是 (shì): to be

Meanings

1 to be
2 is
3 yes

Characters

是

shì

to be; is; am; are; yes

Examples

我是学生。

Wǒ shì xuésheng.

I am a student.

她是中国人。

Tā shì Zhōngguó rén.

She is Chinese.

是的，没问题。

Shì de, méi wèntí.

Yes, no problem.

Tips

grammar

是 links a subject to a noun: 我是老师 (I am a teacher). Do NOT use 是 with adjectives — say 她很漂亮, not *她是漂亮.

mistakes

是 is only used to equate nouns, not to link adjectives. This is one of the most common mistakes for English speakers learning Chinese.

Components

radical

日 rì

sun

Top sun radical, the indexing component (Kangxi 72). 是 originally pictured a sundial or directional marker under the sun: a foot pointing 'straight ahead' beneath the noon sun. Hence the senses 'right, correct, this' — and from there the modern copula 'is, to be.' The sun fixes the orientation.

semantic

疋 shū

foot; stride

Bottom 疋 is a stylised foot or leg (related to 足 with the same origin). Combined with the sun above, the graph reads 'foot pointing straight under the noon sun' — a fix-point of correctness. Modern grammatical 'be / is' grew out of 'this is the correct one.'