(liù) - six in Mandarin
liùTraditional: 六
Translation
six
Word origin
Originally a pictograph of a simple hut or shelter, borrowed early for the sound of the number six and never used for the hut again.
- Origin
- pictograph
- Root
- 六 (liù), a drawing of a roofed shelter borrowed phonetically
Stroke order
六
Examples
。
I have six students.
。
It is six o'clock now.
。
He is six years old this year.
。
Six people came in all.
。
We do not work on Saturdays.
六 (liù) is six. It is one of the first characters anyone learns to write, three simple strokes plus the dot, and its high corpus rank is an artefact of subtitle text using digits rather than any rarity in speech.
It builds the everyday words you cannot avoid: 星期六 (Saturday), 六月 (June), 十六 (sixteen), 六十 (sixty). Note that Saturday is the sixth day counted from Monday, so the number lines up one place later than an English speaker expects.
The tone is a clean fourth, but the vowel catches learners out. It is liù, not "lee-oo" as two syllables, and the u is barely there. Say it as one falling beat.
Where this fits
Used in
Grammar articles
(4)Duration Complements in Mandarin (时量补语): How to Say How Long an Action Lasts
就 (jiù) vs 才 (cái) in Mandarin: Sooner Than Expected, Later Than Expected
Mandarin Numbers, Time, Dates, and Currency: From 1 to 1,000,000, the 二/两 Split, and Time-Before-Verb
Mandarin Sentence Structure: Word Order, Topic-Comment and the 把 Construction
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六: worksheet, infographic and listicle
Free printable study downloads for the Mandarin word "六" (six): 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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Start your free weekThis word is part of lesson 50.