雹 (báo) - Meaning, Stroke Order & Audio

雹

báo[bao2]Tone 2

hail

Guru Deep Dive

English · hail

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Topology:Top-bottom

Strokes:13

Writing Balance Rule: The rain radical (雨) crowns the top with wide horizontal balance, while the bottom phonetic part (包) sits snugly underneath, centered and slightly narrower.

1. Meaning

hail (frozen precipitation in the form of balls or lumps of ice)

hailstone

NounNeutral#weather#nature#meteorology

Sample Usage

昨天下午下了很大的雹子。
Zuótiān xiàwǔ xià le hěn dà de bǎozi.
It hailed heavily yesterday afternoon.
庄稼被雹子砸坏了。
Zhuāngjià bèi bǎozi zá huài le.
The crops were damaged by hailstones.

2. Sound

/[pɑʊ̯³⁵]/Tone: 35

雹

báobao2

´(35)

=báo

Build the syllable

Step-by-step blending

bao

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: Unaspirated Bilabial

Sounds like: English b sound as in 'bat'

Unaspirated

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

Tongue & Mouth Position: Lips pressed together firmly, then released cleanly without a puff of air.

Final Rhyme

Vowel Group: -a vowel group

Sounds like: rhymes with 'ow' in cow or 'ao' in 'ao dai'

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

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 at a mid-pitch and climbs up sharply to the top of your vocal range, exactly like saying 'Huh?' or 'What?' when asking for clarification.

Sandhi: When followed by another Tone 3 syllable,áo changes to a rising tone similar to Tone 2, though in standard isolation it remains a rising tone.

👂

Listening trap: Confusing it with bāo (包 - bag) if the vowel quality isn't distinguished carefully; -ao has a deeper 'aw-oh' mouth resonance compared to the brighter '-ao' or '-ang' rhymes.

👋

Physical Tone Gesture: Make a sweeping upward hand motion from low-middle to high, mimicking an inquisitive rising inflection ('What?').

3. Writing

Topology: Top-bottom · Strokes: 13 strokes

Writing Balance Rule: The rain radical (雨) crowns the top with wide horizontal balance, while the bottom phonetic part (包) sits snugly underneath, centered and slightly narrower.

4. Components

Radical 雨 · Rain Radical (weather, precipitation, falling from the sky)

Semantic Clue (形旁): 雨 (Indicates that hail is a form of weather precipitation falling from the sky.)

Phonetic Clue (声旁): 包 (original sound: bao)

Weather dropping from the sky (雨) that is bundled up or wrapped tightly like little frozen packages (包).

雨 Rain / Weather semantic classifier
包 Bao / Wrapped phonetic clue

Phonetic Family (形声字家族)

21· Phonetic Root: 包 (bāo)

5. History

Liushu category: Phono-semantic (形声)

Origin: Combined from the rain sign (雨) to denote meteorological phenomena and the sound element (包) which originally depicted a child wrapped in a womb, signifying compressed or enclosed chunks of ice.

Semantic Evolution: Originally referred specifically to frozen rain pellets and ice storms, a definition that remains unchanged in modern Chinese.

Hailstorms have historically been feared by Chinese farmers because they can instantly flatten whole harvests, making characters related to weather critically important in ancient texts.

6. Sinosphere

🇯🇵

Kanji (Japanese)

On: ホウ

7. Memory

Vivid Mnemonic Story

During a fierce storm, heavy packages (包) of frozen ice start wrapping themselves in the rain (雨) clouds and falling violently from the sky as hail (báo).

Phonetic Family (形声字家族)

包

bāobag, package, wrapPhonetic Core (声旁)

跑

páopaw+ 足 (foot)

饱

bǎofull (from eating)+ 饣 (food)

泡

pāobubble, foam, soak+ 氵 (water)

Explore this family →

Lookalikes & Traps (形近字)

饱(bǎo)

Has the food radical (饣) instead of rain (雨), meaning 'full' from eating.

抱(bào)

Has the hand radical (扌) instead of rain (雨), meaning 'to hug or embrace'.

8. Mastery

Active Recall Challenge

昨天的暴风雨夹着[___]，把果园里的苹果都打落了。

Clue: báo

Common Learner Pitfall

Confusing the top weather radical (雨) with other top components or confusing it with similar-sounding characters like bǎo (full/hug) due to identical phonetic roots.

Memory Prompts

Recognition: When you see 雹, what weather phenomenon does it represent and how is it pronounced?

Production: How do you write the character for 'hail' (báo), combining the rain radical and the wrapping phonetic?

雹báohail

Speed:

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