Vocabulary · 词汇 cíhuì

声音

shēngyīn

A chime-stone struck beside an ear: the word for sound welds raw noise to patterned tone, and Chinese theory kept the two distinct.

~5 min read

字源 zìyuán Etymology & Structure

磬与耳 qìng yǔ ěr · The Stone and the Ear

The traditional form of the sound character, 聲, is a percussion scene: its upper part depicts the 磬 (qìng), the L-shaped stone chime that hung in racks in ritual orchestras and rang when struck, and beneath it sits 耳, the ear that receives the ringing. Sound, in the character's anatomy, is what travels from a struck stone to a listening ear, which is as good a definition as physics offers. Simplification kept only a fragment of the chime (声) and discarded the ear, so the modern character rings without anyone listening. 音, its partner, was differentiated in the early script from 言 (speech) by a mark added to the mouth element: sound as distinct from words.

The compound 声音 (shēngyīn) is the everyday word for both sound and the human voice: 他的声音很好听 means he has a pleasant voice. 声 alone supplies the volume scale, 大声 and 小声 (big and small sound), and the counting word for utterances: 叫了一声 is to give a single cry, and the polite summons 喊我一声 means "give me a shout."

声与音 shēng yǔ yīn Raw Sound, Patterned Tone

声成文，谓之音 · Sound Patterned Becomes Tone

The Record of Music (乐记) drew the line that the modern compounds still walk: raw sounds are 声, and when sounds take on pattern and mutual response they become 音; music (乐) is 音 organized further still. The modern lexicon distributes accordingly. Raw and bodily: 声 in 哭声 (the sound of crying), 笑声 (laughter), 雷声 (thunder). Patterned and meaningful: 音 in 发音 (fāyīn, pronunciation), 拼音 (pīnyīn, the romanization system, "spelled sounds"), 口音 (kǒuyīn, accent), 录音 (lùyīn, a recording), and 音乐 itself. Unwanted sound gets its own compound, 噪音 (zàoyīn, noise), the enemy of apartment dwellers everywhere.

For the learner, the highest-stakes member of the family is 声调 (shēngdiào), the lexical tones. Mandarin's four tones plus the neutral tone are not decoration; they are as phonemic as vowels, the difference between 买 (mǎi, buy) and 卖 (mài, sell) being a tone and a financial catastrophe. The guide's phonology pages carry the details; this word is the label on the whole enterprise. And one register note: 声 reaches into reputation, as in 名声 (míngshēng, one's public name) and 声誉 (shēngyù, prestige), sound as the social echo a person makes.

词汇 cíhuì Key Compounds

声调 shēngdiào lexical tone

N 名词 míngcí

声 (sound) + 调 (tune, contour): the pitch shape that distinguishes words. 第一声 through 第四声 name the four tones in class; 轻声 (qīngshēng, "light sound") is the neutral tone that unstressed syllables carry.

中文的声调很重要，说错了意思就变了。

Zhōngwén de shēngdiào hěn zhòngyào, shuō cuò le yìsi jiù biàn le.

Tones in Chinese really matter; say one wrong and the meaning changes.

发音 fāyīn pronunciation; to pronounce

V/N 动词/名词

发 (emit) + 音 (sound). The compliment every learner works for is 你的发音很标准 ("your pronunciation is very standard"), 标准 being the operative cultural value: the broadcast-Mandarin ideal against which accents are measured.

他学了两年中文，发音相当标准。

Tā xué le liǎng nián Zhōngwén, fāyīn xiāngdāng biāozhǔn.

He has studied Chinese for two years, and his pronunciation is quite standard.

大声 dàshēng loud; loudly

Adv 副词 fùcí

Big sound. Used adverbially before the verb: 大声说 (speak up), 大声朗读 (read aloud). Its opposite 小声 keeps the peace: 请小声一点，孩子睡了。Quiet please, the child is asleep.

老师请他大声一点再说一遍。

Lǎoshī qǐng tā dàshēng yìdiǎn zài shuō yí biàn.

The teacher asked him to say it again a bit louder.

噪音 zàoyīn noise

N 名词 míngcí

噪 (clamor, wearing three mouths) + 音. The urban complaint word: construction 噪音, traffic 噪音, and the neighbor's renovation drill. 噪音污染 (noise pollution) is a recognized legal complaint category in Chinese cities.

楼上装修的噪音吵得我没法工作。

Lóushàng zhuāngxiū de zàoyīn chǎo de wǒ méi fǎ gōngzuò.

The renovation noise upstairs is so loud I can't work.

成语 chéngyǔ Idioms & Set Phrases

掩耳盗铃 yǎn ěr dào líng covering one's ears to steal the bell — self-deception From the Lüshi Chunqiu: a thief found the great bell of the fallen Fan clan too heavy to carry, decided to break it up, and covered his own ears against the clang so no one would hear. The definitive image of believing a problem disappears when you stop perceiving it, applied to everything from ignored medical symptoms to suppressed bad news.

鸦雀无声 yā què wú shēng not a crow or sparrow to be heard — dead silence The silence so complete even the loudest birds have stopped. The stock description of a classroom after a hard question, a courtroom before a verdict, a banquet after an unwise toast. Its cousin 悄无声息 describes stealth rather than hush.

异口同声 yì kǒu tóng shēng different mouths, the same sound — unanimous Everyone says the same thing at once: the committee that answers in chorus, the witnesses whose accounts match. Neutral to positive in tone; suspicious unanimity would be phrased differently. The mirror image of 众说纷纭, where every mouth says something else.

声东击西 shēng dōng jī xī make noise in the east, strike in the west — the feint The strategists' classic: sound as decoy. 声 here is a verb, to make noise toward. Catalogued among the Thirty-Six Stratagems and applied ever since to warfare, chess, business competition, and toddlers distracting parents from the cookie jar.