倒 (dǎo) · to fall; to collapse

Meanings

1 to fall; to collapse
2 to lie horizontally
3 to fail; to go bankrupt
4 to overthrow
5 to change (trains or buses)
6 to resell at a profit

Characters

倒

dǎo

to fall; to collapse; to overthrow

Examples

HSK 2

那家公司去年就倒了。

Nà jiā gōngsī qùnián jiù dǎo le.

That company went under last year.

HSK 2

去机场要倒两次车。

Qù jīchǎng yào dǎo liǎng cì chē.

Getting to the airport takes two transfers.

HSK 5

他在雪地上滑了一下就倒了。

Tā zài xuědì shàng huá le yíxià jiù dǎo le.

He slipped on the snow and went down.

Tips

mistakes

倒 has two readings and they sit at opposite ends of the meaning space. dǎo (3rd tone) = something goes DOWN: a person falls (摔倒), a building collapses (倒塌), a business fails (倒闭), a regime is overthrown (打倒). dào (4th tone) = something gets FLIPPED or REVERSED: pour out a liquid (倒水), turn an image upside down (倒影), back up a car (倒车 - note the SAME chars also read dǎochē meaning 'transfer between buses'), or as an adverb meaning 'on the contrary' (倒是). Quick test: if a thing toppled or collapsed → dǎo; if a thing was inverted, poured, or it's 'but/yet/actually' → dào.

memory

Both readings share the right-side phonetic 到 (to arrive). Picture dǎo as 'arriving at the ground' - the body, the building, the company all reach the floor. Picture dào as 'arriving the wrong way round' - the bucket arrives mouth-down, the car arrives back-first, the situation arrives contrary to what you expected.

Components

radical

亻 rén

person (radical form)

Person radical on the left - the side-form of 人. Anchors 倒 as something a person does or has happen to them: falling over, being knocked down, tipping a vessel. Same radical in 你, 他, 信 - the human-action family.

phonetic

到 dào

to arrive; to reach

Right side 到 supplies the sound: dào → dǎo (3rd tone, fall/collapse) or dào (4th tone, invert/pour). Semantically there's a faint thread too - 'arriving' becomes 'arriving at the ground' for the dǎo sense, and 'arriving in reverse order' for the dào sense. 到 itself contains the knife radical 刂.