Kilo Lingo

(dà xué shēng) - university student in Mandarin

xuéshēng

Traditional: 大學生

Line drawing of 大学生
Coloured illustration of 大学生
#5432 of 5,000 Core 5000

Translation

university student

Stroke order

Stroke order for 大

Stroke order for 学

Stroke order for 生

Examples

My older brother is a university student.

Lots of university students do part-time work at weekends.

She's a first-year university student.

University life is very different from secondary school life.

This university has twenty thousand students.

大学生 (dàxuéshēng) is a university student. It is simply 大学 (dàxué), "university" (literally "big school"), plus 生 (shēng), the same "student" suffix found in 学生 (xuésheng), "student", and 中学生 (zhōngxuéshēng), "secondary school student".

Chinese neatly grades a learner's stage this way: 小学生 (xiǎoxuéshēng) for primary, 中学生 (zhōngxuéshēng) for secondary, and 大学生 (dàxuéshēng) for university, so once you know the pattern the vocabulary practically builds itself.

一个大学生 (yí gè dàxuéshēng) is "one university student"; for a group, 大学生们 (dàxuéshēngmen) or just 大学生 (dàxuéshēng) used generically both work, since Chinese nouns don't obligatorily mark plural.

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Mandarin · Free printables

大学生: worksheet, infographic and listicle

Free printable study downloads for the Mandarin word "大学生" (university student): a worksheet with the answer key built in, an infographic, and a sentence listicle. Open any one to view, print or save.

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This word is part of lesson 109.