Chinese Reversible Words
Chinese writes its words with two characters, and nothing stops you reading them the other way round. Most of the time nothing comes of it; sometimes a second word comes out, and lives its own life beside the first. 牛奶 is milk, 奶牛 is a dairy cow. 故事 is a story, 事故 is an accident. The two words share both their characters and nothing else.
It is a classic trap for learners, and it is also the best way to remember both: you stop confusing two words once you have seen them side by side. So this page puts them side by side, one left and one right, with their reading and their meaning.
The meaning only shifts
144 near-synonym pairs: reversing them changes the register or the construction, not the definition.
to go online ; to connect to the Internet ; (of a document etc) to be uploaded to the Internet
HSK 2
this text ; article ; the main body of a book
a text (article, script, contract etc) ; version of a text (copy, translation, abridged version etc) ; (computing) text
household ; dwelling ; family
to arrive ; to come
abroad ; external (affairs) ; overseas
to start on a journey ; to be on one's way
machinery and power-generating equipment ; electromechanical
electrical machinery
broadband
bandwidth
It is said that ... (at the start of a narrative) ; to discuss ; to recount
manual ; manually operated ; manual gear-change
to regain ; to retake ; to take back
to substitute for ; to replace ; to supersede
number of written characters ; number of words ; word count
to go online ; to put sth online ; to reach a specific standard
Heaven ; Providence ; God
to be known as ; to be nicknamed ; to be purportedly
conferences and exhibitions (abbr. for 會議展覽|会议展览[hui4 yi4 zhan3 lan3])
aspiration ; wish (for) ; desire
to accumulate
to sing a song
gentle ; mild ; moderate
to offer for sale ; to sell ; to sell out
to sell ; to reach (a price in an auction)
to open up ; to spread ; to extend
to open a business ; first transaction of a business day
to remove ; to dislodge
to eliminate ; to remove ; except for
to look for ; to seek ; to find fault
running ; operation (of airport, bus service, business etc)
295 pairs in all.
Not every reversal is worth the same, and the page keeps them apart. The first kind flips the meaning: between "to lead" and "necktie", between "meeting" and "parliament", nothing is left in common. The second kind only shifts it: 互相 and 相互 both come out as "mutually", and what separates them is register and construction, not definition. Those are the harder ones, not the easier — no dictionary tells them apart, only usage does.
Linguists call these pairs reversible compounds; Chinese calls them 逆序词, "reversed-order words". The phenomenon is not a curiosity: most two-character words are loose enough a compound to survive both orders, and Chinese marks the job of each part by its place. In 牛奶, 牛 "ox" qualifies 奶 "milk"; in 奶牛 it is the other way round, and the animal takes the lead again.