千 (qiān) · thousand

Meanings

1 thousand

Characters

千

qiān

thousand

Examples

HSK 1

这个手机三千块。

Zhège shǒujī sānqiān kuài.

This phone costs 3,000 yuan.

HSK 1

学校有两千个学生。

Xuéxiào yǒu liǎngqiān gè xuésheng.

The school has two thousand students.

HSK 5

一千米等于一公里。

Yìqiān mǐ děngyú yī gōnglǐ.

One thousand meters equals one kilometer.

Tips

usage

Chinese uses 万 (wàn, ten thousand) as a basic unit, so 10,000 is 一万, not 十千. This is a common source of confusion.

Components

radical

十 shí

ten

Ten radical (Kangxi 24) - the indexing radical. Mnemonic: ten 十 with a 'cap' marker = a hundred tens = one thousand. The radical also helps differentiate 千 from siblings 干 (dry) and 午 (noon), which differ only in the topmost stroke.

ideograph

丿 piě

left-falling stroke (marker)

Top-leaning marker stroke - historically a mark added to 人 (person) to denote a count of one thousand 'people'. The single sweep is purely a numerical marker, distinguishing 千 from 干 (which has a horizontal top instead). It carries no real-world picture, only the abstract 'this is the thousand-glyph'.