看 (kān): to look after; to take care of

Meanings

1 to look after; to take care of
2 to watch; to guard

Characters

看

kān

to look after; to take care of

Examples

请帮我看一下孩子。

Qǐng bāng wǒ kān yīxià háizi.

Please watch the kids for me for a moment.

这条狗负责看门。

Zhè tiáo gǒu fùzé kān mén.

This dog is in charge of guarding the door.

晚上店主让他看店。

Wǎnshang diànzhǔ ràng tā kān diàn.

At night the shop owner has him watch the store.

Tips

usage

kān (1st tone) is the "guard / look after" reading. Bound in: 看护 (nurse / caretaker), 看门 (guard the door), 看守 (guard / watchman), 看管 (watch over), 看家 (mind the house). Standalone use is rare in modern Mandarin — you'll meet kān almost always inside a compound.

memory

Memory hook: kān = guard (gentle, watchful tone — 1st tone); kàn = look (a sharper falling tone, like a quick glance). When the action is to keep something safe over time (a child, a house, a prisoner), use kān; when it's to use your eyes once (read, watch, see), use kàn.

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.