明

míng
adjective #2,107

Meanings

  1. 1 bright; clear; obvious
  2. 2 next (year etc.)

Examples

HSK 1
Míngtiān jiàn!
See you tomorrow!
HSK 1
Shuōmíngshū zài nǎlǐ?
Where is the instruction manual?
HSK 3
Nǐ míngbai le ma?
Do you understand?

Tips

culture
日 (sun) + 月 (moon) = 明 (bright). Key compounds: 明天 (tomorrow), 明白 (to understand), 说明 (to explain), 明显 (obvious), 聪明 (clever), 文明 (civilization). Also the Ming Dynasty (明朝).

Components

radical
日 rì
sun; day
Left sun radical - the indexing component. The square frame with a stroke inside originally pictured the sun with a sunspot or marking inside its disk. Here it provides the bright daylight half of the brightness pairing.
semantic
月 yuè
moon
Right moon - the second light source. Note this is genuinely the moon graph (not the meat radical ⺼ that looks identical). Sun + moon together make the perfect compound ideograph for 'bright': both light sources combined, day and night light.

Stroke Order

明 míng