假 (jiǎ): fake; false

Meanings

1 fake; false
2 artificial
3 to borrow
4 if; suppose

Characters

假

jiǎ

fake; false; borrow; if

Examples

HSK 2

别假装没听见我。

Bié jiǎzhuāng méi tīngjiàn wǒ.

Don't pretend you didn't hear me.

HSK 3

这张钱是假的。

Zhè zhāng qián shì jiǎ de.

This banknote is fake.

HSK 4

假如明天下雨，我们怎么办？

Jiǎrú míngtiān xiàyǔ, wǒmen zěnmebàn?

Supposing it rains tomorrow, what do we do?

Tips

mistakes

Same character, two tones, opposite worlds. 假 (third tone) = fake / borrow / if. 假 (fourth tone) = vacation. A 假钞 is a counterfeit banknote; a 假期 is a holiday period.

memory

The original sense was 'to borrow' - and that still anchors the meanings. You borrow someone else's appearance (fake) or borrow a premise to argue from (if / suppose). The idiom 狐假虎威 'the fox borrows the tiger's might' uses this old verb sense directly.

Components

radical

亻 rén

person

Left-side person radical, side-form of 人. Anchors the social-action sense: only people deceive, only people borrow. Groups 假 with 借 (borrow), 信 (trust), 仿 (imitate), 偷 (steal).

phonetic

叚 jiǎ

borrow (phonetic)

Right side supplies the sound exactly (jiǎ) plus a deep semantic alignment. The component originally depicted a hand reaching across to take something temporarily - 'to borrow.' Combined with 亻 the whole reads 'a person borrowing,' which yields both readings of 假: borrowed appearance (jiǎ fake) and borrowed time off work (jià vacation). Tone splits the meaning.