tàng / tāng
measure word HSK 6 #1,755

Meanings

  1. 1 classifier for trips, journeys, or scheduled runs
  2. 2 classifier for rows (of things arranged in a line)

Examples

HSK 1
Wǒ qù le yī tàng Běijīng.
I made a trip to Beijing.
HSK 1
Zhè tàng huǒchē jǐ diǎn kāi?
What time does this train depart?
HSK 5
Tā zhège yuè yǐjīng chūchāi hǎojǐ tàng le.
He's already been on several business trips this month.

Tips

usage
Counts a there-and-back trip or a scheduled service run, not a one-way arrival. Common frames: (make a trip to), (run an errand), (waste a trip). With trains, buses, and flights it numbers individual scheduled services.
register
Polyphone: as a classifier this is (falling tone). When it means to wade or to trample (variant of ), the reading shifts to tāng (level tone) - see the second entry.

Components

radical
zǒu
to walk; to go
Walk-radical wrapping the bottom-left - the indexing radical. Every is a unit of travel by foot, train, bus, or any means. Anchors the char in the motion family with (run), (rise), and (cross over).
phonetic
shàng
still; esteem (here phonetic)
Right supplies the sound (shàng → tàng, a coronal shift mirrored across the family: , , ). Purely phonetic - no semantic contribution; the meaning is anchored entirely by the walk radical.

Stroke Order

tàng