洋 (yáng): ocean; vast body of water

Meanings

1 ocean; vast body of water
2 foreign; Western
3 vast; grand

Characters

洋

yáng

ocean; vast; foreign

Examples

太平洋是世界上最大的洋。

Tàipíngyáng shì shìjiè shàng zuì dà de yáng.

The Pacific Ocean is the largest ocean in the world.

他喜欢洋快餐。

Tā xǐhuān yáng kuàicān.

He likes Western fast food.

这个孩子洋洋得意。

Zhège háizi yángyángdéyì.

This child is smug and self-satisfied.

Tips

usage

洋 as 'foreign/Western' appears in many compounds: 洋人 (foreigner), 洋货 (foreign goods), 洋气 (fashionable/Western-style). This usage carries historical connotations from when China first encountered Western traders.

memory

水 (water) + 羊 (yáng, sheep, phonetic) = a vast body of water, the ocean.

Components

radical

氵 shuǐ

water (radical form of 水)

Three-drops water on the left puts 洋 in the vast water family — 河 river, 海 sea, 湖 lake. 洋 means ocean specifically, the biggest body of water; from there it took on "foreign" (across the ocean) and "vast" senses. Anything overseas in modern Chinese is 洋.

phonetic

羊 yáng

sheep (here phonetic)

羊 supplies the sound yáng unchanged. Its picture of a sheep's head with horns is purely a phonetic tag here. The same phonetic appears in 样 appearance, 氧 oxygen, 痒 itch, 详 detailed — all yáng/xiáng syllables sharing only the sheep glyph as their sound anchor.