A baby’s soft spot

Pinyin	ér
Meaning	child; used to mark the “R-like” sound in syllable finals
Radical	儿	繁體字	兒

n/a

category: pictograph

structure: single

2stroke count

HSK 1

儿 (ér) “child” is a pictograph. After the simplification, it has only two strokes left, and they look like a baby’s soft spot.

Used as a component

As a component, 儿 (ér) often stands as the substitute of the ancient element that signifies “human,” for example, 儿 in 先 (xiān) “early.” However, sometimes it does not share any semantic connection with the character it helps form.

Used as a morpheme/word

儿 (ér) cannot be used alone as a word. Instead, it is mainly used as a morpheme and means “child.” For example, 女儿 (nǚ’ér) “daughter” is literally a “female child.” 儿 (ér) is also used as a phonetic suffix to mark the “R-like” sound in the syllable finals, and the vowel (é) can be omitted, for example, 一点儿 (yīdiǎnr) “a little bit.”

How to pronounce

This character sounds like er, as in “dinner.”