(yào) - to want; will; need to in Mandarin

yào

Traditional: 要

HSK 1

#24 of 5,000 Core 1000

Translation

to want; will; need to

Word origin

要 (yào) means 'to want, need, will'. The character derives from an early pictograph of a person with both hands on the waist (its original sense, now written 腰 yāo with the flesh radical); the meaning 'to want, demand' is a later extension.

Origin: pictograph
Root: 要, originally depicting hands on a person's waist

Stroke order

要

Examples

。

I want a cup of tea.

？

Where do you want to go?

。

You need to get up early tomorrow.

牛niú。

I want a cup of hot milk.

。

We need to leave early tomorrow.

要 (yào) is a high-frequency modal and main verb with several related meanings: to want something, to be going to do something (future marker), and to need or must do something. Context disambiguates between these readings. As a future marker it is less formal than 将 (jiāng) and very common in spoken Mandarin.

The character originally depicted a woman with hands on her waist, signifying a demand or requirement. In modern usage, 要 spans casual requests ("I want..."), polite needs ("I need..."), and future intent ("I am going to..."), making it one of the most versatile words at this frequency level. Its negative form 不要 (bú yào) means "don't" in imperative sentences.

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Appears in 14 words

Multi-character compounds in the corpus that contain 要.

不要bú yàodo not (imperative negation)需要xū yàoto need, to require 想要xiǎng yàoto want, to desire 重要zhòng yàoimportant, significant 只要zhǐ yàoas long as, provided that, if only 要是yào shiif, in case, supposing 就要jiù yàoabout to, will soon 还要hái yàostill need to, also want to; will still 要求yāo qiúto require, to demand; requirement, demand 必要bì yàonecessary, essential 要说yào shuōto want to say, speaking of, if we are to say 主要zhǔ yàomain, principal, chief, mainly 要么yào meeither, or, either... or...要死yào sǐterribly, to death (intensifier), about to die

Used in

Grammar articles

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要: worksheet, infographic and listicle

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This word is part of lesson 1.