Chinese is… interesting. Definitely the most unusual language i’ve tried to learn. Super easy grammar, and the pronunciation is not as difficult as it seems once you get used to the tones, but so many homonyms you will lose your mind!

And the way they put compound words together from individual characters is really fun. Though sometimes it gets a bit odd with foreign “loan” words…

Take the above word for “rule of law”: 法治 (fǎzhì) for example.

The most common meanings for the characters that make it up are: “law” for 法 and “rule” for 治. Pretty straightforward right?

But wait! 法 is actually also used to indicate something French. 法国 (fàguó) is France, and 法语 (fǎyǔ) is the French language. So if you were used to 法 meaning French you might think that 法治 means “French rule”.

But it gets even better! Guess what happens if you switch the characters in 法语 around? That’s right, you get 语法 (yǔfǎ) which means “grammar” (literally “language law”). French language is the inverse of grammar. Is that a low-key diss? Idk but I like it.

There are tons of examples like this with characters that have multiple meanings.

For someone like myself who is passionate about languages this sort of stuff is just super cool to learn. Not easy. But fun.