尝

嘗
cháng
verb HSK 3 #3,035

Meanings

  1. 1 to taste; to try (food)
  2. 2 once; ever

Examples

HSK 4
Wǒ cónglái méi cháng guò zhèzhǒng shuǐguǒ.
I've never tasted this kind of fruit before.
HSK 5
Zhè tāng cháng qǐlái yǒudiǎn dàn, jiā diǎn yán ba.
This soup tastes a bit bland; add some salt.
HSK 6
Nǐ chángchang zhè dào cài hǎobuhǎo chī.
Try this dish and see if it's good.

Tips

usage
尝尝 (reduplicated) softens the tone - 'have a little taste.' 尝 alone is more direct.
culture
The traditional form 嘗 has 口 (mouth) at the bottom - you taste with your mouth.

Components

phonetic
尚 shàng
still, esteem (phonetic, contracted form)
Top is a 5-stroke contraction of standalone 尚 (8 strokes), the lower 口 dropped - the same shortcut as in 党. 尚 supplies the sound (shàng → cháng, regular zh-/ch- alternation). The three short top strokes form the ⺌ silhouette, which is why 尝 indexes under Kangxi #42 小 (xiǎo) by tradition.
semantic
云 yún
cloud (semantic)
Bottom 云 - a simplification of traditional 嘗's lower stack (旨 'delicious' over 甘 'sweet'). The original picture was 'tasting to assess flavor.' The reform replaced the inner taste-graphics with the simpler 云 (cloud), which is now a graphic placeholder rather than a meaning-carrier - a pure visual substitute.

Filed under radical 小 (xiǎo, #42) by convention. 小 is not a separate component in 尝, so no strokes are highlighted.

Stroke Order

尝 cháng