听 (tīng) · to listen, to hear

Meanings

1 to listen
2 to hear
3 to heed; to obey
4 a can; a tin
5 classifier for canned beverages

Characters

Mouth radical 口 on the left and the axe-phonetic 斤 on the right - a 1956-reform graphic shortcut for the elaborate traditional 聽.

Examples

HSK 1

听老师的话。

Tīng lǎoshī de huà.

Listen to the teacher.

HSK 3

我喜欢听音乐。

Wǒ xǐhuan tīng yīnyuè.

I like listening to music.

HSK 5

他买了一听可乐。

Tā mǎi le yī tīng kělè.

He bought a can of cola.

Tips

history

The traditional form 聽 packs in 耳 (ear), 王 (king), 十 (ten), 目 (eye) and 心 (heart) - a king listening with ear, ten eyes and a focused heart. The 1956 reform replaced that 22-stroke tower with the unrelated graphic shortcut 口 + 斤, borrowing the right half from 厅 (hall) for the sound.

usage

Borrowed from English 'tin' (via Cantonese), 听 also means 'a can' and serves as the classifier for canned drinks: 一听可乐 'a can of cola', 两听啤酒 'two cans of beer'. An archaic third reading yǐn 'smile' survives only in classical texts; modern learners can safely ignore it.

Components

radical

口 kǒu

mouth

Left-side 口 is the mouth radical. Simplified 听 was rebuilt by the 1956 reform from the elaborate 聽 (耳+王+十+目+一+心) into a graphic 口+斤 shortcut, so the indexing radical here is a chosen simplification rather than the etymological 耳 (ear).

phonetic

斤 jīn

axe; catty (weight unit)

Right-side 斤 supplies the sound (jīn → tīng, drift via the same simplification stand-in pattern as 厅). Pure phonetic role - the axe meaning doesn't carry. The same right-side simplification appears in 厅 (hall), rebuilt by the reform on the same 斤 phonetic frame.