(rén) - person, people in Mandarin
rénTraditional: 人
Translation
person, people
Word origin
人 (rén) is a pictograph of a standing human figure seen in profile, with the two strokes representing the legs. It means 'person' or 'people' and appears as a radical, often written 亻, in many characters concerning human beings.
- Origin
- pictograph
- Root
- 人 (rén), pictograph of a standing person
Stroke order
人
Examples
。
There are a lot of people here.
。
He is a good person.
亿。
China has 1.4 billion people.
。
This person is very friendly.
。
He is not a bad person.
人 (rén) is one of the most iconic Chinese characters - a simple two-stroke pictograph of a person in profile with legs striding forward. It appears as a radical in hundreds of characters related to people and human activities, including 他 (tā, he), 你 (nǐ, you), and 们 (men, plural suffix).
Beyond its literal meaning of "person" or "people," 人 features in countless compound words and expressions: 中国人 (Chinese person), 工人 (worker), 大人 (adult), 人民 (the people). Its radical form appears on the left side of many characters as 亻 (the "standing person" radical), demonstrating how foundational this concept is to the writing system.
Appears in 30 words
Multi-character compounds in the corpus that contain 人.
Used in
Stories
(14)不知道在哪里
2 min read · Core 1000
大伟的工作
3 min read · Core 1000
看医生
3 min read · Core 1000
迷路
3 min read · Core 1000
上班第一天
3 min read · Core 1000
早上的市场
3 min read · Core 1000
最后的车
3 min read · Core 1000
卖东西的地方
4 min read · Core 1000
新工作的第一天
4 min read · Core 1000
错过的火车
5 min read · Core 5000
等了三年
5 min read · Core 5000
都变了
5 min read · Core 5000
想起那个约定
5 min read · Core 5000
有钱没时间
5 min read · Core 5000
Grammar articles
(22)Mandarin Adjectives as Stative Verbs: Why 'I Am Cold' Is 我冷, Not 我是冷
Mandarin Advanced Grammar (C1-C2 / HSK 6+): Chengyu, Classical Remnants, and Register
Approximation and Rounding in Mandarin: 左右, 大概, 差不多, 几 and 来 for About, Around and Roughly
The Mandarin 被 (bèi) Passive: Saying Something Was Done To the Subject
Mandarin Grammar Cheatsheet: The Essentials, One Page
Mandarin Classifiers (Measure Words): 个, 本, 张, 只, 条, and the Rule That Every Counted Noun Needs One
Mandarin Verb Conjugation: Why It Doesn't Exist and What Replaces It
Mandarin Conjunctions: 虽然…但是, 因为…所以, 如果…就 and the Paired Structures That Join Clauses
The Mandarin Copula 是 (shì): To Be, and When to Leave It Out
The Mandarin Durative 着 (zhe): Marking a State That Continues (门开着, 拿着书, 笑着说)
Mandarin Existential and Presentative Sentences: 有, 出现, 发生 and Why New Things Go After the Verb
Mandarin Location and Existence: 在 for Where, 有 for There Is, and the 上/下/里/外 Position Words
Mandarin Negation: 不 (bù) vs 没 (méi), and Why 不有 Does Not Exist
Mandarin Numbers, Time, Dates, and Currency: From 1 to 1,000,000, the 二/两 Split, and Time-Before-Verb
Mandarin Possession with 的 (de): My, Your, His, and When Mandarin Drops the Particle
Possession with 有 (yǒu): To Have, and Why It Is Never 不有
Mandarin Question Formation: 吗, V-Not-V, 还是, and the In-Situ Wh-Word System
Mandarin Relative Clauses with 的 (de): How the Modifier Goes Before the Noun
Mandarin Resultative Complements: Fusing a Result onto the Verb (看见, 吃完, 找到)
The Three de in Mandarin: 的, 得, and 地 and How to Tell Them Apart
Topic-Comment Structure in Mandarin: Fronting 这本书我看过 and Why Word Order Bends
Mandarin Word Order: SVO, Topic-Comment, and the 把 Construction That Reorders Everything
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 queueThis word is part of lesson 1.