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Translation of a pendant


Nathaliw

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In Chinese "words" are often made from 2 characters. There are no "letters" in Chinese.  Your pendant has 2 characters one on top of the other. It is also not as easy to see the characters as clearly as if they were printed because it has been done in an artistic way. 

 

The first character is xi 希 which means to hope, the second is 望 which also means to hope. This is very common in Chinese to have 2 characters that mean the same or similar to reinforce or clarify which character is meant as there many homophones and this helps avoid confusion.

 

Hope this helps, it can seem quite complicated but once you have been studying Chinese for a while it all makes sense.

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14 hours ago, Nathaliw said:

Is the pendant facing the right way?  So the word hope is actually two symbols?

Yes, it's facing the right way.

Yes, 希望 is a two-syllable word consisting of two characters: 希 'sparse; rare; to look; to hope; to admire' and 望 'to gaze into the distance; to admire; to visit; to hope; to expect'.

Modern Chinese is largely disyllabic. Over 50% of Chinese words are made of two characters, and oftentimes these two characters have similar meanings.

Your pendant has a very smart, modern design. I also like the script it used (魏碑).

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