看 (kān): to look after; to take care of

Meanings

1 to look after; to take care of
2 to watch; to guard

Characters

看

kān

to look after; to take care of

Examples

HSK 1

请帮我看一下孩子。

Qǐng bāng wǒ kān yīxià háizi.

Please watch the kids for me for a moment.

HSK 3

这条狗负责看门。

Zhè tiáo gǒu fùzé kān mén.

This dog is in charge of guarding the door.

HSK 7-9

晚上店主让他看店。

Wǎnshang diànzhǔ ràng tā kān diàn.

At night the shop owner has him watch the store.

Tips

usage

kān (1st tone) is the "guard / look after" reading. Bound in: 看护 (nurse / caretaker), 看门 (guard the door), 看守 (guard / watchman), 看管 (watch over), 看家 (mind the house). Standalone use is rare in modern Mandarin - you'll meet kān almost always inside a compound.

memory

Memory hook: kān = guard (gentle, watchful tone - 1st tone); kàn = look (a sharper falling tone, like a quick glance). When the action is to keep something safe over time (a child, a house, a prisoner), use kān; when it's to use your eyes once (read, watch, see), use kàn.

Components

radical

目 mù

eye

Bottom indexing eye radical. Pictograph of a vertical eye (rotated 90° from its original horizontal orientation in oracle bone script). With the hand sheltering it from above, the whole character is "hand + eye = look". Same family: 眼 (eye), 睡 (sleep), 瞎 (blind), 瞄 (aim), 瞪 (stare).

semantic

手 shǒu

hand

Top component - the flattened "hand-on-top" form of 手. Depicts a hand raised to the brow, shading the eyes from glare. This is the iconic gesture of peering into the distance, exactly the meaning of 看. One of the cleanest two-element compound ideographs in the script.