打 (dǎ) · to hit; to strike

Meanings

1 to hit; to strike
2 to fight
3 to play (ball, cards, mahjong)
4 to make (a phone call)
5 to do; to engage in
6 from; since

Characters

打

dǎ

to hit; to strike; to do

Examples

HSK 1

我给你打电话。

Wǒ gěi nǐ dǎ diànhuà.

I'll give you a call.

HSK 1

下雨了，我们打车回家吧。

Xiàyǔ le, wǒmen dǎ chē huí jiā ba.

It's raining - let's grab a taxi home.

HSK 2

别打人。

Bié dǎ rén.

Don't hit people.

Tips

usage

As dǎ, 打 is the workhorse 'do-something' verb of Chinese. Its literal sense is 'hit/strike,' but it has bleached into a semantically light verb that pairs with almost any noun to mean 'engage with it': 打电话 (make a call), 打车 (hail a taxi), 打伞 (hold an umbrella), 打针 (inject), 打游戏 (play a game), 打工 (work a casual job), 打扫 (clean). When you don't know the exact verb for an action, 打 is a safe bet - Chinese speakers reach for it constantly.

register

The 'from / since' sense is colloquial and mostly northern, treated as a casual stand-in for 从 or 自从. Typical patterns: 打那以后 (from then on), 打小 (since childhood), 打哪儿来 (where are you from). Avoid in formal writing - use 从 there.

mistakes

打 has two readings. dǎ = the everyday verb 'hit / do / play' covered above. dá = the noun 'dozen' (loan from English), used ONLY in 一打 (a dozen) and 半打 (half a dozen). Separately, in the soda transliteration 苏打 (and its compounds 苏打水, 小苏打), 打 also reads dá - a separate loanword fragment with no relation to either the 'hit' verb or the 'dozen' counter.

Components

radical

扌 shǒu

hand (radical form of 手)

Left-side hand radical - side-form of 手. The prototype hand-action character. Almost every striking, grabbing, throwing, or manipulating verb is filed here: 拉 (pull), 拍 (clap), 抓 (grab), 接 (catch), 推 (push), 扔 (throw). 打 is the foundational member of this family.

phonetic

丁 dīng

nail; man; fourth

Right-side 丁 supplies the sound - dīng shifted to dǎ here (a notable rime change; older Mandarin readings were closer to dǐng/dīng, and the char still rhymes that way in some dialects). 丁 itself pictures a nail head - mnemonic: hand 扌 hammering a nail 丁 = to hit. Same phonetic series: 顶 (top), 钉 (nail), 订 (order).