shén / shí
pronoun #1,741

Meanings

  1. 1 what

Characters

Examples

HSK 1
Nǐ zài shuō shénme?
What are you saying?
HSK 1
Shénme shíhou zǒu?
When are we leaving?
HSK 2
Wèishénme bù lái?
Why aren't you coming?

Tips

usage
The shén reading is essentially bound to 什么 and its family: 为什么 (why), 干什么 (what for), 没什么 (no big deal), 什么样 (what kind). Standalone is not used in modern speech.
mistakes
has a second reading shí ("ten; assorted") used in 什锦 (assorted) and in transliterations like 布什 (Bush) or 喀什 (Kashgar). Default to shén only when you see the 什么 family.

Components

radical
rén
person (left-side form of 人)
Person radical on the left. The historical sense of was "a group of ten people" - a military squad or household unit - so the radical fits the original people-counting meaning. The interrogative shén reading developed later in spoken Tang/Song Chinese and lost that connection. Same radical heads , , .
phonetic
shí
ten
Right side supplies both sound and the original meaning. For the shí reading the match is direct: a was historically a unit of ten people or ten families. The interrogative shén reading is a colloquial drift from shí - the vowel nasalised and the tone shifted in Tang-era spoken use, leaving a phonetic that no longer cleanly matches the modern reading.

Stroke Order

shén