文房四宝 Four Treasures of Study

在中文中我们说的笔，听起来与英文中的，“钢笔”是一样的。
And in Chinese we call it “Bi”, which sounds very much like or exactly the same as we would call it pen in English.

所以这是很传统的“中国笔”。
So this is the traditional Chinese pen.

握笔的姿势应该像这样。
And also holding this kind of pen, just like that.

“墨” 就是墨水，在英语里它是液体的。
And “Mo”, the ink，I know the ink in English is something liquid.

但是在中国，写毛笔字时，墨是一块像石头一样的东西，它是一根墨棒或墨块。
But in Chinese, painting a Chinese calligraphy, ink is a piece of something like a rock, it’s a stick, it’s an ink stick.

这种墨必须和砚一起使用。
And the ink has to be used together with this piece of stone.

就是这种砚台。
This ink stone, or ink slap.

我们往砚台中倒一些水，在它上面磨墨，然后我们就可以得到用来写字作画的墨汁。
And we pour some water into it, and we rub the ink stick, and then we can get the liquid ink we are gonna use in painting and writing.

再用毛笔蘸上墨汁，就准备得当了。
And then can use the brush and dig it into the ink and you get everything ready.

我们还需要纸。
And then we need to have paper.