The capital of the People’s Republic of China used to be known as Peking in English and many other languages. Since 1949 it’s been known as Beijing, which is often mispronounced: the J in jing is not pronounced /ʒ/ (/Z/) as in pleasure, but more like jing, as in jingle.

Or if you want to be strictly accurate, Beijing is pronounced /pei˨˩˦ tɕɪŋ˥˥/ (/pei_\_/ ts\iN_H/), the first syllable has a rising tone, and the second has a high level tone. Where the /ʒ/ (/Z/) pronunciation for the J comes from is a mystery to me. Any ideas anyone?

Peking is the Postal System Pinyin version of Beijing. Postal System Pinyin was introduced in Shanghai in 1906 and was based on a romanization system developed by French missionaries 400 years earlier when the Chinese word for capital, 京, was pronounced /kʲiŋ/ (/k’iN/).

The literal meaning of Peking/Beijing is ‘Northern Capital’. There is also a Southern Capital, Nanjing (南京), and an Eastern Capital, Tōkyō (東京), which is Dongjing in Chinese. There is no Xijing (西京) or Eastern Capital though.

Between 1928 and 1949, Beijing was known as Beiping (北平) ‘Northern Peace’ in China because Nanjing was the capital for the Kuomintang government.

Another alternative name for Beijing is Yanjing (燕京), which refers to the State of Yan that existed during the Zhou dynasty (1022 – 256 BC).

闋 (què) – to close or shut the door after finishing something; to be at rest; to end; the expiry of a period of mourning; a numerical adjunct for songs; empty, blank

In addition to all the above meanings, this character is also used as a measure word (量詞 [量词] liàngcí) for words (詞 [词] cí) and indeed measure words themselves. Measure words or classifiers are used when counting things in Chinese, and also in Japanese, Thai and a number of other languages of East Asia. In English we have a few measure words, such as a box of matches, a sheet of paper, a pint of milk, a can of worms, etc. In Chinese there are about 150 such words and they have to be used when you add a number to a noun.

You can’t just say, for example, two tables, or three letters, instead you have to add a measure word between the number and the noun – for tables the measure word is 張 [张] (zhāng), which means sheet and is used for flat objects (paper, tables, etc.), faces, bows, paintings, tickets and constellations, e.g. 兩張桌子 (liǎng zhāng zhuòzi) – two tables. For letters the measure word is 封 (fēng), e.g. 三封信 (sān fēng xìn) – three letters (the kind you put in an envelope).

Fortunately there is a default measure word 個 [个] (ge) which you can use if you can’t remember the correct one.

崎 (qí), noun = the banks of a winding river

This is an example of one of the very specific words in Chinese. I doubt if it’s used very often, but the fact that you pack so much meaning into a single syllable is quite impressive.

Pronounced with the first tone and combined with 嶇 (qū), this character means rugged, uneven or rough, e.g. 這條小徑崎嶇而多泥 (zhè tiáo xiǎojīng qīqū ér duō ní) – This path is rugged and muddy.

(guī) , noun = tortoise, turtle

This is my favorite Chinese character and one of the few that sort of resembles the word it represents. At the top you have the head, then the two bits sticking out on the left are the claws, the shell is on the right and at the bottom is the tail. If I hadn’t told you this though, I doubt if you would have guessed the meaning of this character.

The turtle is a symbol of longevity, strength, stability and prophecy in Chinese culture. The idea that the world is supported by a giant turtle appears in stories in many cultures.

By the way, in case you’re wondering, the Chinese character at the top of this page means character, letter or word and is pronounced zì in Mandarin Chinese, ji in Japanese and ja in Korean.