妳 (nǐ): you (female)

Meanings

1 you (female)

Characters

妳

nǐ

you (female)

Examples

妳好吗？

Nǐ hǎo ma?

How are you? (to a female)

我想妳了。

Wǒ xiǎng nǐ le.

I miss you. (to a female)

Tips

usage

妳 is a female-specific form of 你, used mainly in Taiwan. In mainland China, 你 is used for all genders. 妳 appears in written Taiwanese Mandarin but is pronounced identically to 你.

culture

Similar to how English once used gender-specific forms, 妳 (with the 女 radical) was created to specifically address females. It is not part of the simplified Chinese standard.

Components

radical

女 nǚ

woman

Woman radical on the left is what distinguishes 妳 from the gender-neutral 你. The radical was added in early-twentieth-century writing reform to mark a feminine 'you', mirroring the way 她 was coined to mark feminine 'she'. Now used mostly in Taiwan and Hong Kong; mainland writing keeps 你 for all genders.

phonetic

尔 ěr

you (literary)

Right side is 尔, a classical second-person pronoun, here doing both phonetic and semantic duty. It supplies the sound — ěr drifting to nǐ as in the standard pair 你/尔 — and supplies the literal meaning 'you'. Same phonetic core sits in 你 you and 弥 to fill. Woman + 'you' = a feminine you-form.