A Harmonious Family Prospers in Everything
家和万事兴万圣节
Jiā hé wànshì xīng shèngdàn
(lit. Family Harmony Countless Affairs Excitement Countless Saint Festivity)
Pinyin is a crutch, and inadequate for reading or living in China. We should try to learn the hanzi characters as quickly as possible. This enables us to understand texts even when we cannot hear clearly what the speaker has said: reading comprehension and listening comprehension are mutually supporting, doing one well helps to do the other. Chinese characters do contain phonetic content and when we understand hanzi phonetically we are able to guess the pronunciation of unknown characters with good accuracy.
Focusing on the characters rather than pinyin has the added benefit of delaying our efforts at speaking Chinese until our ear has become accustomed to tones and the various sounds produced in Chinese: sounds which do not exist in European languages such as X and Q.
We should listen first then read, and save speaking for last. This is because the pronunciations in Chinese are so very different from the European languages. Focusing on hanzi rather than pinyin contributes to the goal of patience in the CORRECT production of Chinese sounds.
害虫 Hàichóng Malefic Insect, Harmful Insect: the sorts of insects which are injurious to humans.
益虫 yìchóng Beneficial insect: the sorts of insects which are beneficial to humans.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XyaGB525jPc
jichu基础 basic foundation i.e. basic instruction.
出 This means “to go forth”. When I first saw it I thought it meant taking a pass between two mountains to go forth. I still think that may be a good way to see it. However the original oracle bone shows it is a foot setting out from within a cave or building. You can also see it as two feet setting forth on a journey! The traditional character is a pictophone which includes 齿 chi tooth as the sound clue. I prefer the simplified character in this case which has at least three ways to recognize it albeit no sound clue.