Chinese character components
There ae three aspects to the structure of a Chinese character ; the strokes, the components, and the whole character. For example, the character”木” consists of four strokes； “—” ，”丨” ，”丿”，”丶”. It is a basic character and is also used as a component for some other characters. For example, “林”：consists of two “木” characters. The components are the core structure of a Chinese character. Chinese characters can be divided into character-parts and non-character-parts. For example, “院” can be divided into the following three parts, “宀”“阝”“元”of which “元” is a character-part, while “宀”“阝”are the non-character-parts. The key to learning Chinese character well is to master their components.
Certainly no more difficult than Egyptian hieroglyphs, which my dist. academic colleagues and I have already studied in rather lengthy detail: Only for all three wonderful characters 木林院 please furnish standard Pinyin name here as well as core English meaning, and the same humble request also goes for your three etymological components 元宀阝 so well deserving of positive scrutiny & equal consideration!
I’m intrigued. “丿”，”丶” are quite different as individual strokes, but are symmetrical in the composite character. Is this a limitation of the character symbols that you are using, or does the assembly dictate the pattern ?
Besides providing succinct Eng. translations here below, I humbly convert your three given characters 木林院 each to its standard pinyin lexeme for official Chinese long since known as (simplified) 国语 — (traditional) 國語guóyǔ “national language” on free but insular Taiwan and still more recently (smplf.) 普通话 — (trad.) 普通話pǔtōnghuà “common” or rather the “people’s speech” across present-day China’s vast, unlimited mainland:
Only now third & final character #3 from above 院yuan4 “courtyard” breaks down in three constituent parts as follows:
1. 元 = yuan2 “first” only phonetic with nothing meaningful to add
2. 阝 = fu4, yi4 “place” Chinese radical #170 (variant form)
3. 宀 = mian2 “roof” Chinese radical #40
So what behooves us the most is not to dismiss it all just yet, without first reflecting a little bit upon qualitative tone grade:
1 or diacritic ¯ = steady pitch
2 or diacritic ´ = rising pitch
3 or diacritic ˇ = dipping pitch
4 or diacritic ` = falling pitch
n.b. subsequent development 林木 which in standard Mandarin dialect línmù quite naturally means “forest, wood” may logically combine to form character sequence 林木院línmù yuàn perhaps describing some real or make-believe “wooded courtyard” however relevant to actual experience.
Unfortunately, I manage to get away very little and my tried & tested proficiency in those occasional hand-picked languages like Dutch et al. only proves of no expedient value here: But your afore mentioned “Reading Chinese” thought stream happens to be primarily concerned with elemental Chinese radicals known as 康熙部首Kāngxī bùshǒu or “Kangxi section headers” after one very famous 1716 dictionary authorized by the Kangxi emperor r. 1661-1722 that contained 214 basic characters used for individual section heads, which sustained numerical trimming down to just 200 much later in (simplified) 汉语大字典 — (traditional) 漢語大字典Hànyǔ dà zìdiǎn 1986-89 “Comprehensive Chinese Character Dictionary” with 54,678 separate characters, and likewise in (smplf.) 汉语大词典 — (trad.) 漢語大詞典Hànyǔ dà cídiǎn 1986-93 “Comprehensive Chinese Word Dictionary” with over 23,000 character entries as well as some 370,000 distinguishable words and 1,500,000 specific citations.
Next to all other scrutinized parolees, reformed ex-cons & serving inmates assembled together in a free cyber-tech superpower currently with the modern-day world’s highest rate of penal incarceration, I may very soon find myself willy-nilly categorized in what passes for a voting majority here instead of darkhorse minority!
Chinese character components
There ae three aspects to the structure of a Chinese character ; the strokes, the components, and the whole character. For example, the character”木” consists of four strokes； “—” ，”丨” ，”丿”，”丶”. It is a basic character and is also used as a component for some other characters. For example, “林”：consists of two “木” characters. The components are the core structure of a Chinese character. Chinese characters can be divided into character-parts and non-character-parts. For example, “院” can be divided into the following three parts, “宀”“阝”“元”of which “元” is a character-part, while “宀”“阝”are the non-character-parts. The key to learning Chinese character well is to master their components.
I’m trying to make some sense out of the OP, but find it difficult. There is for example no concept of a “basic character”. The “木” can serve as what is universally thought of as a “radical”. The individual strokes to write it are of course important to write it correctly, but they have no individual meaning.
If you want to look up “院” in a dictionary, you look for the radical “阝”, which is the most important part, and not too seldom the radical (if you find it) hints at the meaning of the character, and then you just count the strokes for the remainder. How the right hand part (in this case) is composed doesn’t matter at all for the lookup, but the way that complete part looks might, if you’re lucky, give you some clue to its pronunciation. BTW, I wouldn’t say that “宀” and “阝”are “non-chararacter parts”. They aren’t used on their own, but are often referred to as the “roof” and “village” radicals, respectively.
Also, I’m so happy that Unicode now seems to work here.
To ease your mental anguish, try looking up the thread on “Reading Chinese” - the Ag has been there already.
Unfortunately, I manage to get away very little and my tried & tested proficiency in those occasional hand-picked languages like Dutch et al. only proves of no expedient value here: But your afore mentioned “Reading Chinese” thought stream happens to be primarily concerned with elemental Chinese radicals known as 康熙部首Kāngxī bùshǒu or “Kangxi section headers” after one very famous 1716 dictionary authorized by the Kangxi emperor r. 1661-1722 that contained 214 basic characters used for individual section heads, which sustained numerical trimming down to just 200 much later in (simplified) 汉语大字典 — (traditional) 漢語大字典Hànyǔ dà zìdiǎn 1986-89 “Comprehensive Chinese Character Dictionary” with 54,678 separate characters, and likewise in (smplf.) 汉语大词典 — (trad.) 漢語大詞典Hànyǔ dà cídiǎn 1986-93 “Comprehensive Chinese Word Dictionary” with over 23,000 character entries as well as some 370,000 distinguishable words and 1,500,000 specific citations.
Certainly, I make one brand-new copy of each go over quite well on perpetual temp loan to 1.34 billion or so mutual friends in lovey-dovey China & Taiwan—then console yourself with a savory gourmet menu for the lengthy, lengthy time being!
