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

HSK 1
Wǒ zài jiā.
I'm at home.
HSK 1
Tā zài xuéxiào.
He's at school.
HSK 1
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