Learn chinese characters 002 月

by Caren Zuo

月 （yuè）

The types of charactere script (from left to right)--oracle script, bronzeware script, seal script, regular script

It is a pictograph. The ancient scripts look like a crescent moon，a frequent figure of moon.  Its original meaning is MOON.

“日”and “月” are a pair of characters that usually occur together in many phrases. They represent SUN and MOON in Classic chinese language. Later, both of them became the units of time, representing DAY and MONTH respectively. In oral language, we seldom say the character “月” to refer to moon, instead, we say “月亮”。

Moon is much favored by Chinese poets who have given it different colors. Sometimes it is warm and comfortable and sometime it is cold and cheerless.

“月” is a radical, which is related to MOON or BRIGHT when it forms combined characters.

Please point out where yue lie in the following characters.
明 朗 朦 胧 朝

Phrases:
月亮 （yuè liàng） moon 

月光 （yuè guāng）moonlight 

月票 （yuè piào）month tickets 

月球 （yuè qiú）the moon 

日新月异（rì xīn yuè yì）  
Every day shows new face and every month changes greatly-change with each passing day

日月如梭 （rì yuè rú suō）
The sun and the moon move back and forth like a shuttle-time flies.

月上柳梢头，人约黄昏后。
yuè shàng liǔ shāo tóu ， rén yuē huáng hūn hòu
The moon has climbed up the tip of the willow, and lovers start coming out for dating.