feeling] [retreat] [east] [travel]
this year, on an impulse, one returns east to travel.

全家穩下黃牛峽，
Quán jiā wěn xià Huángniú Xiá,
[whole] [family] [settled] [under] [Yellow] [Ox] [Gorge]
One’s whole family has settled in Yellow Ox Gorge;

半醉來尋白鷺洲。
bàn zuì lái xún Báilù Zhōu.
[half] [drunk] [arrive] [look for] [White] [Heron] [Island]
half drunk, one comes to search for White Heron Island.

黯黯江雲瓜步雨，
Àn àn jiāng yún Guābù yǔ,
[dark] [dark] [river] [cloud] [Gua] [Bu] [rain]
A deep, dark river under rain clouds by Guabu Mountain;

蕭蕭木葉石城秋。
xiāoxiāo mùyè shíchéng qiū.
[desolate] [desolate] [tree] [leaf] [stone] [city] [autumn]
desolate leaves in Stone City in the autumn.

孤臣老抱憂時意，
Gū chén lǎo bào yōu shí yì,
[lonely] [official] [always] [hold] [worry] [times] [thought]
A lonely official forever worrying about the times;

欲請遷都淚已流。
yù qǐng qiāndū lèi yǐ liú.
[want] [request] [move] [capital] [tears] [already] [flow]
he requests they move the capital, his tears already flowing.

If you notice a mistake or disagree with the translation, please comment below to improve this resource. You might want to have a read of this, as well.

Notes

蜀棧 is the name of a specific road from the Kingdom of Shu Han. 秦關 refers to the valley of the Wei River (渭河), and is a metonym for Chinese civilisation in general.

黃牛峽 is a valley in Hubei province (湖北).

瓜步 is a mountain (瓜步山) across the Yangtze River from Nanjing.

Source: 登赏心亭 – 百度百科

Links:

• Song Dynasty Poems – Amazon
• The Old Man Who Does as He Pleases – Amazon
• Grand Canal, Great River: The Travel Diary of a Twelfth-Century Chinese Poet – Amazon

Related posts:

• 李白 渡荆門送别 translation: Crossing at Jingmen and Saying Goodbye, by Li Bai
• 杜甫 登岳陽樓 translation: Ascending Yueyang Tower, by Du Fu
• 杜甫 卜居 translation: Divining for a Residence, by Du Fu

Content from East Asia Student: 陸游 登賞心亭 translation: Ascending the Joy Pavilion, by Lu You

Pronunciation of Xi Jinping / 习近平

If you’ve studied Chinese and can read pinyin, then you can have a good go at pronouncing ‘Xi Jinping’:

Xí Jìnpíng

For the uninitiated, though, it’s not clear at all. First up there’s the tones, which I’ve colour-coded above. I actually think we can ignore them, though; it’s fine to convert foreign names into English phonology when using them in English.

Saying Xi Jinping without tones is perfectly clear in English so we don’t need them. Anyone who insists on doing otherwise is like that pretentious guy in a restaurant ordering wine in a perfect French accent (or so he thinks).

After that, the given name Jinping probably isn’t too hard to have a guess at, and most English speakers should be able to produce a pretty good approximation of it. The j and p sounds in English aren’t completely the same as they are in Mandarin pinyin, but they’re close.

The x is probably the biggest stumbling block, then. I’ve already heard BBC newsreaders pronouncing this as j, z, sh, and a voiced sh sound. Of those, the unvoiced sh sound is probably the best bet. Again it’s not actually the same as x in pinyin, but it’s the closest comfortable thing in English.

IPA pronunciation for Xi Jinping

If you’re familiar with IPA, you’ve got an easy route into this:

ɕǐ tɕînpʰǐŋ

That’s less useful for the rest of us, though. Let’s have a look at how Wikipedia helps readers pronounce this name:

SHEE chin-PING

Hmm. The only thing that surprises me there is ch for the pinyin j sound. That’s not a bad idea, actually, as the way many English speakers pronounce ch is actually closer to the pinyin j. But the pronunciation of the family name 习 brings me on to the main point of this post.

He’s called SHE?

I’m sure the English language media will have a field-day thinking of puns for 习近平 headlines. I’ll get the ball rolling:

• Xi’s all that
• That’s what Xi said
• Xi doesn’t know who I am (and Xi doesn’t give a damn about me)
• Murder, Xi wrote
• Xi’s way out of my league
• He said, Xi said
• Xi loves me, Xi loves me not
• Xi loves me, yeah, yeah, yeah
• Xi’s the one for me
• Xi’s gotta have it

And so on. Please add more in the comments if you have them (there is endless potential). But that’s only one half of this. The bigger issue, I think, is that Xi is going to be one hell of a confusing surname when used in speech.

In writing it’s not so bad because it’s easy to distinguish Xi and ‘she’. But when someone says the Anglicised Xi out loud, it sounds exactly the same as ‘she’. Imagine this:

“Angela Merkel met with the Chinese president last Thursday. She said that the talks were successful, but Xi’s not that easy to gauge.”

Now obviously it’s quite a silly example, but you can see the issue with this. So I’m wondering if the media will think of some alternative way of referring to Xi Jinping, instead of just using his confusing surname.

My guess is that the media will always use Xi’s full name Xi Jinping, except when it makes for a good pun. They could refer to him as ‘President Xi’, but I actually think that’s unlikely, as China still doesn’t get that level of recognition in Western media.

‘President’ refers to the president of America unless otherwise specified. European countries might get ‘President Sarkozy’ or similar, but for now China will always get ‘Chinese President Xi Jinping’. Xi’ll just have to put up with it.

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Content from East Asia Student: How will the media handle Xi Jinping’s name? Pronunciation problems and puns