拔 (bá) - Meaning, Stroke Order & Audio

拔

bá[ba2]Tone 2

to pull up

HSK 5

Guru Deep Dive

English · to pull up

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Topology:Left-right

Strokes:8

Writing Balance Rule: The left radical (hand) should be slightly narrower and compressed, leaving ample room for the right phonetic component to balance the overall width.

1. Meaning

to pull up or pull out

to draw out by suctionto select or pickto stand out above the restto surpassto seize

VerbNeutral#physical action#selection#excellence

Sample Usage

拔河
bá hé
tug-of-war
拔苗助长
bá miáo zhù zhǎng
spoiling things by excessive enthusiasm (lit. pulling up shoots to help them grow)

2. Sound

/[pa³⁵]/Tone: 35

拔

bába2

´(35)

=bá

Initial Consonant

Type: Unaspirated Bilabial

Sounds like: b sound as in 'bed'

Unaspirated

Airflow Tactile Test: No burst of air. A tissue in front of lips should stay still.

Tongue & Mouth Position: Lips pressed together to build air pressure, then gently released without an audible puff of breath.

Final Rhyme

Vowel Group: -a vowel group

Sounds like: ah sound as in 'father'

Mouth Shape Guide: Pronounce as standalone vowel 'ah'.

Common Learner Trap: Keep vowel quality steady across all 4 tone contours.

Tone

T2 (35)

3 → 5 (35)

2nd Tone (Mid-Rising)

Tone Pitch & Cadence: Tone 2 starts in the middle pitch and rises sharply to the top, exactly like asking 'What?' in English with surprise.

Sandhi: When followed by another 3rd tone, bá changes to a rising 2nd tone, but retains its base rising contour in isolation.

👂

Listening trap: Often confused with 3rd tone (bǎ) or 4th tone (bà). Listen carefully for the upward trajectory typical of Tone 2.

👋

Physical Tone Gesture: A quick upward hand flick starting from your chest and moving diagonally up to the right, matching the rising pitch.

3. Writing

Topology: Left-right · Strokes: 8 strokes

Writing Balance Rule: The left radical (hand) should be slightly narrower and compressed, leaving ample room for the right phonetic component to balance the overall width.

4. Components

Radical 扌 · Hand radical (hand action or manual labor)

Semantic Clue (形旁): 扌 (indicates that the action is performed using the hand or fingers)

Phonetic Clue (声旁): 犮 (original sound: bá)

The Hand radical (扌) on the left joins forces with the phonetic component 'to walk backward/unleash' (犮) on the right to represent grabbing something with your hand and forcefully pulling it out.

扌 Hand action
犮 Phonetic indicator providing the 'bá' sound

Phonetic Family (形声字家族)

10· Phonetic Root: 犮 (bá)

5. History

Liushu category: Phono-semantic (形声)

Origin: Combined from the hand symbol (扌) representing physical pulling and 犮 which originally depicted a person untying or freeing something, evolving to mean extracting or pulling out.

Semantic Evolution: Originally meant pulling up plants by hand, later generalized to extracting teeth, selecting candidates, surpassing peers, and capturing territory.

The famous Chinese idiom '拔苗助长' (pulling shoots to help them grow) derives from an ancient Mencius parable about impatience.

6. Sinosphere

🇯🇵

Kanji (Japanese)

On: ハツ / Kun: ぬく

🇰🇷

Hanja (Korean)

발

Sound Shift Bridge: Maintains a direct historical phonological correspondence to cognates across East Asian cultural spheres.

7. Memory

Vivid Mnemonic Story

Imagine using your **HAND** (扌) to grab a stubborn weed by its roots and **PULL IT UP** (bá) so hard that you stumble **BACK** (犮)wards!

Phonetic Family (形声字家族)

发

fāto send out / hairUses the same right-side phonetic element but with a different top or header structure.

跋

báto walk / postfaceAdds the foot radical (足) on the left instead of the hand radical (扌).

Lookalikes & Traps (形近字)

把(bǎ)

把 uses 3rd tone and means 'to hold/handle', whereas 拔 uses 2nd tone and means 'to pull out'.

8. Mastery

Active Recall Challenge

农夫正在地里[___]萝卜。

Clue: bá

Common Learner Pitfall

Confusing the rising tone (bá) with the dipping tone (bǎ), or mixing up the hand radical (扌) with the foot radical (足) found in 跋.

Memory Prompts

Recognition: What does 拔 mean and how is it pronounced with tones?

Production: How do you write the character for 'to pull up' using the hand radical?

拔báto pull up

Speed:

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