米 (mǐ) - Meaning, Stroke Order & Audio

米

mǐ[mi3]Tone 3

uncooked rice

HSK 1

Guru Deep Dive

English · uncooked rice

Cached lesson

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Topology:Single character

Strokes:6

Writing Balance Rule: The character radiates outward from a central intersection. The upper dot and short stroke balance the lower left and right diagonal sweeping legs.

1. Meaning

uncooked rice

meter (unit of length)Chinese yuan (slang)surname Mi

NounNeutral#food#measurements#money#surnames

Sample Usage

我需要买一些米。
wǒ xūyào mǎi yīxiē mǐ.
I need to buy some rice.
这根绳子有一米长。
zhè gēn shéngzi yǒu yī mǐ cháng.
This rope is one meter long.

2. Sound

/[mi²¹⁴]/Tone: 214

米

mǐmi3

ˇ(214)

=mǐ

Initial Consonant

Type: Bilabial Nasal

Sounds like: m sound as in 'mother'

Unaspirated

Airflow Tactile Test: Nasal resonance through nostrils.

Tongue & Mouth Position: Lips pressed lightly together to form a voiced bilabial nasal.

Final Rhyme

Vowel Group: -i vowel group

Sounds like: ee sound as in '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: Tone 3 dips low like a skeptical 'Hmm?' in English before rising up in surprise.

Sandhi: When followed by another 3rd tone syllable, mǐ changes to a 2nd tone (rising 35), e.g., mǐnzi -> mízi (though typically 米 is combined with other tones or stands alone).

👂

Listening trap: Beginners often mistake the 3rd tone for a flat tone if spoken too quickly; ensure you drop the pitch downward before rising.

👋

Physical Tone Gesture: Start at a normal speaking pitch, dip down smoothly toward your chest, and then glide back up into the air like a checkmark.

3. Writing

Topology: Single character · Strokes: 6 strokes

Writing Balance Rule: The character radiates outward from a central intersection. The upper dot and short stroke balance the lower left and right diagonal sweeping legs.

4. Components

Radical 米 · Rice radical (rice, grains)

A single pictographic glyph depicting a stalk of rice with grains scattering outward in all directions.

丶 Top left grain dot
ノ Top right grain dash
十 Central stalk and horizontal cross
丶 Bottom left falling grain
㇏ Bottom right rising grain

Phonetic Family (形声字家族)

9· Phonetic Root: 米 (mǐ)

5. History

Liushu category: Pictogram (象形)

Origin: In Oracle Bone script, 米 was drawn as a central vertical stem with six little dots or dashes representing individual grains of rice peeling off or clustering around it.

Semantic Evolution: Originally representing raw rice grains, it was later borrowed phonetically and conceptually to denote the international unit of length 'meter' (due to phonetic similarity), and colloquially used in modern Chinese slang to mean money (yuan).

The character acts as a key semantic root for numerous food and grain-related Chinese characters.
Because Western metric units were introduced to China, '米' was cleverly chosen to transliterate 'meter' while preserving a natural indigenous character.

6. Sinosphere

🇯🇵

Kanji (Japanese)

On: ベイ (bei), マイ (mai) / Kun: こめ (kome)

🇰🇷

Hanja (Korean)

미

Sound Shift Bridge: The English word 'meter' phonetically inspired the adoption of 米 for length measurement in modern Chinese.

7. Memory

Vivid Mnemonic Story

Imagine a tiny rice plant standing like a little stick figure ('十') with four white grains exploding outward in all directions—one top left, one top right, one bottom left, and one bottom right—ready to be cooked into a delicious bowl of rice!

Phonetic Family (形声字家族)

粉

fěnpowder, noodlesAdd the part for dust/split (分) on the left to mean rice broken into powder.

粒

lìgrain, dropAdd the tree/wood radical (木) on the left to indicate a single wooden-hard grain.

精

jīngrefined, spiritAdd the blue/green radical (青) on the left for refined, select rice.

Lookalikes & Traps (形近字)

来(lái)

来 means 'to come' and has a horizontal crossbar with two hanging legs, lacking the top dotted grains of 米.

木(mù)

木 means 'tree' and has a simple vertical trunk and horizontal branch without the four scattering dots of rice.

8. Mastery

Active Recall Challenge

我每天都要吃一碗白[___]。

Clue: mǐ

Common Learner Pitfall

Confusing the stroke order of the top dots and the central cross, leading to unbalanced handwriting where the character looks lopsided.

Memory Prompts

Recognition: When you see the character 米 representing uncooked grains scattering outward, what is its primary sound and meaning?

Production: How do you write the character for 'uncooked rice' (mǐ) in 6 strokes?

米mǐuncooked rice

Speed:

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