IDENTITY
什shénwhat (in compounds)
HSK 1Top 100
CORE MEANING
what (in compounds)
- Part of speech
- pronoun
- Register
- neutral
Senses
- 1.whatHSK1
FORM & BREAKDOWN
- Radical
- 亻person radical (rén)
- strokes
- 4
- Structure
- left-right compound
- IDS sequence
- ⿰亻十
- person
- gives the sound shén (historical)
USAGE
Common words
什么shénmewhat
为什么wèishénmewhy
Graded examples
你叫什么名字？Nǐ jiào shénme míngzi?HSK1
What is your name?
RELATIONS
Lookalike — don’t mix up
- 付
LEARNING
Memory aid
A person (亻) counting ten (十) — what is it?
- HSK version
- 3.0
- Frequency rank
- #100
- Memory aid
- memory-aid
TRUST & SOURCES
- Reviewed by
- AI-assisted editorial review
- Last reviewed
- 2026-08-15
Sources
- CC-CEDICT 2026-01-01
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