滩 (tān): beach; shoal; sandbank

Meanings

1 beach; shoal; sandbank
2 rapids; shallow water area

Characters

滩

tān

beach; shoal; rapids

氵(water radical) + 难 (difficult, phonetic) — shallow water that's hard to navigate

Examples

孩子们在沙滩上玩。

Háizi men zài shātān shàng wán.

The children are playing on the beach.

这条河有很多险滩。

Zhè tiáo hé yǒu hěnduō xiǎn tān.

This river has many dangerous rapids.

Tips

usage

滩 rarely stands alone; it appears in compounds: 沙滩 (shātān, sandy beach), 海滩 (hǎitān, beach), 险滩 (xiǎntān, rapids), 泥滩 (nítān, mudflat). 上海 was historically called 上海滩 (Shànghǎitān).

memory

氵(water) + 难 (difficult) — the difficult, shallow water where the riverbed shows through.

Components

radical

氵 shuǐ

water

氵 is the left-side form of 水 (water). Beaches, shoals and rapids are all defined by their relationship to water — the meaning anchor for 滩 sits squarely with this radical, which links it to a huge family including 河, 海, 湖, 流.

phonetic

难 nán

difficult

难 (nán) supplies the sound, which has shifted tones to tān. The faint semantic flavour fits too — shoals and rapids are difficult water to navigate. Compare 摊 tān (spread out) and 瘫 tān (paralysed) for the same phonetic series.