读 (dòu) · pause; phrase-break in classical text

Meanings

1 pause; phrase-break in classical text
2 comma-like pause (in unpunctuated classical writing)

Characters

读

dòu

pause; phrase-break in classical text

Examples

HSK 7-9

掌握句读是读古文的基础。

Zhǎngwò jùdòu shì dú gǔwén de jīchǔ.

Mastering classical phrasing is the foundation of reading old texts.

HSK 7-9

没有句读，文意难明。

Méiyǒu jùdòu, wényì nán míng.

Without commas and pauses, the meaning of a classical text is hard to discern.

Tips

register

The dòu reading is a literary specialist term, surviving almost exclusively in 句读 - the traditional name for phrase breaks in unpunctuated classical texts. In old commentaries, 句 marked a full stop and 读 marked a comma-like pause. Modern speech and writing use the everyday dú reading everywhere else; you will only meet dòu in classical-studies contexts.

Components

radical

讠 yán

speech (radical form)

Left speech radical, the side-form of 言. Marks 读 as a verbal-act character: reading aloud, reciting, declaiming. The simplified speech radical compresses 言 into two strokes - a horizontal mark above an angled mouth-line. Same radical anchors 说, 语, 讲, and 课.

phonetic

卖 mài

to sell (graphic only)

Right-side 卖 supplies the sound: simplified from the traditional 讀, where the phonetic was an old hand-over graph reading yù. The shift from yù to dú is a large velar-to-dental drift, and the modern 'sell' meaning plays no role here - this is a graphic phonetic carrier only. The same phonetic anchors 续 (continue) and 犊 (calf).