liù
number HSK 1 #802

Meanings

  1. 1 six
  2. 2 6

Characters

Examples

Tā yǒu liù gè háizi.
He has six children.
Liùyuè shì xiàtiān.
June is summer.
Xīngqīliù shì wǒ zuì xǐhuān de yī tiān.
Saturday is my favorite day of the week.

Tips

culture
sounds like ('smooth, flowing'), making it a lucky number associated with things going smoothly. '666' is internet slang for 'awesome / skilled' in China — the opposite of its Western connotation.
register
has a rare second reading (lù) used only in a handful of place names: 六合 (Luhe District of Nanjing) and 六安 (Lu'an, the prefecture in Anhui famous for 六安瓜片 tea). Treat these as fixed proper-noun exceptions — everywhere else, is liù.

Components

radical
eight; splay
Bottom radical (eight, splayed lines) is the indexing radical of . Even though etymologically has nothing to do with 'six', the splayed-line shape is unmistakable beneath the lid. Useful pedagogy: think of as 'a small lid over a splaying-eight' — the indexing radical that lets you find it in any traditional dictionary.
ideograph
tóu
lid radical
The 'lid' radical — a horizontal plus downward dot used as a graphic cap on many chars (, , ). Here it functions as a positional cover above the splayed legs below to form the 'six' silhouette. Strict etymology says originally pictured a small hut.

Stroke Order

liù