通假字

tōngjiǎzì

noun

Meanings

1 phonetic loan character (in classical Chinese)
2 character used interchangeably with a phonetically similar one

Characters

to go through; interchange

Examples

HSK 6

老师讲了《论语》里几个通假字的用法。

Lǎoshī jiǎng le 《 Lúnyǔ 》 lǐ jǐ gè tōngjiǎzì de yòngfǎ.

The teacher explained the usage of several loan characters in the Analects.

HSK 7-9

"蚤"通"早"，这是古文里的通假字。

" Zǎo " tōng " zǎo ", zhè shì gǔwén lǐ de tōngjiǎzì.

'蚤' is used for '早' - this is a phonetic loan character in classical texts.

HSK 7-9

读古文要注意通假字。

Dú gǔwén yào zhùyì tōngjiǎzì.

When reading classical Chinese, pay attention to phonetic loan characters.

Tips

culture

In pre-Qin and Han classical texts, scribes often wrote a phonetically similar character for the intended word (e.g. 蚤 'flea' borrowed for 早 'early'). Reading classical Chinese in school means learning hundreds of such equivalences. The standard formula is 'X通Y' ('X is used for Y').

usage

Compare with 异体字 (variant forms of the same character) and 古今字 (historical vs. modern character pairs). 通假 specifically means two distinct characters swapped based on sound.

Stroke Order

通 tōng

假 jiǎ

字 zì