zài
preposition HSK 1 #7

Meanings

  1. 1 at
  2. 2 in
  3. 3 on (a place)
  4. 4 to exist
  5. 5 (marker for action in progress)

Examples

Wǒ zài jiā.
I'm at home.
Tā zài xuéxiào.
He's at school.
Wǒ zài kàn shū.
I'm reading (right now).

Tips

grammar
has three main uses: (1) location — (at home), (2) existence — (he's not here), (3) progressive — (is reading).

Components

radical
earth; soil
Earth radical at the bottom-right — provides the 'rooted in the ground' semantic. Existence is being-on-the-ground; literally pins a thing/person to the soil. The radical also indexes in radical lookup, even though the above is what supplies the sound.
phonetic
cái
talent; just now
Phonetic — (regular initial shift). originally pictured a sapling pushing through soil — a sprout just emerging — and that sapling-from-earth imagery dovetails neatly with 's meaning of 'to exist / to be present at': something planted on the earth, here and now.

Stroke Order

zài