Chinese shop signs
Chinese shop signs
One of the most rewarding things about learning Chinese is being able to walk in front of a shop and understand sign meaning.
The majority of shop signs are made of 4 characters, like Chines Idioms.
The last two characters are the type of shop, bar, hotel, restaurant
normally easy to read,
The first two characters are the actual name of the establishment, which can be harder to read since could include peoples names, places or any reference
.
For example
鑫耀旅馆
xīn yào lǚguǎn
Xinyao Hotel
Sometimes the shops to achieve a quality and traditional look they use traditional characters rather than simplified ones.
This is mainly the case if your live in a city where there is a China town where establishments are run usually by Hongkongess or Taiwanese people who as we know they use traditional characters.
Another important aspect is the use of creative typography and calligraphy which sometimes our eyes are not training to read.
In this series of videos, you can see some real samples of Mainland China shop signs. I had also included the names in different fonts, so you can train your eyes to recognize the same characters in different fonts.
Enjoy the video and subscribe for more Chinese Shop signs.