I’ve got a few words like 振兴 and 震撼 in my vocab lists but I feel like I’m not learning quickly enough how to distinguish which ones should use 震 and 振. Wondering the best way to remember this - maybe making a list of words that use both and just studying that for a bit? Any other ideas?
There’s a few other characters I confuse quite often like 具 and 俱, 元/原/源, and probably more. Any others that people can think of that are easy to mix up?
原，源 are good ones since they seem to have the same meaning. I’m going to post my problem pairs here as I come across them.
原，源 - （原先，起源）
记，纪 - （记录，纪要）
级，极 - （等级，消极）
象，像 - （象征，好像，肖像）
If you don’t already know it wikipedia has a nice page:
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Appendix:Easily_confused_Chinese_characters
The article is useful, but some entries are rather strange to me. For example, the article lists 具 and 真. But the meanings of these characters are quite different (and 真 is rather elementary). Does anyone really confuse these?
I feel like everyone will have different problems with mixing up characters and components of characters. Components cause problems for me when (a) I haven’t learned their stand-alone meanings, e.g. 即 朗 郎 all give me trouble in words like 开朗, 走廊，即将，伴郎, or (b) the meanings are very similar, e.g. 原 源 and 记 纪.
That article is interesting but focus seems to be on visually similar characters (particularly in Japanese), rather than characters which are visually distinct but share pinyin and are easy to get confused in words. E.g. for 抗议 it might not be immediately intuitive that this should be 议 rather than 义. 即 and 既 is another one, I know the meanings just about but still don’t always remember which one goes in 即期. I often get 像 and 象 mixed up, e.g. in 图像 versus 想象. Or is it 俱 or 具 in 俱乐部. Two more 至 and compounds, and 治 versus 制.
This is distinct between whether the component in 姐 has two strokes like 且 or three like the top part of 具. Another visually similar one that often gets me is the right part of characters like 灌 versus 嚷. This is closer to what’s discussed in the wiktionary article.
One more issue I have is identifying which tone is correct on some multi-tone characters when used in words. Again this is less what I’m talking about here, but for example 难, 兴, 尽, 空, 服, 为 all confuse me from time-to-time.
For this thread as Benjamin says I was talking mostly about the first issue of visually distinct characters with the same pinyin. I feel that Skritter is an OK way to learn these differences, but it feels a little inefficient. That’s why I’m wondering if there’s more examples people have, like Benjamin’s 记 and 纪. This is a particular problem in names I find, e.g. 峰 versus 锋 or 钧 versus 均, but for now I’m mostly interested in examples that appear in normal words,