拼 (pīn) - Meaning, Stroke Order & Audio

拼

pīn[pin1]Tone 1

to piece together, to spell, to risk

HSK 5

Guru Deep Dive

English · to piece together, to spell, to risk

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Topology:Left-right

Strokes:9

Writing Balance Rule: The left radical (Hand radical) should be compact and slightly narrower to leave ample room for the right-hand phonetic component, ensuring the character looks unified rather than split.

1. Meaning

to piece together; to put together

to pool (resources etc); to shareto risk all; to go all outto spell (words)

VerbNeutral#action#language#effort

Sample Usage

我们要拼车去机场。
Wǒmen yào pīnchē qù jīchǎng.
We want to pool a car (carpool) to go to the airport.
这个英文单词怎么拼？
Zhège yīngwén dāncí zěnme pīn?
How do you spell this English word?

2. Sound

/[pʰin⁵⁵]/Tone: 55

拼

pīnpin1

¯(55)

=pīn

Initial Consonant

Type: Aspirated Bilabial

Sounds like: p sound like in 'pen'

Aspirated

Airflow Tactile Test: Strong puff of air! A tissue held before lips MUST fly forward.

Tongue & Mouth Position: Lips pressed together firmly, releasing a strong burst of air.

Final Rhyme

Vowel Group: -i vowel group

Sounds like: -in rhymes with bean

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

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

Tone

T1 (55)

5 → 5 (55)

1st Tone (High-Flat)

Tone Pitch & Cadence: Tone 1 is a high, steady flat pitch, matching the exact top note of your vocal range without rising or falling.

👂

Listening trap: Do not confuse the unaspirated sound b (like the b in 'bed') with this strongly aspirated p (like the p in 'pen').

👋

Physical Tone Gesture: Keep your hand flat and steady at a high pitch level, mimicking an uninterrupted high-altitude drone.

3. Writing

Topology: Left-right · Strokes: 9 strokes

4. Components

Radical 扌 · Hand Radical (hand, physical action)

Semantic Clue (形旁): 扌 (indicates an action performed with the hands (piecing together, joining))

Phonetic Clue (声旁): 并 (original sound: bīng / pīn)

Combine the Hand radical (扌) on the left with the phonetic component 'together' (并) on the right to represent using your hands to bring things together or piece them into one.

扌 Hand action
并 Together / Combined

Phonetic Family (形声字家族)

8· Phonetic Root: 并 (bìng)

5. History

Liushu category: Phono-semantic (形声)

Origin: Created as a phono-semantic compound where the left component (扌 hand) supplies the general meaning of manual manipulation or assembly, and the right component (并 together) provides the sound and the conceptual sense of combining.

Semantic Evolution: Originally meant to join or splice things together with the hands. Over time, it expanded metaphorically to pooling resources, spelling out letters, and risking everything (going all-in).

The component 并 originally depicted two people standing side by side, reinforcing the idea of union.

6. Sinosphere

7. Memory

Vivid Mnemonic Story

You use your HANDS (扌) to bring two pieces TOGETHER (并) so you can SPELL (拼) a word correctly or CARPOOL with friends.

Phonetic Family (形声字家族)

并

bìngand, side by sideWithout the hand radical, it means side-by-side or combined abstractly.

饼

bǐngcake, flatbreadReplaces the hand radical with the food/bread radical (饣).

屏

píngscreenUses the corpse/shelter radical (尸) on top to represent a flat partition screen.

Lookalikes & Traps (形近字)

贫(pín)

贫 features the shellfish/money radical (贝) under 'splitting' (分), meaning poor (lacking wealth). 拼 features the hand radical (扌) next to 'together' (并), meaning to piece together.

8. Mastery

Active Recall Challenge

这个汉字怎么[___]音？

Clue: pīn

Common Learner Pitfall

Confusing the initial consonant aspiration by pronouncing it as a soft 'b' instead of a crisp, strongly aspirated 'p'.

Memory Prompts

Recognition: When you see 拼, what does it mean when applied to carpooling or resources?

Production: How do you write the character meaning 'to spell' or 'to piece together' using the hand radical?

拼pīnto piece together, to spell, to risk

Speed:

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