Kilo Lingo

(ài) - to love, love in Mandarin

ài

Traditional: 愛

Line drawing of 爱
Coloured illustration of 爱
HSK 1
#175 of 5,000 Core 1000

Translation

to love, love

Word origin

The simplified 爱 derives from the traditional 愛, which in its older form contained the heart radical 心 to convey feeling. The simplified shape replaces the heart component with 友 'friend' beneath a covering element. The character has long carried the sense of cherishing or loving.

Origin
compound
Root
traditional 愛 contains 心 (heart); simplified 爱 ends in 友 (friend)

Stroke order

Stroke order for 爱

Examples

I love you.

He loves his family very much.

What is love?

Mum loves eating fruit.

The children all love this little dog.

爱 (ài) means to love, love. It is used as a verb in everyday Mandarin speech.

Appears in 5 words

Multi-character compounds in the corpus that contain 爱.

Used in

Add to review queue

Track this word in your spaced-repetition queue and be tested on it at the right interval.

Go to my review queue

This word is part of lesson 4.