⑧Words: Help! These characters look just too similar!

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⑧Words: Help! These characters look just too similar! Have you seen twins, but have you seen a twin “character”? You’ve seen celebrities with similar looks to each other, or even celebrities who resemble various cute pets, but have you ever seen words that also look alike? At first, Text Guy also had a smirk on his lips, just like you watching the screen – after all, they’re just characters that look similar to each other; how could they possibly stump me? I’m a talented individual who has completed nine years of compulsory education, haha! When I saw the words below, I was completely stunned – in all caps and bold! A demon spirit? Someone here is destroying the country’s blossoms! “The “Chinese Character Discrimination” contest now begins: On the left is “汩” (gǔ); its right-side component is “曰” (yuē). On the right is “汨” (mì); its right-side component is “日” (rì). “汩” (gǔ) is relatively wide, while “汨” (mì) is longer. Well, Zimeiti-Sogou (WeChat: zimeiti-sogou) is about to meet its end too... ▼ Then there are these two characters; it’s also a matter of which one is longer and which one is shorter. The two characters appear identical at first glance, but there are actually differences between them. The difference lies in the two horizontal strokes at the bottom of each character: In the left character, both horizontal strokes touch the vertical stroke, whereas in the right character, neither of the horizontal strokes touches anything. The character “胄” contains the “肉” radical and refers to the descendants of emperors or nobles. ； “The character for “helmet” is derived from “ “冃”; it actually represents the upper right part of the character for “hat”, referring to the armor worn on the head. Babies simply can’t remember this kind of knowledge point. ▼ Another example is the characters “cuān” and “tǔn”. The upper part of “cuān” is the character “rù”, which refers to a cooking method where food is briefly boiled in boiling water; a well-known example of this is “cuān wanzi”. The upper part of “tǔn” is the character “rén”, and the corresponding cooking method involves frying. It’s also easy to get these two characters mixed up: ▼ There are also these two characters: on the left is “chén”, which is the same as “ dust”; its bottom part is the character “tǔ”. On the right is “zhǔ”, which in ancient books referred to animals like deer; its bottom part is the character “zhǔ”. Actually, these two are relatively easy to remember – the one with “tǔ” at the bottom is “chén”, meaning dust ； The character that contains the element “main” is “zhǔ”. But as for the one below, it’s a bit tricky. ▼ “Kǔn” refers to the roads in ancient palaces, and is used metaphorically to denote the interior of the palace; its bottom part is “ya”. “Hí” is a common character, with “ye” as its bottom part. The only difference between the two is whether there is a horizontal line or not. ▼ In the character on the left, “bù”, the last stroke is a dot, while in the character on the right, “dǔn”, the last stroke is a falling stroke. Who cares whether it’s a dot or a falling stroke? What difference does such a tiny detail make? ! Do you think that’s the end of it? ▼ There are even more ferocious quadruplets, like this one: Come on, look into my sincere eyes and tell me why these four characters look so similar Qí: An ancient term used to refer to the god of the earth; it is composed of the ‘shì’ radical plus ‘shì’. Zhī: Meaning respect or reverence; it is composed of the ‘shì’ radical plus ‘dī’. Zhǐ: Same as ‘only’; it is composed of the ‘yī’ radical plus ‘shì’. Dī: Refers to a short garment; it is composed of the ‘yī’ radical plus ‘dī’. When it comes to quadruplets, there are also these four traditional Chinese characters: It seems like they’re four QR codes – it’s impossible to tell them apart! Their simplified form is: But all of these lack the exaggeration shown below: ▼ Isn’t this just two “boxes”? Does a slightly larger box result in different characters? I’ve given up trying to explain it – it’s completely unreasonable! I’ll just draw a frame on paper now – can you tell which one is the “mouth” and which one is the “ 囗”? Do we still need to use a tape measure to measure the length-to-width ratio? Can the guys in charge of creating characters pay a bit more attention? ▼ However, but… there’s nothing at all. The character for ‘ox’ (shen) and ‘force’ (jing) is simply the character “ 丨” Wow, it’s just a vertical line – that’s too casual! Is this even called a character? The key is that this casual vertical stroke has so many different pronunciations! “When read as “shù”, it means the same as “vertical”. It means roughly the same as “matchstick”. “When read as “yī”, it means the same as “one”. Even stranger is this: when it’s written from top to bottom, the character “丨” is pronounced “gǔn”, meaning that it connects the upper and lower parts. When it’s written from bottom to top, however, “丨” is pronounced “tuì”, which has the opposite meaning compared to when it’s pronounced “gǔn”. Damn, can you change into 72 different forms? Play multiple roles at once? If different stroke orders count as two different characters, it might be possible to distinguish them when written with a brush, but how can one tell the difference between printed characters or ordinary handwritten ones? It’s just a vertical line – why go through all that trouble? Are you trying to act? ! ▼ Finally, I have a task for everyone: you have 5 minutes; if you can spot the difference between those two characters, I’ll be impressed by you!