左
Tap the pinyin to hear it
left; the Left (politics); east; unorthodox; queer; wrong; differing; opposite; variant of 佐[zuo3]
- HSK 3.0
- Level 1
- Old HSK
- Level 2
- Strokes
- 5
- Radical
- 工 +2
- Structure
- Upper-left enclosure 左上包
- Traditional
- 左
- Common rank
- #916
- Unicode
- U+5DE6
Sound it out + =
Formation & memory
Break the character into parts you already know.
How to remember it
left · Heisig RSH #77
by one’s side + 工 work
Keyword method from Heisig's Remembering Simplified Hanzi.
Words with 左
The most common words first — learning a character in context makes it stick.
| Word | Pinyin | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| 左边 | left; the left side; to the left of | |
| 左字头 | "top of 左 character" component in Chinese characters | |
| 左不过 | anyhow; in any event; just; only | |
| 新巴尔虎左旗 | New Barag left banner in Hulunbuir 呼倫貝爾|呼伦贝尔[Hu1 lun2 bei4 er3], Inner Mongolia | |
| 左口鱼 | flounder | |
| 巴林左 | Bairin Left banner of Baarin Züün khoshuu in Chifeng 赤峰[Chi4 feng1], Inner Mongolia | |
| 左倾机会主义 | (Marxist jargon) left opportunism; ultra-left deviation ignoring objective conditions and … | |
| 左权县 | Zuoquan, a county in Jinzhong City 晉中市|晋中市[Jin4 zhong1 Shi4], Shanxi | |
| 左云县 | Zuoyun, a county in Datong City 大同市[Da4 tong2 Shi4], Shanxi | |
| 左边儿 | erhua variant of 左邊|左边[zuo3 bian5] | |
| 巴林左旗 | Bairin Left banner of Baarin Züün khoshuu in Chifeng 赤峰[Chi4 feng1], Inner Mongolia | |
| 左耳入，右耳出 | in one ear and out the other | |
| 苏尼特左旗 | Sonid Left banner in Xilingol League 錫林郭勒盟|锡林郭勒盟[Xi1 lin2 guo1 le4 Meng2], Inner Mongolia | |
| 阿拉善左旗 | Alxa Left Banner, Mongolian Alshaa Züün khoshuu, in Alxa League 阿拉善盟[A1 la1 shan4 Meng2], … | |
| 左拉 | Zola (name); Émile Zola (1840-1902), French naturalist novelist | |
| 白左 | (neologism, attested by 2010) naive, self-righteous Western liberals or progressives | |
| 左上 | upper left | |
| 左手 | left hand; left-hand side | |
| 中国左翼作家联盟 | the League of the Left-Wing Writers, an organization of writers formed in China in 1930 | |
| 左面 | left side |
Sound family
These characters use 左 as their sound component — compare how they read.