园 (yuán): garden; park

Meanings

1 garden; park
2 place for a specific activity
3 plantation; orchard

Characters

园

yuán

garden; park; orchard

Examples

HSK 2

公园里有很多花。

Gōngyuán lǐ yǒu hěnduō huā.

There are many flowers in the park.

HSK 4

果园里的苹果熟了。

Guǒyuán lǐ de píngguǒ shú le.

The apples in the orchard are ripe.

HSK 6

校园暴力是一个严重的社会问题。

Xiàoyuán bàolì shì yí gè yánzhòng de shèhuì wèntí.

Campus violence is a serious social problem.

Tips

usage

园 is used in: 公园 (park), 幼儿园 (kindergarten), 花园 (garden), 动物园 (zoo), 果园 (orchard), 园林 (landscape garden), 乐园 (paradise/theme park).

Components

radical

囗 wéi

enclosure; border

Big enclosure radical wrapping the whole character - the indexing radical 囗 wéi marks 园 as a walled-off plot of ground. Drawn first as the top and left, then closed across the bottom. Sits in the enclosed family with 国 country, 困 trapped, 因 because, 圆 round - built by putting something meaningful inside the wall.

phonetic

元 yuán

origin; first (here phonetic)

Inside 元 supplies the sound directly - same yuán with no shift. Modern simplification: traditional 園 had 袁 yuán (a robe pictogram) inside, and PRC reform swapped it for the shorter, identically-sounding 元. The original picture of cloth-around-the-body is gone, but the yuán reading is preserved. Same phonetic in 园's sister chars 圆 round and 远 far.