假 (jiǎ): fake; false

Meanings

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

Characters

假

jiǎ

fake; false; borrow; if

Examples

这张钱是假的。

Zhè zhāng qián shì jiǎ de.

This banknote is fake.

别假装没听见我。

Bié jiǎzhuāng méi tīngjiàn wǒ.

Don't pretend you didn't hear me.

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.