熟 (shú) · ripe; cooked

Meanings

1 ripe; cooked
2 familiar
3 skilled

Characters

熟

shú

ripe; cooked; familiar

Examples

HSK 1

这个苹果熟了。

Zhège píngguǒ shú le.

This apple is ripe.

HSK 1

饭做熟了。

Fàn zuò shú le.

The food is cooked.

HSK 2

我跟他很熟。

Wǒ gēn tā hěn shú.

I know him very well.

Tips

usage

熟 has three main uses: 1) ripe (fruit), 2) cooked (food), 3) familiar/well-acquainted (people). 熟人 means 'acquaintance'.

mistakes

Also pronounced shóu in some dialects, but standard Mandarin uses shú for all meanings.

Components

radical

灬 huǒ

fire (bottom radical variant)

Bottom indexing radical 灬 (fire-variant of 火) - the four dots are flames under a cooking pot. Anchors 熟 in the cooking domain. From 'cooked' came 'ripe' (cooked by sun) and 'familiar' (well-cooked, well-known). Same family as 煮 (boil), 烤 (roast), 烧 (burn), 煎 (fry).

phonetic

孰 shú

who; which

Top-and-left component 孰 supplies the sound (shú - exact match). Originally 孰 itself meant 'cooked' (depicting food being prepared in a vessel), but later was borrowed for the question word 'who.' 熟 was created by adding the fire radical below to keep the cooking sense distinct.