Firstly, the attributes of the five elements are determined according to the mantissa of the number of strokes of Chinese characters (there are more than one method). For example, 0 is yin water, 1 is yang wood, 2 is yin wood, 3 is yang fire, 4 is yin fire, 5 is yang soil, 6 is yin soil, 7 is yang gold, 8 is yin gold and 9 is yang water. This perspective seems reasonable, but it is too rigid and poor to simplify thousands of Chinese characters with unique images and rich connotations into 10 numbers to define the five elements.
Second, it depends on the radicals of Chinese characters. This method is simple, intuitive, practical and reasonable. Such as Lin, Sen, Shu, Mei, Ke and other words belong to wood; The words river, river, lake, sea and stream all belong to water; Iron, steel, money, silver, mirror metal ...
However, the number of such Chinese characters is limited, and there is little room for choosing names. So we should also understand the five elements of other Chinese characters.
Third, judge according to the method of Chinese characters. According to legend, there are "six books", that is, pictographic characters, signifier characters, knowing characters, pictophonetic characters, zhuanzhu characters and loanwords. For example, "the sun", five elements belong to fire, because it expresses the image of the sun. For example, the word "winter" is a knowing word, indicating the end of the four seasons. In ancient Chinese, winter follows the sun and has the image of the sun, so some people define the five elements in winter as "fire", but the author thinks this is unreasonable and should be judged more accurately according to the meaning of the text, that is, the five elements in winter belong to "water".
Fourth, judging by the pronunciation of Chinese characters. That is, five elements and five tones. Palace belongs to earth, commerce belongs to gold, horn belongs to wood, sign belongs to fire and feather belongs to water. But this angle is not practical. Because the pronunciation of Chinese characters in different regions is very different, few people consider this factor by name now. As long as it sounds good and catchy.
Fifth, judge according to the connotation of words. Teacher Jianshan thinks this method is the most reasonable and comprehensive. Because the basic function of writing is to express people's thoughts and feelings.