Kilo Lingo

(xiǎng) - to think; to want; to miss in Mandarin

xiǎng

Traditional: 想

Line drawing of 想
Coloured illustration of 想
HSK 1
#29 of 5,000 Core 1000

Translation

to think; to want; to miss

Word origin

The character 想 (xiǎng) 'to think, to want, to miss' is a phono-semantic compound: the 心 'heart/mind' radical beneath supplies the meaning, while 相 (xiāng) above gives the sound.

Origin
phono-semantic compound
Root
相 (xiāng, phonetic) + 心 (heart radical)

Stroke order

Stroke order for 想

想

Examples

。

I want to drink a glass of water.

？

What are you thinking about?

。

I miss my family very much.

。

He wants to study abroad.

。

I would like a cup of tea.

想 (xiǎng) covers three related semantic areas: thinking/pondering (我在想, I am thinking), wanting or wishing to do something (我想去, I want to go), and missing someone or something out of longing (我想你, I miss you). The context and what follows the verb determines which meaning is active.

The character combines the "heart/mind" radical (心) at the bottom with a phonetic component above, reflecting its cognitive and emotional range. Compared to 要 (yào, to want), 想 expresses a softer, more tentative desire - 我想喝水 ("I would like some water") is more polite than 我要喝水 ("I want water").

Appears in 10 words

Multi-character compounds in the corpus that contain 想.

想要xiǎng yàoto want, to desire想法xiǎng fǎidea, thought, opinion, view想想xiǎng xiǎngto think about, to give some thought to想到xiǎng dàoto think of, to come to mind想象xiǎng xiàngto imagine; imagination梦想mèng xiǎngdream, aspiration, to dream of想起xiǎng qǐto recall, to think of, to remember没想到méi xiǎng dàodid not expect, unexpectedly想念xiǎng niànto miss, to long for, to think of fondly想像xiǎng xiàngto imagine, imagination

Used in

Stories

(19)

Grammar articles

(12)

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This word is part of lesson 1.