The Chinese character 心
And his component forms
心
xīn
- heart
- mind
- intention
- center, core
心 is also a character component
When it’s used as a component in a character, 心 indicates the word is related to feelings, temperament, thought, expression or another mental activities.
These characters all contain 心:
When used as a component, 心 can also change shapes.
Most of the time, you’ll spot the component, but you should also know the other form it can take.
忄
You can find it in words looking like this in words like:
忆 yì: to recall, to recollect
忙 máng: busy, hurriedly, to hurry, to rush
Do you see how 心 in this shape is always placed on the left?
㣺
or like this, which is less common as in the words:
慕 mù: to admire
恭 gōng: to respect, respectful, polite, reverent
This variant of 心 can be a little hard to spot! It is mainly used at the base of characters.
You’ll also find the meaning component 心 in many other Chinese characters. Browse the full list here.
All 80,000+ Chinese characters share the same character components. Character components are therefore essential for Chinese learners: they are the building blocks of Chinese. Character components help tremendously with understanding a character: they provide information on its meaning or on its pronunciation. In short, knowing character components will help you analyse, learn and remember each Chinese character much better.
Join us on Ninchanese as we teach you everything about the Chinese character components you need to know, little by little.