The Secret Behind 比 and 北 #freemandarinchinese #chinesecharacters

Hinzugefügt: 2026-05-21

[00:00:00]These two Chinese characters may look completely unrelated, but thousands of years ago, they both began with the same shape.

[00:00:11]Do you still remember this character?

[00:00:14]Ren, meaning person.

[00:00:16]In previous video, we saw that its ancient form looked like a human figure.

[00:00:22]And that same human shape is still hiding inside other Chinese characters today.

[00:00:30]This character is bi.

[00:00:33]Today, it means to compare.

[00:00:36]But, the ancient form looked very different.

[00:00:40]The original form showed two people standing side by side, and that's where the idea of comparison came from.

[00:00:49]To compare two things, you place them next to each other.

[00:00:55]Thousands of years later, the character still carries the same idea, putting two things side by side to compare them.

[00:01:05]This character is bei.

[00:01:08]Today, it means north.

[00:01:11]But, thousands of years ago, this character meant something completely different.

[00:01:18]The original form showed two people facing away from each other, back to back.

[00:01:25]That's why bei originally meant back.

[00:01:30]In ancient China, cold winter winds often came from the north.

[00:01:35]So, people naturally turned their backs against it.

[00:01:39]And over time, the character bei became associated with the direction north.

[00:01:46]Can you guess what do these characters mean?

[00:01:50]We will explore them in the next video.

[00:01:53]If you want to go further with your Chinese, please download Dreco Chinese app in Google Play or App Store. Thanks for watching. See you next time.