旱 (hàn) - Meaning, Stroke Order & Audio

旱

hàn[han4]Tone 4

drought

HSK 7

Guru Deep Dive

English · drought

Cached lesson

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Topology:Top-bottom

Strokes:7

Writing Balance Rule: Keep the top sun component (日) compact and centered, and make the bottom shield/river-bed component (干) slightly wider to stabilize the base.

1. Meaning

drought

dry weatherlack of rain

noun / adjectiveNeutral#weather#nature#agriculture#disasters

Sample Usage

今年夏天发生了严重的旱灾。
jīnnián xiàtiān fāshēng le yánzhòng de hànzāi.
A severe drought disaster occurred this summer.
久旱逢甘雨。
jiǔ hàn féng gānyǔ.
A long drought meets sweet rain (idiom: a welcome relief after a long desperate wait).

2. Sound

/[xan⁵¹]/Tone: 51

旱

hànhan4

`(51)

=hàn

Build the syllable

Step-by-step blending

han

Tone mark placement: Tone mark sits on "a" per main-vowel priority (a > e > o; in -iu/-ui the mark takes the second vowel).

Initial Consonant

Type: Velar Fricative

Sounds like: h sound as in 'hat'

Unaspirated

Airflow Tactile Test: Gentle throat friction (like fogging glasses on a cold day).

Tongue & Mouth Position: Glottal friction, tongue resting flat at the bottom of the mouth.

Final Rhyme

Vowel Group: -a vowel group

Sounds like: -an rhymes with 'on' or 'an' in 'father-n'

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

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

Tone

T4 (51)

5 → 1 (51)

4th Tone (High-Falling)

Tone Pitch & Cadence: Tone 4 starts high and plunges straight down, exactly like an emphatic English 'Down!' or 'Stop!'.

👂

Listening trap: Confusing the low falling-rising Tone 3 (hǎn) with the sharp falling Tone 4 (hàn). Remember that Hàn drops sharply like a command.

👋

Physical Tone Gesture: Tone 4 is a sharp, angry downward slash like nodding 'No!' firmly or dropping a heavy object from a table to the floor.

3. Writing

Topology: Top-bottom · Strokes: 7 strokes

Writing Balance Rule: Keep the top sun component (日) compact and centered, and make the bottom shield/river-bed component (干) slightly wider to stabilize the base.

4. Components

Radical 日 · Sun Radical (sun, day)

Semantic Clue (形旁): 日 (Represents the scorching sun)

Phonetic Clue (声旁): 干 (original sound: hàn / gān phonetic hint family)

The scorching sun (日) blazes relentlessly over the dry land and dried-up riverbeds where vegetation cannot grow, creating a drought (旱).

日 Sun, heat
干 Dry, shield

Phonetic Family (形声字家族)

7· Phonetic Root: 旱 (hàn)

5. History

Liushu category: Phono-semantic (形声)

Origin: Originally combined the sun symbol (日) and a phonetic element indicating dryness or shielding (干). Over time, it came to depict the intense heat of the sun drying up the earth.

Semantic Evolution: From the concept of scorching sun and dryness to mean weather drought and dry conditions in general.

In traditional Chinese agrarian society, drought was one of the most feared natural disasters because it directly threatened crop survival and led to famine.

6. Sinosphere

🇯🇵

Kanji (Japanese)

On: カン (kan) / Kun: ひでり (hideri)

🇰🇷

Hanja (Korean)

한

Sound Shift Bridge: The Mandarin 'hàn' shares roots with historical East Asian vocabulary relating to dryness.

7. Memory

Vivid Mnemonic Story

Imagine a scorching, blinding SUN (日) beating down so hard on a dry wooden stake or stem (干) that all the moisture vanishes, resulting in a severe DROUGHT (旱).

Phonetic Family (形声字家族)

捍

hànvariant of 捍[han4]+ 扌 (hand)

焊

hànvariant of 焊[han4]+ 火 (fire)

悍

hànheroic; intrepid+ 忄 (heart)

桿

+ 木 (tree)

Explore this family →

Lookalikes & Traps (形近字)

干(gān)

干 means 'dry' or 'shield' by itself, but 旱 adds the sun (日) on top to specify a weather drought.

8. Mastery

Active Recall Challenge

今年夏天持续的高温天气引发了严重的[___]。

Clue: hàn

Common Learner Pitfall

Confusing the top component (日, sun) with similar box shapes like (口, mouth), or writing the bottom component (干) incorrectly.

Memory Prompts

Recognition: When you see the character 旱 combining 'sun' (日) and 'dry' (干), what weather disaster does it signify?

Production: How do you write the Chinese character for 'drought' (hàn) using the sun radical?

旱hàndrought

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