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.
bloom
to live at home ; to stay at home ; home (schooling etc)
on the body ; at hand ; among
upper part of the body
running water ; (business) turnover
to set a time limit ; time limit ; deadline
to go down a hill ; (of the sun or moon) to set
Yamashita (Japanese surname)
to cross over ; to pass through
on stage
in love with ; to feel deeply attached to
(fire) alarm ; alert signal ; alarm
outer ; excluded
external ; extrinsic
young ; junior
brothers ; comrade
to shoulder ; to bear ; to undertake
people (in general) ; people around the world ; everyone
the world ; this world ; the world of the living
the back (human anatomy) ; the back part of sth
troops under one's command ; subordinate
Party and government administration
political party
on the street ; in town
to go onto the streets ; to go shopping
sound ; noise
reputation
reputation ; declaration
to construct (sth abstract)
to construct (often sth abstract, such as good relations) ; to set up ; to develop
hollow ; emptiness ; meaningless
void ; hollow ; empty
to produce (by natural growth, or by manufacture, mining etc) ; to yield ; to turn out
aged
life (a person's whole life) ; in one's entire life
all one's life
sundown ; sunset
setting sun
downstream ; to go into the water ; to put into water
under the water ; submarine
unobstructed ; clear ; (of writing or thinking) coherent
affection ; friendly feelings towards sb ; love
to sense ; to perceive ; to become aware of
to sense ; to perceive ; to come to realize
gold medal ; first prize
to take shape ; shaping ; forming
youthful
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.