Character: 话 (huà) speech

话
Pinyin huà
Meaning speech; word; dialect; language
Radical 讠（言） 繁體字 話
Two writing patterns can be found in the character 话 (huà) speech: 讠, highlighted in red; 十, highlighted in yellow; and 口, highlighted in green 讠 十
口

writing patterns, not components

Chinese character compound ideographcategory: compound ideograph

Chinese character left right structurestructure: left right

8stroke count

HSK 1

Stroke order of the Chinese character 话 (huà) speech. There are 8 strokes, and the character is written from left to right, then top to bottom

Breakdown

话 (huà) “speech” used to be a phono-semantic compound character, but today it consists of two semantic components, 讠, which is a simplification of 言 (yán) “speech,” and 舌 (shé) “tongue.” Note that even though 言 (yán) also means “speech,” it is only used in classical Chinese.

huà
话
speech
讠
speech		 qǐng
请
please		 xiè
谢
to thank
shé
舌
tongue		 tián
甜
sweet		 guā
刮
to scratch

Used as a morpheme/word

Wordlist

  • HSK 1: 打 电话 (dǎ diànhuà) to make a phone call
  • HSK 2: 说话 (shuōhuà) to speak
  • HSK 4: 对话 (duìhuà) dialog
  • HSK 4: 普通话 (pǔtōnghuà) Mandarin
  • HSK 4: 笑话 (xiàohuà) joke
  • Beginner: 电话 (diànhuà) telephone

How to pronounce

This character sounds like “who wad” spoken in one syllable, but the wh is pronounced like the Scottish ch, as in “loch,” and the d is omitted.

4th Pinyin Yale IPA
Initial h- h [x]
Final -ua wa [ʊa]

Chinese character practice sheet

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