Beginner Guide to Chinese characters
Unit 1
Unit 2
Unit 3
Unit 4
Unit 5
Unit 6
Unit 7
Unit 8
Unit 9
Unit 10
Unit 11
Unit 12
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Character: 太 (tài) too
A person taking a big step into another zone
Pinyin | tài | ||
---|---|---|---|
Meaning | too; overly; extremely ;excessively | ||
Radical | 大 | 繁體字 | same |
大 |
writing patterns, not components
Breakdown
太 (tài) “too” is an ideograph that evolved from its radical 大 (dà) “big,” which represents a standard of an extent. The other element is a dot 丶. It is placed at the bottom left and works as an indicator. It represents something that is over the standard.
Used as a morpheme/word
Wordlist
- HSK 1: 太 (tài) too
- HSK 3: 太阳 (tàiyáng) sun
- HSK 5: 太极拳 (tàijíquán) Taiji
- HSK 5: 太太 (tàitai) Mrs.
- Advanced: 太平 (tàipíng) peace and security
How to pronounce
This character sounds like “tie.”
4th | Pinyin | Yale | IPA |
---|---|---|---|
Initial | t- | t | [tʰ] |
Final | -ai | ai | [aɪ] |