The Most Common Bisyllabic Terms in Chinese
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Below is a list of the hundred most frequent bisyllabic terms in Modern Standard Mandarin. The list is based on a recent frequency study of material from wire feeds taken off several of the main Chinese language news services. Ultimately, I think that the data were provided by LDC.
My purpose in sharing this list is not for purely analytical reasons, but more to give an idea of how, through an examination of relative word frequencies, we can get a sense of what is important for contemporary China. Focusing on bisyllabic terms is more revealing in this regard than if we were to include monosyllabic terms, since the latter tend to be particles or function words of very high frequency (e.g., DE的, DE地, DE得, ZHE4這, NA3/4那, SHI4是, and so forth).
- 中国 Zhōngguó China
- 今天 jīntiān today
- 政府 zhèngfǔ government
- 发展 fāzhǎn develop, development
- 经济 jīngjì economy
- 记者 jìzhě reporter
- 表示 biǎoshì indicate
- 工作 gōngzuò job
- 公司 gōngsī company
- 企业 qǐyè enterprise
- 世界 shìjiè world
- 分之 fēnzhī proportion
- 百分 bǎifēn percent
- 今年 jīnnián current year
- 人民 rénmín people
- 目前 mùqián currently, now
- 进行 jìnxíng to carry out; underway
- 全国 quánguó entire nation
- 国际 guójì international
- 代表 dàibiǎo represent, representative
- 市场 shìchǎng market
- 美国 Měiguó America
- 建设 jiànshè construct, construction
- 技术 jìshù technique, skills
- 问题 wèntí question, problem
- 合作 hézuò cooperate
- 二十 èrshí twenty
- 香港 Xiānggǎng Hong Kong
- 社会 shèhuì society
- 一个 yīge one
- 指出 zhǐchū to point out
- 地区 dìqū area, region
- 北京 Běijīng Beijing, Peking
- 去年 qùnián last year
- 第一 dì-yī first
- 研究 yánjiū research
- 管理 guǎnlǐ manage, supervise
- 生产 shēngchǎn produce, production
- 中央 zhōngyāng central
- 比赛 bǐsài competition
- 美元 Měiyuán U.S. dollar
- 日本 Rìběn Japan
- 举行 jǔxíng to hold
- 方面 fāngmiàn aspect, side
- 他们 tāmen them, they
- 组织 zǔzhī organize, organization
- 教育 jiàoyù educate, education
- 科技 kējì technology
- 工程 gōngchéng engineering, project
- 会议 huìyì meeting
- 改革 gǎigé reform
- 希望 xīwàng hope
- 台北 Táiběi Taipei
- 联合 liánhé unite, joint
- 要求 yāoqiú require, requirements
- 重要 zhòngyào important
- 我国 wǒguó our country (i.e., China)
- 中心 zhōngxīn center
- 主要 zhǔyào main
- 投资 tóuzī invest
- 上海 Shànghǎi Shanghai
- 中共 Zhōng-Gòng CPC (Communist Party of China)
- 三十 sānshí thirty
- 行政 xíngzhèng administration
- 活动 huódòng activity, exercise
- 委员 wěiyuán committee member
- 文化 wénhuà culture
- 主席 zhǔxí chairman
- 关系 guānxi relationship
- 增加 zēngjiā increase, raise, add
- 参加 cānjiā participate
- 产品 chǎnpǐn product
- 第二 dì-èr second
- 项目 xiàngmù project, event, item
- 领导 lǐngdǎo lead, leader
- 有关 yǒuguān to have something to do with, related to, concerned with
- 部门 bùmén department
- 可能 kěnéng possible
- 以及 yǐjí as well as
- 十五 shíwǔ fifteen
- 提出 tíchū to raise, to propose
- 其中 qízhōng among which, in which
- 政治 zhèngzhì politics
- 十一 shíyī eleven
- 提供 tígōng provide
- 政策 zhèngcè policy
- 提高 tígāo increase, improve, enhance, raise
- 我们 wǒmen we, us
- 可以 kěyǐ can, may
- 支持 zhīchí support
- 包括 bāokuò include
- 增长 zēngzhǎng increase, rise, grow
- 通过 tōngguò through
- 建立 jiànlì build, establish
- 安全 ānquán safety
- 人员 rényuán personnel
- 加强 jiāqiáng strengthen
- 十二 shí'èr twelve
- 和平 hépíng peace
- 一步 yībù one step
Thanks to David Prager Branner for the raw data and to Yilise Lin for the pinyin and translations.
Kevin Iga said,
October 7, 2008 @ 9:17 pm
Very cool. I should point out, though it is obvious, that the source (news feeds) skews the data significantly toward things that are in the news. So it's not quite "what is important for contemporary China" but maybe something like what's newsworthy in contemporary China. Note that #2 Jintian 今天 (today) is the kind of word that would come up frequently in news reports.
There's also the question of which news feeds are used: the high-frequency winners here might be an indication that much of this is political and economic news. If these news feeds had been for entertainment news or sports, we might see a significantly different list.
Anyone care to do the same for some English-language news feeds from the U.S., to make a comparison?
Also, at least one of these is a functional word of a sort: #30: yige 一個 (one) can be used for counting, but sometimes appears in places where English would use the indefinite article (a/an). I'm not certain about the rules as to when it can or must be used.
Maybe I'll study this list–I often find it difficult to make it through much of a Chinese newspaper, and maybe studying these words will help.
A-gu said,
October 7, 2008 @ 9:27 pm
Is there raw data beyond the top list of 100? I'm especially interested in how you obtained it, as well. DPB's "Problems in Comparative Chinese Dialectology: The Classification of Miin and Hakka" was a very inspiring book for me during college.
Chas Belov said,
October 8, 2008 @ 3:00 am
Also, 人民 is a component of 人民币, the Chinese currency unit. So, there is still the question of which they are actually talking about. This may well apply to other items on the list.
wangcai said,
October 8, 2008 @ 3:36 am
Source is everything. These data are interesting but emphatically *not* a way to "get a sense of what is important for contemporary China" because "the main Chinese language news services" are notoriously micromanaged. This micromanagement does not always directly reflect the actual issues preoccupying the readers *or* the managers… For example note that 'nongmin' (peasant) appears nowhere on this list despite being a red hot priority issue.
A wider corpus of 'terms appearing on the internet' might be better if the purpose is to reveal what is important/discussed by examining relative word frequencies, as stated, but many important issues are discussed in censor-ducking euphamisms and would certainly slip through the net. Who would have thought that the 'I'm just here to do pushups' meme is a comment on the Weng'an incident?
Having said that, there's so much fun stuff you could do with this… I wonder if there's a 'degree of variation' measure, maybe something as simple as a measure of how high the 'buzzwords' are above the mean that would be diagnostic of centrally managed (cough manipulated) news? Look out CNN…
Nigel Greenwood said,
October 8, 2008 @ 5:57 am
@ Kevin: It would be interesting to compile a similar list for spoken Chinese. There'd be some overlap, of course: shíyī "eleven", wèntí "question", fāngmiàn "aspect" (used idiomatically), for example. But some compounds occurring in print must be much lower in frequency in speech: eg wěiyuán "committee member", jìzhě "reporter". Conversely, I expect that kěyǐ "can" would be higher than 89th in speech.
kellen said,
October 8, 2008 @ 8:53 am
kěyǐ is in my top 10 most frequently spoken pairs, at any rate.
shellyuan said,
October 8, 2008 @ 10:10 am
Cool, I think the words can reflect the trend of China's development, and help us understand the Chinese, however, I do think some other words are vital to Chinese today but not on the list, like Yin Hang (bank), aoyunhui (Olympics), and so on. Maybe you can check it yourself on your Chinese learning process.
Doc Rock said,
October 8, 2008 @ 1:12 pm
#95 安全 anquan "safety" also means "security," and its high frequency is, in no small measure, as a name and function of national police elements involved in "state political" security.
Trevor Stone said,
October 8, 2008 @ 2:25 pm
Renmin (The People) is part of many place and organization names in addition to the Chinese currency. Renmin Lu is somewhat equivalent to "Main St," though I don't know if there's a Chinese equivalent of the Main St vs. Wall St. meme.
Peter Metcalfe said,
October 8, 2008 @ 3:06 pm
It would be interesting to go through the existing chinese literature and see a similar list for each dynasty or political epoch (ie Ming, Manchu, Nationalists, Cultural Revolution etc).
Charlie C said,
October 8, 2008 @ 5:33 pm
A meta-comment comes to mind. The appearance of a list such as this, employing 汉字, together with enthusiastic contributions from non-specialists in a blog which doesn’t specialize in Chinese, probably wouldn’t have been possible just a few years ago. The world is changing more quickly than most realize and in directions yet to be comprehended by most. Even in the U.S., China is going mainstream. Hang on! (Thank you, Professor Branner.)
-Charlie Clingen
Wang Laoshi said,
December 13, 2008 @ 10:34 pm
Not mentioned in the above 11 comments, but intimated to in Kevin Iga's, shellyuan's, and Peter Metcalfe's comments, is that WHEN the data were gathered and WHETHER/WHAT (other) significant events were going on (including in other areas than "the news") might have colored the results. I think for the results to more truly have an impact (particularly and potentially in terms of designing language learning materials) we need to know when the data were collected and what the specific sources were. Is this available?