芽 (yá): sprout

Measure Word

一个芽 gè

Meanings

1 sprout
2 bud
3 shoot

Characters

芽

yá

sprout; bud

Examples

春天到了，树枝上长出了新芽。

Chūntiān dào le, shùzhī shàng zhǎng chū le xīn yá.

Spring has come, and new buds have appeared on the branches.

豆芽是一种很受欢迎的蔬菜。

Dòuyá shì yī zhǒng hěn shòu huānyíng de shūcài.

Bean sprouts are a very popular vegetable.

Tips

memory

The character has 艹 (grass radical) on top and 牙 (yá, tooth) on the bottom. A sprout poking through the soil looks like a little tooth emerging from the earth.

Components

radical

艹 cǎo

grass; plant (top radical)

Top grass radical in compressed 3-stroke form — indexing 芽 with the botanical family (花 flower, 草 grass, 苗 sprout, 莲 lotus). Carries the core meaning: a sprout is the first green thing pushing out of the soil, so the grass radical is doing real semantic work, not just acting as a category cap.

phonetic

牙 yá

tooth; fang

Bottom 牙 supplies the sound — yá straight through, no drift. The 'tooth' meaning is more than coincidence: a sprout pokes up like a small tooth breaking through the gum, and Chinese botany leans on the metaphor — 萌芽 to sprout, 嫩芽 tender shoot. The phonetic doubles as a vivid image.