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华

華
huà / huá
noun #3,908

Meanings

  1. 1 Mount Hua (in Shaanxi)
  2. 2 (surname) Hua

Examples

HSK 7-9
华山是五岳之一。
Huàshān shì Wǔyuè zhī yī.
Mount Hua is one of the Five Sacred Mountains.
HSK 7-9
华佗是东汉著名的医生。
Huà Tuó shì Dōnghàn zhùmíng de yīshēng.
Hua Tuo was a famous Eastern Han dynasty physician.
HSK 7-9
数学家华罗庚为中国数论奠基。
Shùxuéjiā Huà Luógēng wèi Zhōngguó shùlùn diànjī.
The mathematician Hua Luogeng laid the foundations of number theory in China.

Tips

usage
The huà reading is restricted to two narrow uses: the mountain 华山 (western peak of the Five Sacred Mountains, in Shaanxi) and the surname Huà - most famously the Eastern Han physician 华佗 (c. 145-208), considered the father of Chinese surgery, and the 20th-century mathematician 华罗庚 (1910-1985).
mistakes
Default to huá unless the word is the mountain or a surname. Common Han-era PRC names like 建华 ('build China') are personal names using the huá reading, not the surname huà. The surname huà only attaches in front of a given name, as in 华佗 - the same character, opposite role.

Components

radical
十 shí
ten (here a graphic residue)
Bottom radical 十 in 华 is a graphic stand-in inherited from the simplification, not the literal 'ten'. The original 華 had a complex grass-and-hanging stack at the bottom; the 1956 reform clipped it to a simple 十-shaped vertical-plus-horizontal silhouette. As indexing radical, 十 serves as the lookup key without carrying a 'ten' meaning here.
phonetic
化 huà
to change; transform
Top phonetic 化 supplies the sound - huà shifted to huá by tone change only. Heavily simplified from traditional 華, which depicted flowers blossoming on a tree - the modern 化-on-top is a stylised replacement that preserves the sound while shedding the floral image.

Stroke Order

华 huà