儿童文学 (ér tóng wén xué) — children's literature

Definition

noun

children's literature

儿童文学。
Zhè bù ér tóng wén xué zuò pǐn huò dé le guó jì dà jiǎng.
This work of children's literature won an international award.
儿童文学，。
Tā cóng xiǎo jiù xǐ huan dú ér tóng wén xué, yóu qí shì tóng huà gù shi.
She has loved reading children's literature since she was young, especially fairy tales.
儿童文学。
Xǔ duō zuò jiā zhì lì yú chuàng zuò gāo zhì liàng de ér tóng wén xué.
Many writers are dedicated to creating high-quality children's literature.

Compound word

构词法gòucífǎ

偏正piānzhèngModifier + head

The first part narrows down the second: it says what kind of thing the head is.

儿童children

联合Side by side

文学literature

文wénwriting/literature学xuéstudy/discipline

偏正Modifier + head

儿童 names children, and 文学 names written study or literature; together it means literature for children.

Characters in this word

A drawing of the thing itself, worn down over three thousand years into a few strokes.

The shape 儿 is a simple drawing of a standing person, used as an alternate form of the character for person.

Two or more meaningful parts placed together so that their meanings combine into a new one.

The form 童 comes from a pairing of 䇂 (a chisel) with 見 (a kneeling person with a huge eye), depicting a person having an eye gouged out.

An abstract idea shown by a mark or a diagram rather than by a picture of an object.

The current form 文 shows a man with head, arms, legs, and chest; the tattoo marks on the chest are no longer drawn.

Most characters — around four in five — are built this way: one part hints at the meaning, the other at the pronunciation.

This origin belongs to the traditional form 學; 学 is its simplified writing.

The traditional form 學 may have used 爻 and 六 for sound, with hands and a child added later; the simplified 学 is a shorthand.