How to write 元 (yuán, “currency unit”)

元 (yuán), an HSK 1 character, means “currency unit”, “first” and “basic”. It is a picture-like character. On its own it is an HSK 1 word; it also forms 单元 (“unit”), 元旦 (“New Year's Day”) and 公元 (“CE”). Japanese reads it gen, “beginning”, as a JLPT N4 kanji.

Pinyin: yuán
Strokes: 4
HSK: 1
Radical: 儿 (“legs”)

Stroke by stroke

As a top-bottom character it splits into 二 (“two”), strokes 1–2; 儿 (“legs”, the radical), strokes 3–4, written the top first.

Horizontal ㇐top leftrightwards
Horizontal ㇐leftrightwards
Left-falling stroke ㇒leftdown and left
Vertical-curve-hook ㇟centerdownwards → rightwards → upwards

Names of the strokes

Japanese and Chinese

Japanese and Chinese draw all 4 strokes in the same order and direction, by our stroke-by-stroke comparison.

Japanese · KanjiVG · 4 strokes

Chinese · Make Me a Hanzi · 4 strokes

Where 元 comes from

A man 儿 with two lines emphasizing their head 二

Trace it

Follow the numbers. Tracing help

Pinyin and meaning

Pinyin	Meanings	Traditional	In words
yuán second tone	currency unit (esp. Chinese yuan); (bound form) first; original; primary; (bound form) basic; fundamental; (bound form) constituent; part; (prefix) meta-	—	单元元旦公元多元

HSK 2025 syllabus: level 1
2021 standard: level 1
HSK 2.0: in a level 2 word
Words with it: 116 in CC-CEDICT

Words with 元

Word	Pinyin	Meaning
元	yuán	currency unit; first HSK 1
单元單元	dānyuán	unit (forming an entity); element HSK 5
元旦	Yuándàn	New Year's Day HSK 5
公元	gōngyuán	CE (Common Era); Christian Era HSK 6
多元	duōyuán	poly-; multi- HSK 6
元素	yuánsù	element (key component of sth); (chemistry) element HSK 6
元宵	yuánxiāo	Lantern Festival; night of the 15th of the first lunar month HSK 6
元老	yuánlǎo	senior figure; doyen HSK 7-9
元首	yuánshǒu	head of state HSK 7-9
状元狀元	zhuàngyuan	top scorer in the palace examination… HSK 7-9

HSK words first (CC-CEDICT).

Practice sheet

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Keep going

Contain it:

HSK 1, in list order: