爱 (ài): to love; to like

Meanings

1 to love; to like

Characters

爱

ài

love; to love

Traditional 愛 has 心 (heart) inside - love from the heart.

Examples

HSK 1

我爱你。

Wǒ ài nǐ.

I love you.

HSK 1

她爱看书。

Tā ài kàn shū.

She loves to read.

HSK 1

我爱吃中国菜。

Wǒ ài chī Zhōngguó cài.

I love eating Chinese food.

Tips

history

The traditional character 愛 has 心 (heart) in the middle, symbolizing love comes from the heart. The simplified 爱 removed the heart - a fact often lamented by romantics.

usage

Chinese people express love differently than in Western cultures. Saying 我爱你 directly is quite intense and intimate - it's not used as casually as 'I love you' in English.

Components

radical

爫 zhǎo

claw; reaching hand (radical form)

Top claw/reaching-hand radical, the indexing component. Pictures fingers extending downward - the gesture of reaching out to take or to give. In 爱 it shows a hand offering something, the giving gesture central to caring for another. Same radical: 受 (receive), 爬 (climb), 爪 (claw).

ideograph

冖 mì

cover

Middle cover stroke. In the traditional 愛 the middle held 心 (heart), so the whole graph read 'a hand reaching with a heart inside, walking forward.' Simplification removed the heart, leaving only this cover above 友 below - the love that was once in the middle is now implied rather than shown.

semantic

友 yǒu

friend

Bottom 友 (friend) - added in simplification to keep the 'caring relationship' sense after the heart was dropped. The whole simplified graph now reads 'reaching hand + cover + friend' = giving care to a friend. Traditional 愛 instead had 夂 (slow walk) below the heart.