边 (biān): side

Meanings

1 side
2 edge; margin
3 border; frontier
4 boundary

Characters

边

biān

side; edge; border

Examples

HSK 1

别坐在桌子的边上。

Bié zuò zài zhuōzi de biān shàng.

Don't sit on the edge of the table.

HSK 2

河边有很多树。

Hé biān yǒu hěn duō shù.

There are many trees by the river.

HSK 6

边防战士日夜守卫。

Biānfáng zhànshì rìyè shǒuwèi.

The border guards stand watch day and night.

Tips

grammar

Full-tone 边 is the content word: a noun meaning side/edge/border, or the modifier in compounds like 边疆 (frontier), 边境 (border), 海边 (seaside). When it becomes a toneless locality suffix on directional words (上边, 那边), the tone disappears - see the bian page.

usage

Paired 一边...一边... means 'doing X while Y' - e.g. 一边走一边唱 'walking and singing at the same time'. Both occurrences keep full tone.

Components

radical

辶 chuò

to walk; motion (radical form)

The motion radical wraps around the bottom-left, signaling that 边 originally meant 'to go to the edge' - approaching a boundary. From travel along borders came the static noun sense of 'side' or 'edge'. Indexed under Kangxi #162 walking; groups 边 with 进 (enter), 远 (far), 近 (near). Always written last.

phonetic

力 lì

power; strength (phonetic placeholder)

Simplified from traditional 邊 (18 strokes), whose right side was the elaborate phonetic 臱. The 1956 reform replaced that intricate component with a 2-stroke 力 purely for stroke-count economy - the 'strength' meaning is irrelevant here and the sound is only loosely approximate. Treat 力 as a graphic placeholder, not a real phonetic clue.