滩 (tān): beach; shoal; sandbank

Meanings

1 beach; shoal; sandbank
2 rapids; shallow water area

Characters

滩

tān

beach; shoal; rapids

氵 (water radical) + 难 (difficult, phonetic) - shallow water that's hard to navigate

Examples

HSK 3

孩子们在沙滩上玩。

Háizi men zài shātān shàng wán.

The children are playing on the beach.

HSK 6

这条河有很多险滩。

Zhè tiáo hé yǒu hěnduō xiǎntān.

This river has many dangerous rapids.

Tips

usage

滩 rarely stands alone; it appears in compounds: 沙滩 (shātān, sandy beach), 海滩 (hǎitān, beach), 险滩 (xiǎntān, rapids), 泥滩 (nítān, mudflat). 上海 was historically called 上海滩 (Shànghǎitān).

memory

氵 (water) + 难 (difficult) - the difficult, shallow water where the riverbed shows through.

Components

radical

氵 shuǐ

water

氵 is the left-side form of 水 (water). Beaches, shoals and rapids are all defined by their relationship to water - the meaning anchor for 滩 sits squarely with this radical, which links it to a huge family including 河, 海, 湖, 流.

phonetic

难 nán

difficult

难 (nán) supplies the sound, which has shifted tones to tān. The faint semantic flavour fits too - shoals and rapids are difficult water to navigate. Compare 摊 tān (spread out) and 瘫 tān (paralysed) for the same phonetic series.