How to write 床 (chuáng, “bed”)

床 (chuáng), an HSK 1 character, means “bed”, “bed” and “frame”. It is a character whose parts combine into its meaning. On its own it is an HSK 2 word; it also forms 起床 (“to get out of bed”), 床单 (“bed sheet”) and 床位 (“bed”). Japanese reads it shou, “bed”, as a JLPT N2 kanji.

Pinyin: chuáng
Strokes: 7
HSK: 1
Radical: 广 (“shelter”)

Stroke by stroke

As a top-left cover character it splits into 广 (“shelter”, the radical), strokes 1–3; 木 (“tree”), strokes 4–7, written the cover first.

Vertical ㇑topdown and right
Horizontal ㇐top leftrightwards
Left-falling stroke ㇒top leftdownwards → down and left
Horizontal ㇐leftrightwards
Vertical ㇑topdownwards
Left-falling stroke ㇒centerdown and left
Right-falling stroke ㇏centerdown and right → rightwards

Names of the strokes

Japanese and Chinese

Japanese and Chinese draw all 7 strokes in the same order and direction, by our stroke-by-stroke comparison.

Japanese · KanjiVG · 7 strokes

Chinese · Make Me a Hanzi · 7 strokes

Where 床 comes from

A house 广 made out of wood 木; 广 also provides the pronunciation

Trace it

Follow the numbers. Tracing help

Pinyin and meaning

Pinyin	Meanings	Traditional	In words
chuáng second tone	bed; couch (furniture that one can lie down on); bed; bottom (of rivers, oceans, gardens etc); frame; chassis; classifier for blankets, quilts etc	—	起床床单床位临床

HSK 2025 syllabus: level 1
2021 standard: level 1
HSK 2.0: in a level 2 word
Words with it: 84 in CC-CEDICT

Words with 床

Word	Pinyin	Meaning
床	chuáng	bed; couch (furniture that one can lie down on) HSK 2
起床	qǐchuáng	to get out of bed; to get up HSK 1
床单床單	chuángdān	bed sheet HSK 5
床位	chuángwèi	bed; berth HSK 7-9
临床臨床	línchuáng	(medicine) clinical HSK 7-9
东床東床	dōngchuáng	son-in-law
叫床	jiàochuáng	to cry out in ecstasy (during lovemaking)
床边床邊	chuángbiān	bedside
机床機床	jīchuáng	machine tool; a lathe
水床	shuǐchuáng	waterbed; water mattress

HSK words first (CC-CEDICT).

Practice sheet

Print at 100%. Several characters: worksheet maker.

Keep going

HSK 1, in list order: