biàn
verb #10,380

Meanings

  1. 1 to distinguish
  2. 2 to recognize
  3. 3 to differentiate

Examples

Nǐ néng biàn chū zhè liǎng zhǒng chá de qūbié ma?
Can you distinguish between these two types of tea?
Zhēnjiǎ nán biàn.
It's hard to tell the real from the fake.

Tips

mistakes
Don't confuse (to distinguish), (to debate), and (braid). All are biàn but have different meanings and right-side components.

Components

radical
dāo
knife (radical form of 刀)
Middle — side-knife radical, the indexing radical of . Carries the meaning of cutting one thing apart from another: discrimination is mental dissection, splitting truth from falsehood. The knife sitting between the two panels gives the literal picture of a judge severing two arguments — the act of distinguishing.
semantic
xīn
pungent; punishment knife
Left — pictograph of a tattoo knife used to brand criminals, meaning 'penal hardship.' In it stands for one of two charges set against each other in legal dispute. The doubled in // represents the two sides of a courtroom — prosecution and defence whose statements must be weighed apart.
semantic
xīn
pungent; the second party
Right — mirror image of the left, the other party in the dispute. Together with the central knife the three pieces depict 'two cases separated by a blade,' an unmistakable picture of judicial discrimination. Sister characters ( in the middle: argue with words) and ( in the middle: braid separating strands) preserve the same two- framework.

Stroke Order

biàn