(wèn) - to ask, to inquire in Mandarin
wènTraditional: 問
Translation
to ask, to inquire
Word origin
The character 问 (wèn) 'to ask' is a phono-semantic compound: the 口 'mouth' radical sits inside the 门 (mén) 'gate/door' frame, which supplies the sound. One may picture asking a question at a doorway.
- Origin
- phono-semantic compound
- Root
- 门 (mén, phonetic) + 口 (mouth radical)
Stroke order
问
Examples
。
I want to ask you a question.
。
Stop asking.
。
He asked me where I was.
。
I would like to ask for directions.
。
She asked me how my family was.
问 (wèn) means to ask, to inquire. It is used as a verb in everyday Mandarin speech.
Appears in 2 words
Multi-character compounds in the corpus that contain 问.
Used in
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Grammar articles
(7)The Mandarin 把 (bǎ) Construction: Fronting the Object to Say What You Did To It
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
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Possession with 有 (yǒu): To Have, and Why It Is Never 不有
Mandarin Requests and Imperatives: 请, 别, 不要, the Softening Particles 吧/啊, and Verb Reduplication
Topic-Comment Structure in Mandarin: Fronting 这本书我看过 and Why Word Order Bends
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Go to my review queueThis word is part of lesson 5.