活
Tap the pinyin to hear it
to live; alive; living; work; workmanship
- HSK 3.0
- Level 2
- Old HSK
- Level 4
- Strokes
- 9
- Radical
- 水 +6
- Structure
- Left–right 左右
- Traditional
- 活
- Common rank
- #290
- Unicode
- U+6D3B
Sound it out + =
Formation & memory
Break the character into parts you already know.
How to remember it
lively · Heisig RSH #151
舌 tongue + 水 water
Keyword method from Heisig's Remembering Simplified Hanzi.
Words with 活
The most common words first — learning a character in context makes it stick.
| Word | Pinyin | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| 生物活化性 | bioactivity | |
| 活动中心 | activity center; CL:處|处[chu4] | |
| 生活水平 | living standards | |
| 活生生 | real (people); living (artist); while still alive (e.g. skinned alive) | |
| 性生活 | sex life | |
| 火山活动 | volcanic activity; volcanism | |
| 生活美学 | appreciation of the finer things in life | |
| 活动家 | activist | |
| 生活作风 | behavior; conduct | |
| 活动场地 | place for activities (playground, event venue etc) | |
| 有活力 | energetic; vital | |
| 体力活 | physical labor | |
| 活火山 | active volcano | |
| 活动人士 | activist | |
| 活化石 | living fossil | |
| 重活儿 | erhua variant of 重活[zhong4 huo2] | |
| 活人 | living person | |
| 活水 | naturally flowing water (as opposed to stagnant water) | |
| 生活 | to live; life; livelihood | |
| 活儿 | work; (lots of) things to do |
Sound family
Characters sharing the sound component 舌 — compare how they read.
| Character | Pinyin | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| 舌 sound part | tongue; bell clapper | |
| 舍 | house, dwelling; to reside, to dwell; to abandon, to give up | |
| 适 | match, comfortable; just | |
| 括 | to embrace, to enclose, to include | |
| 刮 | to shave; to scrape; to blow | |
| 恬 | calm, peaceful; quiet, tranquil | |
| 蛞 | snail, slug; mole cricket | |
| 栝 | a builder's frame for measuring | |
| 鸹 | crow |