(tán) - to talk, to discuss, to chat about in Mandarin
tánTraditional: 談
Translation
to talk, to discuss, to chat about
Word origin
談 (tán) means 'to talk, to discuss'. It is a phono-semantic compound with 言 (speech) as the meaning radical and 炎 (yán, blaze) as the phonetic component.
- Origin
- phono-semantic compound
- Root
- 言 (speech radical) + 炎 (yán, phonetic)
Stroke order
谈
Examples
。
Let's talk about this problem.
。
They are discussing business.
。
I talked with him for a long time.
。
He likes to discuss politics.
。
The teacher talked with the parents for an hour.
谈 (tán) means to talk, discuss, or chat. As a standalone verb it takes topics as objects: 谈问题 (discuss a problem), 谈生意 (talk business), 谈恋爱 (to be in a romantic relationship, literally to talk love). In compounds it extends to 谈判 (negotiate), 谈话 (conversation/talk), 交谈 (to converse), and the idiom 谈何容易 (it is not easy to talk about / easier said than done). Its reduplicated form 谈谈 makes requests to discuss something softer.
Where this fits
Appears in 3 words
Multi-character compounds in the corpus that contain 谈.
Used in
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谈: worksheet, infographic and listicle
Free printable study downloads for the Mandarin word "谈" (to talk, to discuss, to chat about): 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 13.