哪

nǎ / né / na
pronoun HSK 1 #162

Meanings

  1. 1 which
  2. 2 where
  3. 3 how

Examples

HSK 1
Nǐ shì nǎ guó rén?
Which country are you from?
HSK 1
Nǎge shì nǐ de?
Which one is yours?
HSK 1
Wǒ nǎ zhīdào?
How would I know?

Tips

mistakes
Don't confuse 哪 (which) with 那 (that) - same right component, different left side and different tone. 哪 has the extra mouth radical because it's a spoken question; 那 points to something. Tone is the easiest tell: third tone = question, fourth tone = pointing.
register
Two colloquial readings to know. (1) Before a classifier, 哪 is often pronounced něi in casual northern speech - a fused form of 哪 + 一, parallel to 那 → nèi. So 哪个 becomes něige, 哪 + 本 becomes něi běn. Writing stays the same. (2) Sentence-finally after a word ending in -n, 哪 is a toneless emphatic particle - the n-coloured variant of 啊, as in 天哪 (good heavens) or 谢谢你哪 (thanks a lot). The exclamatory 哪 has nothing to do with which / where - it's just 啊 assimilated to the preceding -n.

Components

radical
口 kǒu
mouth
Left indexing mouth radical 口 (Kangxi #30). Marks 哪 as a spoken word - a question particle that comes out of the mouth rather than naming a thing. Same radical anchors all the interrogative and exclamatory chars: 吗, 呢, 啊, 嗯, 哎.
phonetic
那 nà
that
Right component supplies the sound: 那 (nà) → nǎ (just a tone shift). Adds a tight semantic flavour too: 那 means 'that, over there,' so 口 + 那 reads as 'speaking the that-question' = 'which?' Same phonetic family with 娜, 挪, 呐.

Stroke Order

哪 nǎ