dǒng
verb HSK 2 #485

Meanings

  1. 1 to understand

Characters

Heart radical + (to supervise) — the heart that supervises and comprehends

Examples

Nǐ dǒng ma?
Do you understand?
Wǒ bù dǒng.
I don't understand.
Tā hěn dǒng yīnyuè.
He really understands music.

Tips

grammar
听懂 = understand by listening, 看懂 = understand by reading, 弄懂 = figure out.
mistakes
= comprehension. 明白 = clarity. 了解 = familiarity. They overlap but differ in nuance.

Components

radical
xīn
heart radical
Left radical is the side-form of (heart). It marks as a mental act: understanding happens in the heart-mind, not the head, in classical Chinese psychology. Same heart-side radical anchors (fear), (busy), (happy), (slow) — the family of internal states and feelings.
phonetic
dǒng
to direct; surname Dong
Right phonetic supplies the sound — dǒng matches directly with no shift. itself means 'to oversee, direct', which carries faint semantic flavour: to something is to oversee it mentally, get a grip on it. is also a common surname (董事长 'chairman' literally 'oversight elder'). Same phonetic in alone but itself is widely seen.

Stroke Order

dǒng