洋 (yáng): ocean; vast body of water

Meanings

1 ocean; vast body of water
2 foreign; Western
3 vast; grand

Characters

洋

yáng

ocean; vast; foreign

Examples

HSK 2

他喜欢洋快餐。

Tā xǐhuān yáng kuàicān.

He likes Western fast food.

HSK 4

这个孩子洋洋得意。

Zhège háizi yángyáng-déyì.

This child is smug and self-satisfied.

HSK 7-9

太平洋是世界上最大的洋。

Tàipíngyáng shì shìjiè shàng zuì dà de yáng.

The Pacific Ocean is the largest ocean in the world.

Tips

usage

洋 as 'foreign/Western' appears in many compounds: 洋人 (foreigner), 洋货 (foreign goods), 洋气 (fashionable/Western-style). This usage carries historical connotations from when China first encountered Western traders.

memory

水 (water) + 羊 (yáng, sheep, phonetic) = a vast body of water, the ocean.

Components

radical

氵 shuǐ

water (radical form of 水)

Three-drops water on the left puts 洋 in the vast water family - 河 river, 海 sea, 湖 lake. 洋 means ocean specifically, the biggest body of water; from there it took on "foreign" (across the ocean) and "vast" senses. Anything overseas in modern Chinese is 洋.

phonetic

羊 yáng

sheep (here phonetic)

羊 supplies the sound yáng unchanged. Its picture of a sheep's head with horns is purely a phonetic tag here. The same phonetic appears in 样 appearance, 氧 oxygen, 痒 itch, 详 detailed - all yáng/xiáng syllables sharing only the sheep glyph as their sound anchor.