看 (kàn): to see; to look at

Meanings

1 to see; to look at
2 to read
3 to watch
4 to visit; to call on
5 to consider; to regard as
6 to treat (a patient)
7 to depend on
8 to give it a try

Characters

Top 手 (hand) over bottom 目 (eye) — the iconic gesture of shading the eyes to peer into the distance. One of the cleanest compound ideographs in the script.

Examples

看！那是什么？

Kàn! Nà shì shénme?

Look! What is that?

我在看书。

Wǒ zài kàn shū.

I'm reading a book.

你看电视了吗？

Nǐ kàn diànshì le ma?

Did you watch TV?

让我看看。

Ràng wǒ kànkàn.

Let me take a look.

明天我要去看朋友。

Míngtiān wǒ yào qù kàn péngyou.

Tomorrow I'm going to visit a friend.

Tips

usage

Wildly versatile verb: 看书 (read a book), 看电视 (watch TV), 看病 (see a doctor), 看朋友 (visit a friend). The reduplicated form 看看 softens it to 'take a quick look'.

mistakes

Two readings: kàn (4th tone, this entry) = look / read / watch / visit / consider; kān (1st tone, sister entry) = guard / look after. As a rule of thumb, when 看 means "watch over to protect" (a door, a house, a patient, prisoners), it's kān; everywhere else it's kàn. Compounds: 看电影 kàn, 看护 kān.

Components

radical

目 mù

eye

Bottom indexing eye radical. Pictograph of a vertical eye (rotated 90° from its original horizontal orientation in oracle bone script). With the hand sheltering it from above, the whole character is "hand + eye = look". Same family: 眼 (eye), 睡 (sleep), 瞎 (blind), 瞄 (aim), 瞪 (stare).

semantic

手 shǒu

hand

Top component — the flattened "hand-on-top" form of 手. Depicts a hand raised to the brow, shading the eyes from glare. This is the iconic gesture of peering into the distance, exactly the meaning of 看. One of the cleanest two-element compound ideographs in the script.