pronoun #19,033

Meanings

  1. 1 it (pronoun specifically for animals)
  2. 2 he/she/it (for animals)

Examples

HSK 3
Zhè zhī māo shòushāng le, wǒmen yào bāngzhù tā.
This cat is injured; we need to help it.
HSK 5
Tā shì yī zhī cōngmíng de gǒu, tā huì kāimén.
It is a clever dog - it can open doors.

Tips

register
is a Taiwan/classical variant of used specifically for animals. In mainland simplified Chinese, is used for all non-human referents (animals, objects). is rarely seen in mainland texts but is standard in traditional-character writing in Taiwan and Hong Kong when referring to animals.

Components

radical
niú
ox; cattle
is the left-side form of (ox). was coined in traditional script as the non-human counterpart of (he) - used for animals and inanimate things, with the ox radical marking the animal sense. Now largely replaced by in simplified writing.
phonetic
also; final particle
(yě) supplies the sound, drifted to tā. The choice mirrors (person + ) and (woman + ) - a tidy paradigm where is the constant pronoun phonetic and the radical fixes the referent type. Same series: , , .

Stroke Order