间 (jiān): between; among; within

Meanings

1 between; among; within
2 classifier for rooms

Characters

间

jiān

between; room

门 (door) + 日 (sun) — sunlight peeking through a door.

Examples

这间房间很大。

Zhè jiān fángjiān hěn dà.

This room is very large.

时间过得真快。

Shíjiān guò de zhēn kuài.

Time passes really fast.

两栋楼之间有一个小公园。

Liǎng dòng lóu zhījiān yǒu yī gè xiǎo gōngyuán.

There is a small park between the two buildings.

Tips

usage

As a measure word 间 counts rooms: 一间卧室 (one bedroom), 三间教室 (three classrooms). The same reading anchors the abstract 'between / interval' family: 时间, 空间, 中间, 之间.

mistakes

Two readings. 间 (1st tone) = the everyday 'between, space, room' sense — by far the more common: 时间, 房间, 空间. 间 (4th tone) = the narrower 'gap / to separate / drive apart' sense, almost always bound in compounds: 间隔, 间谍, 离间. When in doubt, read jiān.

Components

radical

门 mén

door; gate (radical)

Outer door/gate radical (Kangxi #169) — simplified from 門, originally a pair of swing-doors. Surrounds 间 from above and the sides. Carries the visual core: the character pictures a slit between the two doors, hence 'between, interval, room.' The same radical anchors 问 (ask), 闻 (hear), 闹 (noisy), 闪 (flash) — things that happen at, through, or behind a doorway.

semantic

日 rì

sun (semantic)

Inner sun component — pictograph of the sun with a central stroke. The compound reads: sunlight through the crack between two doors = gap, interval, moment between. Originally written 閒 with 月 'moon' (moonlight in the doorway); the 日-version 間 became standard and was later simplified to 间. Used as a measure word for rooms because each room is a partitioned interval.