Online Language Courses: the Honorific of Different Age Periods

You may have already attended many online language courses and have risen to a basic level of your Chinese learning. As we all know, Chinese is a language with a long history and profound culture. So, today, I will introduce the honorifics of different age periods in China.

Do you know what the honorific of age is? That is a proper noun used to represent a particular period of the age.

Do be careful of the characters which may be a little difficult for you. The first one is “垂髫(chui2 tiao2)”, which refers to the kids of the age between 3 to 5. “髫” is a complicated character and it previously means the hair of children’ temples. It is a good chance for you to learn to write Chinese especially those complicated words.

“总角(zong3 jiao3)” is the kids between 8years old and 9.

“豆蔻(dou4 kou4)” is frequently heard in people’s communication. It is used to symbolize the girl between 13 and 14. we usually say “豆蔻年华”, which means the girl is endowed with young beauty, energy and all the good moments.

“弱冠(ruo4 guan1)” is the young man whose age is around 20. “冠” is a polyphonic word. It can be read “guan4” or “guan1”. Because “冠” here refers to the hat in ancient China, so it should be pronounced as “guan1”. Pronouncing the word correctly including its tone is important in our learning mandarin (學普通話) process.

There comes the most complicated phrase “耄耋(mao4 die2)”, which refers to the old people  of 80s or 90s. Do not worry. Actually, these two words’ structure can be clearly analyzed. “耄” is composed of “老(lao3)” and “毛(mao2)’; “耋” is made up of “老(lao3)” and “至(zhi4)”. So it is much easier for you to recognize and memorize this phrase.

To know more knowledge, you may search some relevant Chinese characters online.