qiáng
noun HSK 2 #1,620

Measure Word

miàn

Meanings

  1. 1 wall

Characters

Contains (earth radical) - walls made of earth.

Examples

HSK 2
Zhè miàn qiáng hěn gāo.
This wall is very tall.
HSK 2
Tā kào zài qiáng shàng.
He leaned against the wall.
HSK 5
Qiáng shàng yǒu yì fú huà.
There's a painting on the wall.

Tips

culture
The most famous wall in Chinese culture is 长城 (the Great Wall), literally 'long wall.'

Components

radical
earth; soil
Left-side is the earth radical - walls in pre-modern China were rammed earth or mud-brick, so the material itself indexes the meaning. Same family as (wall/city), (block), (slope), (pile). The radical literally tells you what the wall is made of.
phonetic
miserly; storehouse-grain
Right-side supplies the sound (sè → qiáng, drift via the same Old Chinese root). originally pictured grain stored in a barn - the walls of that barn are the conceptual link to . Same phonetic in (qiáng, rose), preserving the qiáng reading.

Stroke Order

qiáng