椅 (yǐ) - Meaning, Stroke Order & Audio

椅

yǐ[yi3]Tone 3

chair

HSK 2

Guru Deep Dive

English · chair

Cached lesson

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Topology:Left-right

Strokes:12

Writing Balance Rule: The left radical 木 (tree/wood) is compressed and slightly narrower to leave ample room for the complex phonetic component 奇 on the right.

1. Meaning

chair

seatclassifier for sedan chairs or certain objects

NounNeutral#furniture#household objects

Sample Usage

请坐这把椅子。
qǐng zuò zhè bǎ yǐzi.
Please sit in this chair.
这张桌子配四把椅子。
zhè zhāng zhuōzi pèi sì bǎ yǐzi.
This table comes with four chairs.

2. Sound

/[i²¹⁴]/Tone: 214

椅

yǐyi3

ˇ(214)

=yǐ

Initial Consonant

Type: Palatal Glide (Zero Initial)

Sounds like: y

Unaspirated

Airflow Tactile Test: Acts as a bridge into 'i' or 'ü' vowel sounds.

Tongue & Mouth Position: Raise middle of tongue toward hard palate, gliding effortlessly into vowel.

Final Rhyme

Vowel Group: -i vowel group

Sounds like: -ee sound as in 'bee' or 'see'

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

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

Tone

T3 (214)

2 → 1 → 4 (214)

3rd Tone (Low-Dipping)

Tone Pitch & Cadence: Starts at a medium pitch, dips down low into the chest, and glides back up high, exactly like asking 'Really?' in English disbelief.

Sandhi: When followed by another 3rd tone syllable, its tone shifts to a rising 2nd tone (e.g., 椅子 yǐzi becomes yízi in rapid speech).

👂

Listening trap: Beginners often mistake the 3rd tone dip for a flat tone because the final rising portion can be clipped in fast native speech.

👋

Physical Tone Gesture: Trace a checkmark in the air: dip down from mid-level to low, then sweep sharply up to high.

3. Writing

Topology: Left-right · Strokes: 12 strokes

Writing Balance Rule: The left radical 木 (tree/wood) is compressed and slightly narrower to leave ample room for the complex phonetic component 奇 on the right.

4. Components

Radical 木 · Wood Radical (tree, wood, wooden material)

Semantic Clue (形旁): 木 (Indicates that a chair is made of wood.)

Phonetic Clue (声旁): 奇 (original sound: qí)

A wooden object (木) built in a strange or unusual (奇) structural shape to support a seated person.

木 Semantic wood classifier
奇 Phonetic sound clue

Phonetic Family (形声字家族)

18· Phonetic Root: 奇 (jī)

5. History

Liushu category: Phono-semantic (形声)

Origin: Originally referred to a kind of wood or a tree branch used for leaning. Over time, as furniture evolved in China during the Tang and Song dynasties from sitting on mats to sitting on elevated seating furniture, the character came to mean a wooden seat with a backrest.

Semantic Evolution: Shifted from a specific type of wood/tree to the general furniture item used for sitting.

Ancient Chinese sat on floor mats; elevated chairs were historically called 胡床 (foreign beds/stools) when first introduced from Central Asia.

6. Sinosphere

🇻🇳

Sino-Vietnamese

ỷ

Mandarin 3rd tone corresponds roughly to Vietnamese hỏi tone.

🇯🇵

Kanji (Japanese)

On: イス

🇰🇷

Hanja (Korean)

의

7. Memory

Vivid Mnemonic Story

You walk into the forest and find a strange (奇) wooden (木) contraption built out of tree branches—it's an ergonomic chair!

Phonetic Family (形声字家族)

寄

jìto mail, to lodgeAdd roof (宀) on top: mail a package under a roof.

琦

qíjade, preciousAdd jade radical (王) on the left instead of wood.

Lookalikes & Traps (形近字)

骑(qí)

Has the horse radical (马) instead of wood (木) because it means to ride an animal.

8. Mastery

Active Recall Challenge

累了就坐这把[___]休息一会儿吧。

Clue: yǐ zi

Common Learner Pitfall

Confusing the right-hand phonetic component 奇 with similar looking radicals or forgetting to compress the left wooden radical 木.

Memory Prompts

Recognition: What does the character 椅 mean and what is its Pinyin?

Production: How do you write the character for 'chair' using wood and the 'qí' phonetic component?

椅yǐchair

Speed:

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