字

Tap the pinyin to hear it

letter; symbol; character; word; CL:個|个[ge4]; courtesy or style name traditionally given to males aged 20 in dynastic China

Sound it out + =

Formation & memory

Break the character into parts you already know.

Ideographic compound (会意字)

A child 子 in a house 宀; 子 also provides the pronunciation

Components 宀子

character · Heisig RSH #191

子 child + house

Keyword method from Heisig's Remembering Simplified Hanzi.

The most common words first — learning a character in context makes it stick.

Word	Pinyin	Meaning
名字	míng zi	name (of a person or thing)
汉字	hàn zì	Chinese character(s)
一字儿	yī zì r	erhua form of 一字[yi1 zi4]
一字马	yī zì mǎ	the splits (in gymnastics, dance or martial arts)
文字学家	wén zì xué jiā	expert on writing systems
头文字	tóu wén zì	initial; first letter of word (in Latin script)
文字学	wén zì xué	philology
国语罗马字	Guó yǔ Luó mǎ zì	Gwoyeu Romatzyh, a romanization system for Chinese devised by Y.R. Chao and others in 1925…
天文数字	tiān wén shù zì	(idiom) astronomical figure
一字	yī zì	in a row; in a line
国字	guó zì	Chinese character (Hanzi); the native script used to write a nation's language
字头	zì tóu	single-character headword (in a dictionary); first character of a Chinese word; the top pa…
生字	shēng zì	new character (in textbook); character that is unfamiliar or not yet studied
数字化	shù zì huà	to digitize
打字机	dǎ zì jī	typewriter
罗马数字	Luó mǎ shù zì	Roman numerals
白字	bái zì	Chinese character incorrectly written or read aloud in place of another character
金字	jīn zì	gold lettering; gold characters
合体字	hé tǐ zì	a Chinese character formed by combining existing elements - i.e. a combined ideogram 會意\|会意…
罗马字	luó mǎ zì	the Latin alphabet

These characters use 字 as their sound component — compare how they read.

Character	Pinyin	Meaning
字 sound part	zì	character, letter, symbol, word
牸	zì	female animal; to give birth