The five senses

Chinese files the senses under a word that is also used to describe a face: 五官 wǔguān, literally “the five organs” ⟶ the sense organs, but also the features of the face. When you say someone is 五官端正 wǔguān duānzhèng, you are talking about their looks, not their eyesight. The organs themselves are on the The body page; here, we are interested in what they perceive.

First difficulty, and it is a very common confusion among beginners. English separates “to look” and “to see”, “to listen” and “to hear”, with two verbs each time. Chinese keeps a single verb and adds a result to it: 看 kàn “to look” + 见 jiàn “to perceive” ⟶ 看见 to see; 听 tīng “to listen” + 见 ⟶ 听见 to hear. For smell, people rather say 闻到 wéndào, with 到 “to reach”.

This 闻 wén has a history, by the way. It carries the ear 耳 inside the door 门 (which gives the sound here, not the meaning): originally, it means to hear. The meaning “to smell” came later, and I could not tell you exactly when the shift took place. But the old meaning has not disappeared. It survives in 新闻 xīnwén, literally “what you hear that is new” ⟶ the news, and in three of the expressions on this page (百闻不如一见, 耳闻目睹, 充耳不闻).

On the taste side, Chinese medicine counts five flavours, 五味 wǔwèi, under old names (甘 gān for sweet, 辛 xīn for pungent). Everyday language says 甜 and 辣. Mind you, pungency is not a taste for a physiologist (it is a burn), but Chinese cooking could not care less. Sichuan even adds a sixth one: 麻 má, the numbness of the tongue that Sichuan pepper 花椒 huājiāo gives you.

Finally, note the character 觉 jué in 感觉, 味觉, 嗅觉, 触觉: it plays the part of our “-ception”. On the other hand, it is the same character as in 睡觉 shuìjiào “to sleep”, read jiào this time. Two readings, two words.

As for the last section, it gathers the senses that have slipped into everyday language. 吃醋 chīcù, “to eat vinegar” ⟶ to be jealous, is said to come from an anecdote at the Tang court (it is a nice story, nothing proves it is true). The gestures of touch, 摸 mō first among them, are on the Gestures and postures page.

Click on any character on the page: its stroke order is shown stroke by stroke, with the arrow that gives the direction of the movement.