Bianging around with Biang

After writing that blog post about the crazy Chinese character “biang a while back, I had to share this tweet by Alexander Zapryagaev @JPRidgeway about biang:


You think you saw biang? Get ready for:

  • to make a biang sound
  • to biang something
  • wild biang in the forest
  • chemical element biangium
  • to catch a biang in the river
  • River Biang
  • to eat biang
  • it’s raining biang
  • World Capital of Biang
  • the demon of Biang
Bianging around with Biang

This is a great illustration of how character components can impart meaning by combining with another character. If you’re a beginner to Chinese characters, you probably still recognize a few of these components. (Feel free to ignore the craziness that is biang!)

Learners: why not try the same exercise with a character that is not biang? You might accidentally “create” a character that already exists, but this is pretty cool in itself, because you can compare your own meaning with the actual meaning and learn something in the process!

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John Pasden

John is a Shanghai-based linguist and entrepreneur, founder of AllSet Learning.

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