在

zài
preposition HSK 1 #7

Meanings

  1. 1 at
  2. 2 in
  3. 3 on (a place)
  4. 4 to exist
  5. 5 (marker for action in progress)

Examples

HSK 1
Wǒ zài jiā.
I'm at home.
HSK 1
Tā zài xuéxiào.
He's at school.
HSK 1
Wǒ zài kàn shū.
I'm reading (right now).

Tips

grammar
在 has three main uses: (1) location - 在家 (at home), (2) existence - 他不在 (he's not here), (3) progressive - 在看书 (is reading).

Components

radical
土 tǔ
earth; soil
Earth radical at the bottom-right - provides the 'rooted in the ground' semantic. Existence is being-on-the-ground; 在 literally pins a thing/person to the soil. The radical also indexes 在 in radical lookup, even though the 才 above is what supplies the sound.
phonetic
才 cái
talent; just now
Phonetic - 才 → 在 (regular initial shift). 才 originally pictured a sapling pushing through soil - a sprout just emerging - and that sapling-from-earth imagery dovetails neatly with 在's meaning of 'to exist / to be present at': something planted on the earth, here and now.

Stroke Order

在 zài