浜 (bāng) · small stream

Measure Word

一条浜 tiáo

Meanings

1 small stream
2 creek (especially in Wu-speaking regions)

Characters

浜

bāng

small stream

Examples

HSK 3

上海的老地名里常常有浜字。

Shànghǎi de lǎo dìmíng lǐ chángcháng yǒu bāng zì.

The character 浜 often appears in the old place names of Shanghai.

HSK 4

村口有一条小浜。

Cūnkǒu yǒu yìtiáo xiǎo bāng.

There is a small creek at the entrance of the village.

Tips

culture

浜 is a distinctly Wu-region word - the lower Yangtze delta around Shanghai, Suzhou, and Ningbo is laced with these small creeks, and dozens of Shanghai neighborhood names end in 浜 (e.g. 肇嘉浜, 洋泾浜). 洋泾浜英语 ('Yangjingbang English') even gave the world the term 'pidgin English'.

register

In Japanese 浜 (hama) means 'beach' and is read totally differently - don't confuse the two when reading Japanese names like 横浜 (Yokohama).

Components

radical

氵 shuǐ

water (radical form of 水)

Left-side water radical, the three-drop form of 水. Indexes 浜 as a water feature - in Wu and southern dialects it names a small creek or branch canal, and the same character is read 'hama' in Japanese for a beach or shore.

phonetic

兵 bīng

soldier; weapon

Right side 兵 supplies the sound - bīng to bāng with vowel and tone shift, a common Wu-region sound layer. The 'soldier' meaning is not active; 兵 here is purely a phonetic tag. The compound is mostly preserved in Shanghai-area place names like 沙家浜.