Where 很 comes from
step
- Meaning part
- 彳 (“step”)
- Sound part
- 艮 (“one of the Eight Trigrams 八卦”)
How to write 很 (hěn, “very”)
很 (hěn), an HSK 1 character, means “very” and “also”. It pairs a meaning part, 彳 (“step”), with a sound part, 艮 (“one of the Eight Trigrams 八卦”). On its own it is an HSK 1 word, and it forms 不很 (“not very”), 很是 (“very”) and 得很 (“(after an adjective) very”). Japanese reads it kon, “disobey”.
- Pinyin
- hěn
- Strokes
- 9
- HSK
- 1
- Radical
- 彳 (“step”)
Stroke by stroke
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- 8
- 9
As a left-right character it splits into 彳 (“step”, the radical), strokes 1–3; 艮 (“one of the Eight Trigrams 八卦”), strokes 4–9, written the left part first.
- top leftdownwards → down and left
- top leftdown and left
- leftdownwards
- toprightwards → downwards
- toprightwards
- centerrightwards
- topdownwards → up and right
- rightdown and right → down and left
- centerdown and right → rightwards
Japanese and Chinese
The two models differ in shape, so our comparison does not claim an order; compare the numbered frames yourself (9 strokes in Japanese, 9 strokes in Chinese).
Trace it
Follow the numbers. Tracing help
Pinyin and meaning
| Pinyin | Meanings | Traditional | In words |
|---|---|---|---|
| hěn third tone | very; quite; (also, often used before an adjective without intensifying its meaning, i.e. as a meaningless syntactic element) | — | 不很 很是 得很 |
- HSK 2025 syllabus
- level 1
- 2021 standard
- level 1
- HSK 2.0
- in a level 1 word
- Words with it
- 4 in CC-CEDICT
Words with 很
| Word | Pinyin | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| 很 | hěn | very; quite HSK 1 |
| 不很 | bùhěn | not very |
| 很是 | hěnshì | very; quite |
| 得很 | dehěn | (after an adjective) very |
HSK words first (CC-CEDICT).
Practice sheet
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Keep going
HSK 1, in list order: